LIVEdigitally

So last Fall when I first heard about companies turning phones into remote controls, I thought it was a silly idea.  I’d like to kick this post off by saying I’ve come around fairly full circle on it.  In other words? I was wrong (yes, it’s happened – but don’t worry, it’s just this once). So I’m going to counter my own post with my revised feelings on the matter.

To begin with, my fundamental argument against the phone as remote is similar to my feelings as the phone being used for anything other than a phone (+apps) on a recurring basis.  In other words, my phone is a lousy GPS device if I need to make a call while I’m lost.  My phone is a lousy cooking timer if the alert doesn’t remind me to get my eggs off the burner because I’m playing Words With Friends.

Over the past ~8 months, I’ve evolved this argument into the following state: users must conditions themselves to the concept that their phone can be a pretty good  ____, but will ultimately default to be a phone first and foremost.  In other words, your iPhone is a phone that can also be a GPS or also be a kitchen timer.  But at the end of the day, if you really really need a super reliable GPS or kitchen timer, you probably don’t want to solely rely on your phone.

So in that context, and now highly specifically related to Dijit (where I work, remember?), I’ve come to find my iPhone makes for a really good remote control.  I just sometimes still want the physical one nearby – and that’s okay.  In my media room (aka mancave), I have 6 devices, their remotes, and a Harmony 880 as well.  I’ve got it working pretty nicely with Dijit/Beacon, and I think it’s overall a better solution than I had before.  Here’s why:

1. Completely customizable controls – as much as the Harmony unified all my devices, there’s just no way to have all the relevant buttons accessible at the same time.

2. Line of sight – two of the devices I own have mediocre IR sensors, which makes the task of perfectly pointing the physical remotes a challenge which the Beacon’s stronger IR emitter solved.

3. IP-enabled - at least 3 of my consumer electronics devices are “smart” and can be controlled over IP, meaning I can have absolutely perfect control without any need for IR whatsoever – and there’s only more Smart TVs and related products to come… (btw Roku owners can see what I’m talking about already – download the app here)

4. Upgrades and the Future – not totally fair, since I know what we’re actually building at Dijit, but suffice it to say the future looks incredibly bright for what the fully integrated app has in store.

I think my final comment on using the iPhone as a remote is this: for my personal use, I still like having a physical remote around (not 6, but 1), and that’s okay.  I like having mute, pause, and volume controls accessible 100% of the time with no risk of sleep, battery, app switching, etc.  Some people won’t have these issues and will go iPhone-only.  Some people will never get past a touch-screen remote.  But I have a hunch there’s going to be a lot of folks like myself, where a hybrid solution presents an amazing experience for the digital living room.  Can’t wait to share more about what we have in store down the road!

A week ago I announced that Jim Schaff would be taking over active duties at Stage Two, and that I’d be focusing on “other stuff.”  Today I’m excited to share the stuff:  I am joining the management team of Dijit Media as Chief Product Officer, where I’m responsible for product and marketing (here’s the official update).  Not only that, my virtually common law married colleague (business partners for much of the past 14 years) and very close friend Adam Burg is the company’s VP of Business Development.

What???

Last Fall, I gave a presentation at the Set-Top Box Conference in San Jose, and the entire drive back I had a feeling of near elation.  Not that I had said anything extremely profound, but it was wrapped up in the feeling of doing something I had a lot of passion for – in this case, discussing the future of television.  Over the next few months, I spent a lot of time doing research in the Smart TV (also called Connected TV or Internet TV) space, and started seeing some trends emerge, and realized there were some very interesting business opportunities on the horizon.

Adam and I spent months developing a prototype concept of the vision we had, and went to meet with some of the brightest folks we know in the convergence field.  One such bright folk was well-known VC Stewart Alsop, who I’ve known since the late 1990s, who introduced us to Maksim Ioffe, CEO of Dijit.  In our very first meeting with Maksim it was clear he shared much of the same industry and product vision and philosophy with Adam and me. I’ll keep this part of the story short, as we’ve all seen this movie before – we ended up agreeing to join the company. And there was much rejoicing (yay).

Why Dijit?

The grand vision of Dijit is to create the ultimate “four screen” (phone, tablet, computer, TV) social entertainment experience, one which seamlessly merges disparate products and platforms and content into one single, easy to use, consumer offering.  The company is well on its way, and its first product is an iPhone app that enables a really sophisticated, yet elegantly simple control experience for home media centers.   As Maksim put it, “Consumers have 21st-century home entertainment experiences but are stuck with remote controls that haven’t been updated since the 1980s.”  The company partnered with Griffin to produce the Beacon, a clever take on the “IR blaster” product, and one that’s already receiving solid reviews (and I haven’t even done anything yet!).  This is going to be a very exciting company to be a part of, and I’m thrilled to have such an opportunity.

Reminiscing.

I still recall the early days at Mediabolic, where we enabled networked home entertainment solutions that interfaced with legacy, analog consumer electronics devices (yes, we were networking the living room in an era where there were virtually no HDTVs, no YouTube, no Pandora, and no… iPod!).  At Mediabolic I learned what it takes to design and build embedded entertainment devices, to work with consumer electronics manufacturers, and the deep set of challenges surrounding the connected home industry (fun trivia: I heard the phrase “this is THE year of the digital home” every single year starting in 2001 – possibly earlier).  It was a great experience, and key people from that team now work at amazing companies like Netflix, Rovi Corp (Rovi acquired Mediabolic in 2007), etc.

At Sling Media I had the unique opportunity to work for and with some outstanding individuals, not to mention the position of being tasked with figuring out how to deliver the perfect “living room experience” – only over the Internet.  The company’s CEO, Blake Krikorian, taught me the meaning of focusing on every detail and nuance, remaining truly innovative, and keeping the consumer’s wants and needs in the forefront of every product decision.  I also had to learn the ins and outs of social media, back in the era before it was called “social media,” where “the bloggers” were a special, hard to understand subset of humanity (or, as I rapidly learned, just cool people).  We accomplished a great success building the Slingbox, and I’m proud of the product, the team, and the experience.

Over the past four years at Stage Two, I’ve had tremendous exposure to startups, big companies, CEOs, visionaries, the media, and managing a great team.  We literally put companies like Boxee, Bug Labs, and Pogoplug on the map, and have also had the chance to work for well-established firms like Electronic Arts, Best Buy, and VUDU (now Wal-Mart).  I’ve learned from entrepreneurs like Jim Lanzone (now president of CBS Interactive), Peter Semmelhack (Bug Labs), David McIntosh (Redux), Rahim Fazal (Involver) and so many others (I’ll write another post in the next little while chock full of shout-outs).  I’ve redesigned product experiences for dozens of products, and created marketing/PR/social media campaigns for dozens more, and had the pleasure to work with great teams along the way.

The Future.

And now I’m taking all of the above, and putting it to work at one place.  Welcome to Dijit.

Over at Mashable there’s a post entitled “3 Issues Hindering the Spread of Connected TV” and I couldn’t help but read it and say “well that most certainly needs a counterpoint.”  Actually I said something more dramatic but I tend not to type in pottymouth.  Anyhow, I couldn’t disagree more with the concept that Connected TV (aka Smart TV) is doing anything other than growing in a massive way.  Counterpoint begins… Now!

1. The Guts.

An HDTV set is much like a computer, with a “brain” inside that does HD decoding, processing, etc.  Only a few companies make said guts, topped by ATI, Broadcom, and to a lesser degree, Intel.  And all of those companies have effectively put WiFi inside the guts. And, the WiFi components are inconsequential to the COGS of making a TV (as opposed to 3D, which is actually costly to include). In other words - virtually every TV manufactured in the future will have WiFi built in, much like cell phones with bluetooth or laptops with webcams.

2. The Content.

I’m not even going to bother finding a link to substantiate the following statement: literally every day the amount of online content made available and consumed increases.  Since content is king (and queen, knight, and even rook), and the offering of content directly to Connected TVs (aka Over-The-Top or OTT) is increasing, the inherent value of having a Connected TV is increasing constantly.  And, unlike 3D where title availability can be measured in numbers that my 4-year-old can count, even non-techie folks know there’s a ton of stuff to watch online.

3. The Infrastructure.

Let me phrase this bluntly: every single player involved in the TV space is pushing for Connected TVs.  Cable companies, TV manufacturers, content owners, startups, advertisers, retailers, game consoles, etc are all betting on it, and betting big.  Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all have platform offerings for manufacturers to use.  Intel, Best Buy, Netflix, and Amazon are putting amazing resources out there to get consumers aware of the products.  Apple? Yes. In fact, I’d be hard-pressed to find a major player in the (roughly) Two Hundred Billion Dollar industry that we call television who is not playing ball in some way, even if just in trials.

Since this post is a rebuttal, I’ve kept my list to three.  I’m pretty sure it could go to twelve (thought I was going to say eleven, didn’t you?), but that’d be unfair.  I will acknowledge it may take a decent amount of time to get consumers to actually go through the hurdles of connecting these devices, but that’s not going to slow down the products themselves.  In fact, that piece alone is just one of the many, many opportunities ahead in Connected TV.  That and fixing some of the amazingly terrible interfaces virtually all the companies are offering consumers.  And better control.  And better content.  And improved social.  And… well, maybe there’s a few good startups left to build, eh?  :)

ps – blogging feels good, glad to stretch the muscles.  I’m back baby!

Been a few months since I’ve written much.  Not that I haven’t had anything to say, I keep finding troves of things to talk about, just not quite enough time to put down thoughts.  I’ve been sharing a lot more through Twitter and Facebook than I used to, plus a few comments here and there.  But that ain’t enough, and I want to do more.  Plus I have a lot of new things happening that I look forward to talking about…

Oh, and a note to all people pitching me – I am not really going to accept pitches anymore.  I want to write about my own concepts, thoughts, ideas, and reactions to/from/with my peers.  Please, no more story ideas, interview opportunities, or other things we both know I won’t care about.  Having been involved with PR myself for some of the last few years, I understand the challenges you have to do your job, but doing it well means respecting my request.  Thanks.