“We are really pleased to have Agora Media onboard, said Harry Drok, the Managing Director of Moho Internet Concepts, based in Groningen, The Netherlands. “They bring a vast knowledge social media marketing and are really on top of what’s happening both in the social media landscape online and on the emerging market around Social TV, TV apps and TV widgets – due to their work at Appmarket.tv.

Richard Kastelein, the CEO of Agora Media added, “It’s great to work with the team at Sunnywatches and Moho Internet Concepts – and we think they are poised to be a leading independent eCommerce player in the European online industry – mainly due to their excellent network with manufacturers and distributors in the luxury goods market”.

Agora Media will work closely with both companies in both building and executing an effective social media strategy to ensure tapping of the market.

That’s right.  Unbelievable. Even to us.  And it only cost us sweat. Making sure the copy was interesting and well written. Making sure we took a little extra time to tweet and retweet. Making sure we pushed it to Reddit and Digg. Making sure we used Facebook and Linkedin as well to disseminate our ideas to our friends and business partners.

Scroll down to the very bottom of this page and see the dynamic PR ranking.

A check three weeks ago, delivered us a marvelous sign that we are doing well with the Agora Media Group blog. After the Agora Media’s own Social Media case -> 16000% growth we pushed further in order to expand our visibility and expertise.

Corporate Blogging and an attached Social Media strategy to get our opinions and analyses out is practically the only Marketing we did to get the word out of the Agora Media Group.
Surely PageRank is not the most important metric, but what it does tell is that we’re linked back from important sites.

We achieved this by applying the Social Media Framework which we wrote about. In essence it’s about the Content, Context and Social Media Intelligence which enhances both Content and Context.

Content * Context * Social Media Intelligence = Powerful Social Media

Yes, what it will do at least, is shake up the TV industry and get them out of their “Walled Gardens”, and actively look for business model innovations.  Google has the potential, reach and money to penetrate the market with more than just a shake up. It will likely be cataclysmic… and they will truly launch the concept of Social and Connected TV into the Zeitgeist by 2011.

The rumour mill has once again ground out another flutter of gossip about Google going into the TV market – but still – nobody will go on record. This time it’s about when they will release their official foray into this space.

The Wall Street Journal wrote that:

Google Inc. is planning to introduce Android-based television software to developers at an event in May, according to people familiar with the matter.

Google is headhunting for developers in this space, which validates the buzz.

Android and Chrome both have substantial development communities, but it will likely take some time before investments are made from software developers – and it will come when Google can show a critical mass adaption. Until now, Yahoo Connected TV has been leading in this space, but interest in their Widget Development Kit (WDK) is rather tepid. Google TV’s future development kit (likely based on Android and Chrome),  won’t likely be wide open, but will surely be more flexible and malleable than Yahoo’s.

But other news on Google TV recently came with a report from the  Korean Herald,  who published an article about a possible marriage between the world’s leading TV manufacturer, Samsung, and Google TV. In other words, Samsung, who is already tied to Yahoo Connected TV is considering cutting another deal with Google and building CE devices with Android architecture.

Yahoo won’t be happy if this pans out – but they don’t seem to be able to develop much traction in attracting developers to this space, nor creating enough buzz about Social TV, TV Apps, Widgets etc.

Will hardware manufacturers lose their control? They might, if they don’t play ball, Google just might start producing TV’s themselves.

According to a quote from the same Korean Herald article

Chun Seung-hoon, an analyst at Eugene Investment & Securities, said Samsung’s Google TV is plausible, given that Google’s Android is an open platform. “There is no problem for Samsung to produce Google TVs,” he said. However, he said the hardware manufacturer faces the risk of losing its control over the TV market to Google, a software firm, should it make Google TVs. “This is not a good picture. I think it would be better for Samsung to expand its own platform Bada,“ he said.

Google’s perspective is from the software side, manufacturers is from the hardware perspective, and a complementary growth strategy for both sides is more plausible.

Expansion of its own mobile development platform Bada – Samsung could perhaps itself  head towards their own Social TV development and make a play for both a two screen and one screen experience.  People’s demand in the end is what will make or break a Walled Garden, in this case Bada, which already has an ample app store.

Already mentioned in one of my earlier analysis Television 2.0’s foremost challenge is… , consumer control and attention are essential in understanding the coming paradigm TV shift.

In the end, all that people want is any content at their time, on their screen when they’re in the mood. Creating a battle between open systems, from any kind of manufacturer, is a risk for growth strategies and revenue streams.

Going from the platform to the actual content consumption which will be enabled by Google Android TV, it will be interesting to see how this will develop and evolve.
On NewTeeVee, researcher Marie-José Montpetit at MIT’s Research Lab for Electronics, says that Social TV doesn’t mean a cluttering of content and widgets on the TV screen.

Google has the resources to analyse this in-depth, create understanding how the new television experience could be enhanced in appropriate ways, not a simple centralisation of different content on a screen.

There’s more than enough landscape on the next generation of TV’s to allow for optional widgets to be popped in and out, and if sized correctly,  a single screen experience can work. The widgets, from a design perspective, can and should be optional and can and should be designed to be part of the overall TV experience, if planned well. If they can get the Interactive Design down pat – getting ‘social’ on one screen can work. There are many examples of websites that have this kind of alternative.  Our blog has an optional widget for Twitter that can be pulled out and retracted quite nicely 0n the bottom right.

Here again the ultimate quest is to provide users control to gain their attention which will lead to -new- revenue models.

Apps/Widgets have been said to be the new Cash Cow generators for the digitized ubiquity, the syndication of content and the consumption of it. If Google and the industry will be able to go forth in the evolution of television and the experience, conventional revenue models could be proven not to be the only valid ones.

What do you think, will Google be able to get movement in this cumbersome sector?

The following quotes are taken from ConnectedTVSummit and they do point out to a major shift in hardware which is followed by software/applications that will transform the industry and experience:

Global revenues for connected TVs will reach $29 billion in 2011, accounting for 58% of global revenues for Internet TV equipment that year. 12.5% of 2010 global TVs shipped will have connectivity, rising to 30% in 2011.
IMS Research, January 2010

Our research shows that within five years nearly all broadband households will own at least one web-enabled CE media device.The implications of this across the digital entertainment industry will be huge.”
Norm Bogen, In-Stat analyst, January 2010

Game consoles already have the lead in this segment, which can mostly be attributed to gamer demographics . I think that even gamers will switch to accessing Internet video mostly on the TV in order to have a one-stop access point to the different content libraries. Having one programme guide is much easier to navigate then searching independently on different devices.”
Rebecca Kurlak, IMS Research consumer electronics analyst, January 2010

Worldwide shipments of web-enabled stationary CE devices will grow more than seven-fold from their 2009 levels to over 230 million by 2013.  There will be over one-half billion web-enabled CE devices in operation worldwide by 2013.
In-Stat, January 2010

CE device manufacturers will be able to enjoy revenue shares on content, which could be as high as 50%.
Rebecca Kurlak, IMS Research consumer electronics analyst, January 2010

When having a look at the timing of the quotes with regard to the evolution, the future of all this is closely. Also other institutions/articles point out to a first real shift in 2010 and 2011 where adoption and diffusion will reach a substantial figure.

Other interesting and positive quotes can be found in this recent analysis and article by Bloomberg:

It’s no longer a bridge too far for the average user,” said Michael Powell, a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission who now runs a media consulting firm. Using TVs to connect to the Internet “is a very natural extension of what they’ve already embraced in their technological life.

The difference now is new Internet televisions won’t require separate boxes, software and setup, says Steve Perlman, the founder of WebTV. The TV will already be connected to the Web, and consumers will get everything they need through that.

It is going to happen — it’s inevitable,” Perlman said. “We’re going to see a general movement toward having all of your content that is available through the Internet.

The fact is, it appears that the next generation of Internet-connected TV’s are going to come out faster than most anticipated, and this means  that the need for  Set Top Boxes (STB’s)  will eventually reduce and even possibly phase out in the future.  This is certainly a real game changer and lowers the perceive risks and complexity of the end consumers.

Perlman’s quote that we’ll see a general movement towards having all the content available through the Web is a positive outlook and simultaneously a challenge in not simply transferring media from device to device and not having a thorough look at the device, usage/purpose of device in relation to the needs and consumption of consumers.

This challenge was also pointed out in the Android TV article.

The industry is ready for it, most definately, what about the end-consumers?

Do you think there will be a fast adoption and usage? How will the collective experience of watching passive TV be impacted by elements of individual social interaction such as Twitter and Facebook via tv widgets and apps? Or will it?

Forty years ago, the brilliant Canadian media theorist Marshall Mcluhan, the  “patron saint” of Wired magazine,  (who brought us Electronic Interdependence, The Global Village and The Medium is the Massage) metaphorically considered the TV to be an ‘electronic’ hearth – a collective centralized event for the family on the cusp of it’s appearance in the home 50 years ago. By the end of the millenium, TV’s peppered houses and became a more individual experience. In the USA,  the average house now has 2.24 TV’s and 66 per cent of households have three or more TV’s.

Will the TV continue to evolve as an individual device in a new ‘TV Everywhere’ world? And just become part of a matrix of interactive devices available to each individual?

And how will Google fit into the picture? The world’s largest brand is certainly heading for the space. They are not issuing any formal statements on their future in this landscape, but look at what they want in their new hires – http://bit.ly/gootv.

We think that Google TV and Sony along with their other partners at Intel and Logitech could also play a large part in this new landscape.

Jason Goecke is the Vice President of Innovation at Voxeo Labs and this article was originally posted on the Tropo blog. He’s been a friend and technology mentor to Agora Media’s  Richard Kastelein since 2003 when they built the original  Expatforums community as North American tech refugees in Europe.

Speech Synthesis, otherwise known as Text to Speech (TTS), is a technology that quickly synthesizes a human voice using text as input. Speech synthesis  is the default behavior for voice calls on the Tropo platform. The Tropo ‘say‘ verb is the one that provides the TTS capability, by taking a string of text and speaking it back. It is of course possible for this verb to take a URL to a ‘wav’ or ‘mp3′ file for pre-recorded audio to be played as well.

When it comes to teaching your application to speak we follow the Perl ethos of making “the simple things easy and difficult things possible”. So your application may speak very well with the simplicity of our APIs, or it may be as sophisticated and emotional as you like through Tropo exposing powerful capabilities for giving your voices character.

For our first example we will simply say:

Which then renders this audio.

Next, we may choose from a voice that speaks any number of languages supported by Tropo (US/UK English, Castilian/Mexican Spanish, French, German, Italian & Dutch). Lets give French a try for our next example:

Which then renders this audio.

Now, those were the simple examples that anyone may use to add a little speech to their applications. But, remember, we also make the difficult possible for those who want to really make their characters speak. As sometimes simply customizing the voice is not enough. There are cases when you’d also like control over pitch, volume and intonation. Tropo natively supports a standard called the Synthesized Speech Markup Language (SSML).

The Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) is a W3C standard for controlling the pace, tone, pitch and all around sound of computer generated voices. Here’s a Ruby script that repeats the same sentence four times; each at a gradually lower speed:

Which renders this audio. The previous example made use of the rate property of the SSML prosody element to control the playback speed. There are many other elements and attributes you may use, including: emphasis, phoneme, etc. To learn more about SSML and related technologies check out the W3C site at http://www.w3.org/TR/speech-synthesis/.

If you would like to call in and listen to these examples live, you may do so by dialing +990009369991429940 on Skype (free) or calling +1.408.940.5920 from any phone. What are you waiting for? Get started by signing up for an always free developer account @ Tropo.com.

This article first appeared at Atlantic Free Press.

Ever since the New York Times launched word that Google TV will likely become a reality last week, the concept of convergent media has suddenly become a mass meme rather than a tech meme… and probably done more good for IPTV and the blossoming worlds of Social TV, tCommerce, TV Widgets, TV recommendation engines, TV Everywhere, TV 2.0, and opt-in TV advertising than any single event in this emerging landscape.

The TV deal between Google, Sony, Logitech and Intel which flooded the media zeitgeist last week was a perfect riposte to the other news that Facebook topped Google for the week ending March 13th with 7.07 per cent of all Internet traffic for that week, while Google.com got 7.03 per cent.

Sony looks set to rollout new Intel ‘chipped’ TV sets, while Google will make available set-top-boxes (STB)’s – and both will be powered by tiny keyboards built by Logitech. Makes perfect sense.

And what punter would not want an affordable Google Set Top Box (STB) with new cool Logitech remote that does stuff, so he can search his TV and do other cool things? Or just buy a new Sony LCD wall screen that does the same thing – sans the STB?

Interesting to see how it all plays against the Yahoo Connected TV – which already has its feed firmly entrenched in the space and has some cross over with their partners, including Sony and Intel. Most people still don’t even know about Yahoo TV, nor ever heard about. Including most developers I meet at the many events I attend each year in Europe. You can bet, with all the coverage last week, they know about the Google TV foray.

Probably the most exciting news for me is the fact that the New TV platform will be based on Android, and will remain Open Source. That means all code will be transparent, available and open to change and suggestions and managed by a core team… unlike the iPhone,  Facebook and Yahoo Connected TV developer communities  which offer a slice of code to allow developers to develop applications via Application Programming Interface (API)’s or Software Development Kit (SDK)’s.  Bear in mind, any external or 3rd party development has to meet stringent standards for the TV market.

There are some rumours that the platform may have Chrome browser capabilities and even rumblings of a deal with Hulu in the future.

And the major global TV networks and media centers of power? Look for their already crumbling influence to be even more diminished. TV, which has been the mainstream media’s core tool to for swaying us to one or another of their movies, music stars, books, politicians, brands and whatever they get paid to make us like, will be in decline. And, to perhaps the chagrin of a few parties, the TV will continue to democratize and will follow the web with many to many rather than one to many. Publically owned broadcasters listed on the NYSE are in, what seems to be, a never-ending spiral of contraction, which is disastrous for shareholders.

Google is obviously more known for its search technology than their weaker portfolio of social media products (Wave, Orkut, and more recently Buzz in Gmail), and undoubtedly, most consumers that are now mulling over the idea of Google on their TV are enticed by the idea that perhaps it will become much easier to wade through the ever-increasing number of channels available … perhaps Google will offer a search engine like they do online? Or maybe even a better organizational structure –  a directory of sorts?

Searchable TV is why Google is currently testing its technology with Dish Networks… and probably why they will be the future of the Electronic Program Guide (EPG).

Some analysts are skeptical about Google’s latest plan to expand; noting their previous attempts to enter the TV, radio, and print advertising markets were all dismal failures.

However, I disagree. And here’s why.

Try out  another scenario… one which no one else could do in this space.  No one.

Google is currently allowing advertisers to use their innovative and very fresh Google TV advertising platform to launch TV ad spots in US cable markets.

Google TV Ads is an online marketplace that makes it easy for anyone to buy and measure national cable television advertising. Using the familiar Adwords interface, you can launch a television campaign in minutes

This means, in Google’s new ubiquitous, massive TV realm, I could simply buy time slots or even permanent space on for programs or channels in the future of Google TV.

Why two? Time slots for more linear TV experiences such as a classic 30 second spot, using an ‘old school’ non- elective, interruptive, advertising model.

Or.

I could buy elective (opt in and opt out) landscape around particular program for TV Widgets for shows or even entire channels.  It might be a custom widget built in Android or could even be some kind of Chrome extension. It could be Contextual Advertising based on the show’s content, it could be Behavioral Targeting based on the viewer’s preferences and habits, it could be Location Based Advertising (LBA), based on the viewer’s lat and long via IP, or it could be Experience Marketing (full fledged TV experiences).

I think this is what Google has in mind. And I for one… think it’s going to work.

Richard Kastelein is the Winner of 2010 Deloitte Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions for Entrepreneurs in the Netherlands for his futurist views on Social TV and Media Convergence (Tech Visionary) and is a Guest Lecturer at Hanze University in Groningen, Netherlands. He’s a Canadian C-level strategist with start-ups on a number of continents and has strong skills in Social Media and Social TV Architecture and Analysis – Community building using Open Source technology. New Media publishing and on-demand technologies. Open Source Evangelist. Innovator. Creative. See more on Linkedin.

I wrote it on the train on the way down… I actually forgot half of it and kind of made it all up again once I got up there. I had two minutes to pitch… in front of about 200 of Holland’s tech community who voted by SMS.

My name is Richard Kastelein, I am a Canadian of Dutch heritage and am currently working a Chief Strategy officer for a startup in Groningen called Worldticketshop as well as building a creative and innovation agency called Agora Media Group in London.

How many of you have young children out there?

In five years, your children and mine will laugh at the old days when certain programs were available only at certain times. We will too.

On demand TV  is just part of the great change we are going to see in the future… where media will be ubiquitous, and will no longer be the passive experience we now see today.

It’s called TV Everywhere.

I am going to go through four quick points.

1.       Production. The rise of User Generated Content has already and greatly shifted the Internet landscape and will do the same for TV. Merged media will be everywhere, video, audio, photography, 3D and more.

2.       Delivery – Entertainment will be available in the cloud – everywhere, on demand and available to anyone, anywhere.

3.       Consumption – This will be profoundly changed due to the future convergence of the Web and TV, where web widgets become part of the TV experience and viewing culture will be radically changed due to the inclusion of recommendation engines which will offer true reflection of consumer needs and wants.

4.        And lastly, Monetization. Last year, it was noted by MTV here that content companies are now driven by control of Intellectual Property. And that has too and will change. Business models will change. I call it tCommerce and it will also be a paradigm shift for the TV industry. Last year MTV also mentioned that new business models will need to come into place. We feel that affiliation models will rise – profit sharing rather than profit hoarding. The ability to shop on TV will be seamless and simple allowing for revenue sharing between the broadcasters and advertisers.

Already new players in the social tv space are building API’s and SDK’s to allow developers to make the shift from iPhone and Facebook to new models on TV. Yahoo Connected has an Open API, Europe ‘s HBBTV will likely be Open Source software as it’s based largely on Open IPTV and even BBC’s Canvas in the UK is pushing towards open standards.

I will wrap this up by saying that it’s my feeling that this could be the next ‘bubble’ in the market as TV is going be decentralized and it will, in the future, be owned by the audience in many ways. Unlike TV today…. Such as in the USA, where the networks are publically owned and contracting – with no sign of growth in the future.

Thanks for your time and feel free to contact me at the borrel if you are interested in chatting further. We are working on building products for this new space.

The prediction by CEO Richard Kastelein has received plenty of votes, enabling him/Agora Media to be present at the Deloitte Technology, Media and Telecom event the outlook for 2010 and further. This is the chance for him to be recognized as a ‘Tech Visionary’ representing Agora Media – and further – the entrepreneurial community of the Netherlands.

Richard’s prediction is in line – of course – with Agora Media’s outlook of the future in terms of Media Convergence and the rise of Social TV.

His entry:

Media Convergence and Social TV
If we all thought the Facebook and Twitter social media growth phenomena were extraordinary, wait until social TV hits your screens. And it is not as far away as you think – not only with the logical IPTV market, but also terrestrial TV. Social media fused with TV is …the future and the implication of reach that will touch billions not millions.

As Facebook revolutionized the way advertisers can niche-target their online demographics, social TV will profoundly change the ad agencies and marketing departments will offer their wares in the television realm. It’s called tCommerce and watch out – TV widgets and recommendation engines are not far away.

Neilsen ratings seem vague, less targetable and will likely become obsolete in TV 2.0. See http://agoramedia.co.uk/blog/?s=kastelein&x=0&y=0 for articles I have written on Convergent Media and Social TV.

Contest link

On March the second the prediction will be pitched in front of a crowd of 200 Deloitte thought-leaders, CEOs, presidents and other VIPs in the Dutch TMT sector. The winner will be selected by the crowd.

This will be great exposure and certainly the platform to show our outlook and opportunities in these sectors.

We will keep you up to date!

Deloitte yearly forecasts the major trends expected to impact the Technology Media & Telecom (TMT) business in the year ahead. In 2010 the Deloitte TMT Predictions will be launched on March 2 during the Predictions event (Almere).
Deloitte Fast50 challenges TMT entrepreneurs to launch an own Prediction. What will be the major trend expected to impact your business in the year ahead and how many persons agree with you?

Agora Media has entered the contest with two predictions:

By Richard Kastelein:

Media Convergence and Social TV

If we all thought the Facebook and Twitter social media growth phenomena were extraordinary, wait until social TV hits your screens. And it is not as far away as you think – not only with the logical IPTV market, but also terrestrial TV. Social media fused with TV is …the future and the implication of reach that will touch billions not millions.
As Facebook revolutionized the way advertisers can niche-target their online demographics, social TV will profoundly change the ad agencies and marketing departments will offer their wares in the television realm. It’s called tCommerce and watch out – TV widgets and recommendation engines are not far away.
Neilsen ratings seem vague, less targetable and will likely become obsolete in TV 2.0. See http://agoramedia.co.uk/blog/?s=kastelein&x=0&y=0 for articles I have written on Convergent Media and Social TV.
Contest link

By Gianluigi Cuccureddu

The Synaptic Web, Ubiquity and Augmented Reality
The Synaptic Web, where relationships between nodes are more meaningful than the nodes (alone), is a new way of looking at the evolution of the Web (in comparison to the Semantic Web). Augmented Reality perfectly fits within the Synaptic Web, enabling users to create meaningful relations between all sorts of content/data (nodes) and enhance their reality. Mobility and media/content consumption are two important subjects which will transform by the Synaptic Web and Augmented Reality.
The hyperconnective society wants to consume whatever content, wherever they are, when they want. Ubiquity as an aspect will move further up to the core of marketing strategies by means of mobile devices.
A key word within ubiquity is of course real-time. Mobile devices suffice this need and (will) challenge businesses in the near future to be omnipresent with the brand at all touch points of their target groups.
Contest link

Both the predictions approach the same future outlook: a convergent socializing digital world which is available anywhere at any time on any screen with more meaningful and relevant content.
Do add your comments on our predictions’ pages if you think these are the outlooks we can expect in the near future?!