Spotting the Gorilla – the Content Discovery Challenge
In the famous ‘Did You Spot the Gorilla’ video clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfA3ivLK_tE), which recently got a sequel, viewers are asked to count how many times one of the two teams passes the ball between them. What most viewers fail to notice, though, is that while they are counting the number of ball passes, a man dressed in a gorilla suit joins the scene and walks around. This funny ‘awareness test’ is another example of how our brains, when asked to focus on one thing, totally miss out on a whole piece of information even though it is right there before our eyes.
Imagine what happens when we try to search and discover content which is not always that obvious to spot. In recent years, in addition to premium content we can access via Pay-TV services, more and more content becomes available online, including TV series, movies, and User Generated Content. Whereas not long ago, the TV and the online space were two separate ‘places’, these two worlds are coming together, driven by the increase in Broadband availability, the Connected TV, and users’ demand and creativity.
Access to video and TV content is no longer limited to the home environment either. This abundance of content is accessible to us from most mobile phones and devices as well. Given all that content and all these choices, users can be overwhelmed by the amount of titles and programs to choose from. The variety of content sources and the convergence of the TV and online worlds drive the rise of Content Discovery engines and platforms, which will become a major differentiator in any existing or new TV service launched.
A successful content discovery platform will help viewers explore and select relevant and meaningful content. The content discovery platform will offers viewers selections based on their preferences as indicated by previous content choices and viewing patterns, as well as meta-data based recommendations and friends’ recommendations. For TV Service Providers, integrating a Content Discovery Platform into their offering can create new revenue sources and an increase in customer loyalty.
Recommendations can also leverage the exiting content library and increase the retrieval of niche and long tail content. Additional new revenues will be created via acquiring new customers through social interactivity and recommendations between friends, as well as via promotions and segmented advertising.
No doubt, with all the changes in content types, consumption patterns and retrieval platforms, the fact remains, Content is at the core of any TV service offering. Selecting and integrating a Content Discovery Platform, will become a substantial differentiator for any TV service.
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