Evolution of Video

After my stint in an OTT company (some time in May 2017), I had given a presentation at a mid-sized services firm (which focuses on serving companies in video delivery). This is that presentation.

It covers:
1) Brief History of Video (last 100 years)
2) Macro Trends - Bottenecks going away, Flow of money
3) Evolution of Content Formats
4) Wardley's value chain mapping
5) Consumer Behavior
6) Emerging Markets
7) VR, AR, IOT and AI

Transcript

1. EVOLUTION OF VIDEO K A RT H I K S R I N I VA S A N www.carnivas.com
2. SPEAKER BIO
3. BRIEF HISTORY A N D S O M E M A C R O T R E N D S
4. VIDEO (TV!) INDUSTRY SURVIVED ON CONSTRAINTS … NOTE: Check references slide for where I picked these pictures from – Not all pictures in this are made by me!
5. … WHICH DO NOT EXIST ANYMORE
6. MONEY AS WELL IS FLOWING ELSEWHERE
7. CONTENT FORMATS EVOLVE TOO…
8. EVERY PLAYER IN THE VALUE CHAIN WANTING A BIGGER PIECE OF THE PIE • Forward (Studio) & Backward (Netflix) Integration • Telcos are always present in any ‘Content’ business – Reminds one of App Stores by Telcos in 2010 – Will they (again) end up being only ‘Pipes’? • And new players are entering the business. e.g. Ola Play • There are only 2 ways of making money: Bundling & Unbundling
9. THE CUSTOMER A N D S O M E M A R K E T I N S I G H T S
10. USERS ARE VOTING FOR CONVENIENCE BUT BIZ MODELS ARE IN FLUX • How many of you are ‘Cord Cutters’? Has there been a difference in your own TV watching habits over the years? How about your children? • 78% of US Households have an active paid subscription to at least one OTT service (Netflix, Amazon Prime) • Pay TV Penetration is at 82% - Down from 89% in 2010 • However, • All is not well for OTT – Attention of users is on Facebook, Snapchat & the like • And, advertisers are not happy with the measurement/impact
11. PRODUCT EXPERIENCE IS A MUST- HAVE DIFFERENTIATOR • Content + Distribution + Experience have converged • Streaming a video in a rectangular player without buffering is not enough – that is just the starting point • Attention Scarcity is the biggest problem facing every stakeholder • Multi-Device, Multi-Channel, Multi- Language usage demands special features • Can Media/Telco/Other OTT players match up to the Silicon Valley Cos?
12. EMERGING MARKETS STILL COPING UP WITH LIMITED CONNECTIVITY • Connectivity still an issue – As networks expand, so do content sizes • Data is prohibitively expensive – Jio only in India and it is early days • Telcos / ISPs provide Wi-Fi offloading & ‘Off-peak’ downloads • Airtel Happy Hours in India • ‘Adaptive Streaming’ is the norm • YouTube, Amazon Fire TV optimizing experiences for EMs • Facebook Ads for EMs – GIFs.
13. FOUR TYPES OF VIDEO DISTRIBUTION MODELS HAVE EMERGED IN OTT SPACE • We are NOT going to have an app for every TV Channel and every Movie Studio • The General Purpose Entertainment services (Netflix) –Video Heavy • Social Aggregators (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat) – Multi Format • Niche Services focusing on a domain (Khan Academy, TED, Branded) - Multi Format, Fan driven Volume of users / content Content Format Type / Variety Social Networks Gen.Video Service Niche Services Media Co OTT
14. SHINY NEW TECH A N D S O M E U S E C A S E S
15. VIRTUAL REALITY IS BOUND TO SHAKE UP THE INDUSTRY • How many of you have experienced VR? • Hype on VR has mellowed down – which means real innovation starts now • How does Content change with VR? Will movie continue to be a 3-part thing? • Live Events – How do concerts & sports events evolve? • Enterprise use cases – Will VR go the way of ‘Tele Presence’ / ‘360 degree’ • How will discussions like this – that we are having now – happen? • Lot of innovations in VR is happening at the ‘creators’ end (Facebook Spaces) and ‘consumers’ end (Oculus, Daydream). What about the ‘pipe’?
16. MIXED / AUGMENTED REALITY • Unlike VR, this does not seem ‘too obvious’ to affect entertainment industry • However, consider these – Reviews, Tweeting, Voting & the like using a Glass, Spectacles while watching TV – Interactions in a Live event (in person) • Are these all only in the ‘Application’ / ‘Product’ level? Or something underneath? • Apple is working on this (& they are due for a big bang innovation)
17. INTERNET OF THINGS • IoT is still ‘dumb’ but is getting smarter by the day • Next version of Echo is rumored to have a – (you guessed it) – ‘Touch Screen’ • Entertainment trumps Utility as far as IoT device use cases go! • Is this ‘Assistant’ only an Application layer thing? Or more?
18. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE • ‘Similar Movies’ and ‘People who watched this also watched’ are passé • How about – Movie recommendations coming out of moments where you clapped more, your heart rate fluctuated? – Stories getting created / approved by an algorithm? – Movies themselves changing mid- course depending on the viewer?
19. PREDICTIONS A N D S O M E A S T R O L O G Y
20. AI WILL AFFECT WHICH AREA OF VIDEO INDUSTRY? (A) Only Discovery & Consumption (B) Both the ends – Creation & Consumption, not the pipe! ß Food for thought! (C) End to End – Creation to Consumption! (D) Yawn! The next AI Winter is approaching fast.
21. HOW MANY GEN. PURP. OTT SERVICES WILL EXIST 5 YEARS FROM NOW? (A) < 5 (B) 5 – 10 (C) > 10
22. WILL TELECOM PLAYERS HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY BEYOND BILLING & BEING A PIPE? (A)Yes (B) No
23. WILL VR & AR LIVE UP TO THEIR HYPE? (A)Yes, they will turn the industry upside down (B) No, but they will cause significant change in the ecosystem (C) No, they will just fade
24. WILL EMERGING MARKETS LEAPFROG THE OTT AGE? (A)Yes, they will move directly into AR/VR Space (B) No, they will first have traditional OTT (C) Even OTT is far away. Cable TV is here to stay
25. THANK YOU J http://www.carnivas.com
26. REFERENCES • VALUE CHAIN MAPPING: http://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/02/an-introduction-to-wardley- value-chain.html • FIRST DECADE OF AUGMENTED REALITY: http://ben- evans.com/benedictevans/2017/4/10/the-first-decade-of-augmented-reality • REDEF: https://redef.com/channel/media/feed • STRATECHERY: https://stratechery.com/ Notes added in Jun 2018: 1) Instagram has launched IGTV 2) Facebook has a WATCH section competing with YouTube 3) Read this interesting note by MG Siegler too