uxcidental: The Second Screen: Is It Time? While interactive TV is still very much an ongoing experiment, there’s been a consumer-led revolution that’s actually closer to delivering on the promise of interactive TV. There’s been talk for a while about second screens. After all, now that all the data is in, it seems that interactive TV is not so much about developing interactivity on the big screen, but on secondary devices within arms reach. In terms of trends, I think this will be a good one to watch with a lot of start-ups and companies jumping at the bit to provide the best service first.  Some key trends to look out for: Video fingerprinting. All video is going to have fingerprinting information in time. Fingerprinting allows the systems showing the video to know and understand what information is on-screen at a particular time. That means interactive content on the phone can know what is on-screen and serve up the appropriate content automatically rather than needing to be programmed. Virtual MSO. Many believe that we are close to seeing a new option for consumers in the pay-for-TV space. A “virtual” MSO would be a partner that had the content deals with all of the channels and couldoffer live TV packages, but without the infrastructure of cable to the home, satellites in the sky, and the like. By using an all-Internet solution, they have much greater potential to link the primary and secondary screen. Sony, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and others are well-positioned to try it. Use UI to predict the winner. Content is king, but the user interface (UI) is queen. The data proves what we’ve intuited for years: to catch on, experiences need to be seamless, easy to learn, and easy to use. Ad auctions. We’ve started to see auctions come on strong on the web in the last couple of years and they are now taking up 20 percent of online inventory. The second screen is the perfect place for ad auctions because knowing what the user is watching provides the context that advertisers are going to want to compete for space in real time.  for more on this topic check out the original article here.  [Image: Brisbane/Shutterstock] High-res

uxcidental:

The Second Screen: Is It Time?

While interactive TV is still very much an ongoing experiment, there’s been a consumer-led revolution that’s actually closer to delivering on the promise of interactive TV.

There’s been talk for a while about second screens. After all, now that all the data is in, it seems that interactive TV is not so much about developing interactivity on the big screen, but on secondary devices within arms reach. In terms of trends, I think this will be a good one to watch with a lot of start-ups and companies jumping at the bit to provide the best service first. 


Some key trends to look out for:

  • Video fingerprinting. All video is going to have fingerprinting information in time. Fingerprinting allows the systems showing the video to know and understand what information is on-screen at a particular time. That means interactive content on the phone can know what is on-screen and serve up the appropriate content automatically rather than needing to be programmed.
  • Virtual MSO. Many believe that we are close to seeing a new option for consumers in the pay-for-TV space. A “virtual” MSO would be a partner that had the content deals with all of the channels and couldoffer live TV packages, but without the infrastructure of cable to the home, satellites in the sky, and the like. By using an all-Internet solution, they have much greater potential to link the primary and secondary screen. Sony, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and others are well-positioned to try it.
  • Use UI to predict the winner. Content is king, but the user interface (UI) is queen. The data proves what we’ve intuited for years: to catch on, experiences need to be seamless, easy to learn, and easy to use.
  • Ad auctions. We’ve started to see auctions come on strong on the web in the last couple of years and they are now taking up 20 percent of online inventory. The second screen is the perfect place for ad auctions because knowing what the user is watching provides the context that advertisers are going to want to compete for space in real time.


 for more on this topic check out the original article here. 

[Image: Brisbane/Shutterstock]

Narrowing Focus

It’s been a long 8 months. Many hours of blood, sweat, and tears—yes—tears have been spilled. But today, I have good news. It’s live.

For the past few years, we’ve been building things for TV networks that we’re extremely proud of. As one of the leading second screen app development companies, we’ve built award-winning social apps for audience-loved TV shows like The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad. Our goal is to heighten engagement for and deliver tremendous value to TV and movies via the web and mobile devices.

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A Big Announcement

A little while back, I received a Skype call from Drew Wilson - the creator of the Internet. Well, at least the creator of a lot of things that make up the Internet. Drew came to me knowing that Lift is one of the best WordPress companies around, having a long history of building great sites and web apps like The Next Web, IFC.com, The Walking Dead StorySync, Breaking Bad StorySync, and WE tv SYNC - some of the first and best second screen apps. Some of our projects even won a few awards and we’re super proud of that.

So anyway, Drew called and asked if we had any interest in becoming the development partner for The Industry, a hub for design startup news. Needless to say, we jumped at the opportunity. After meeting Jared Erondu (teen Internet prodigy), we discussed terms, met with our lawyers and signed on the dotted line. 

That means in 2013, we’ll be helping construct an all-new website for The Industry and will be pulling out all the stops. We want to make sure this is the ULTIMATE website for designers. Drew has been working on some killer design ideas for the new site and our team is already collaborating on ideas for the new site and how it functions.

If you have any ideas or suggestions for the new site, we want to hear them. Tweet at us and let us know what you want to see from The Industry! 

ZenCash - Get Paid on Time.

We’ve been looking at ways to reduce the amount of time we spend on accounting and accounts receivable and we finally found it! ZenCash is totally awesome. We highly recommend it for anyone looking to get paid faster and worry less about clients paying on time.