Content Is King - Game of Thrones and HBO Go

Recently, like so many of my other friends, I have started to watch the series Game of Thrones on HBO. Personally the series is very good and it is very enjoyable viewing. However as a professional, there is an equally fascinating story unfolding in how HBO is using this latest entry of what I consider high-quality content to reach out in new and interesting ways to their customers.

The service called HBO Go, allows HBO subscribers to watch the various offerings from the network on their mobile devices, tablets like the iPad 2, and over the internet. There are some nice touches to this service that makes it stand out for me:

• Service Provider Integration. I actually have a package subscription through Directv and I was honestly very pleasantly surprised that the HBO service asked for my credentials with Directv, validated that I was indeed a subscriber to HBO from that service, and allowed me to sign up for the HBO Go service. The ability to effectively leverage subscriptions from other providers so that I as a customer can be eligible is a total win.
• Good user experience. Intuitive navigation, easy-to-find visual elements, and a layout that pleasantly blends media and information services together is another really nice feature of the HBO Go service. Whether it be on the website, my iPad 2, or iPhone each experience is pleasant, easy and quite frankly very effective. Unlike many services, the HBO Go service tries to make things simple and easy for their customers. This is not to say that the experience is perfect, I had several designer colleagues make several comments to that point, but we all agree it is definitely more pleasant than any of us expected which is what matters.
• Content. This is the big one. Being able to access the content I want via the HBO Go service is definitely a big plus. Sadly while I would love to be able to watch it over Netflix streaming, that is not always possible especially with certain series that are brand new. So being able to access the content I want in several different ways that are the most convenient for me is the best.

There are several areas of concern that I have had over models of this nature from other services that still come to mind even with HBO. Firstly I want to be able to have a small set or even a unified viewing experience with all of my providers. This is the "holy grail" of viewing that offerings like Boxee bring to the consumer, which is the idea that I can take all of my various content and have it available to view through a single point. If I just have to look at my basic set of content such as YouTube, Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, Directv programming, etc. the fact that I find myself having to move from one experience to another for the different solutions is quite annoying. I love the content, but not being able to access the content effectively is just aggravating. Secondly, I find that having to be forced to visit a site for content that is not "recent" such as Game of Thrones or something of that nature is also tremendously frustrating. Unless the content is recent, there is no real need in my opinion for these providers to maintain their history for viewing. And here is why: they do absolutely NOTHING with that history. There are no new insights to be gained, no new content additions, no new upsell items, nothing. At this point it makes me wonder why sites even bother at times. Now not every site is this way, Comedy Central does an outstanding job of blending current content, new content, historical content not just of one type but with many others to create a truly engaging experience. Yet this is more of the exception than the rule. Thirdly there is another dimension of socially sharing that I want to be able to provide to my friends and colleagues about the content that I like. The most primitive approach is to share a link to the content via Twitter and Facebook. Yet some of the more sophisticated services like GetGlue are more closer to the mark where I can not only share what I like, but socialize with others whom I know about the shows as well. Lastly one of the most interesting features of what HBO offers is what I consider absolutely critical to accelerated growth of a unified service which is integration with different providers such as Directv, specifically speaking a service platform that can be used to create a more comprehensive and complete viewing capability. At some point in the future, I hope to see that the content providers offering access to their content via services that allow third-party companies to not only validate that they have a participating subscription to access their content, but to be able to access the content accordingly and share them where approprirate. For example, let's say I loved a certain episode of Game of Thrones and wanted to share that with a friend who. I would love the service to not only allow me to share that content link, but to also intelligently determine if a) my friend is all ready on a qualifying service plan such as HBO package on Directv and allow them access to view it or b) allow me to package that certain episode and "gift it" to my friend at a reasonable price (i.e. $1-$5 not $99+ per episode). These sorts of capabilities have all ready started but it would be exciting to see things of this nature mature more rapidly and see greater adoption.

I do understand the dilemma that companies like these face. Which is why I am excited to see HBO and others trying to new things to make their content more available and through such actions their brand more appealing to their customers. When there is an opportunity to provide top notch content that people are willing to pay a reasonable fee for, making that content readily available and conveniently accessible in ways that are not painful, it is important to recognize that opportunity and embrace it.

Microsoft and Skype - Could Be A Good Thing

By now everyone has heard of Microsoft purchasing Skype. In this particular case Microsoft has a very good high level idea of what to do with the service in terms of offering IP-based calling for their Xbox Live, Windows Phone 7, and other devices. Additionally Skype will continue to support other platforms that will insure their current customers are happy while at the same time offering some new opportunities for Microsoft.

From a high-level strategic viewpoint, this makes quite a lot of sense for both companies. However in my opinion Microsoft could really use Skype to make a lot of it's various products more consumer friendly. Let's just focus on the mobile space for a brief moment. Apple's Facetime and Google's GoogleVoice are significant and powerful services that continue to threaten the established mobile service providers. Basically they are beginning to challenge the fundamentals of the carriers in communications. If you can actually have face-to-face or similar communication services simply over mobile data networks or high speed networks such as WiFi, then why pay the extra services from your local telecom company? Now from a more practical approach, such a move is obviously years away, yet the growing interest by consumers in such technologies such as Skype is obviously something that companies that want to be a part of the ongoing mobile discussion over the next 10 years are looking into. As a younger audience begins to embrace these technologies they are creating a demand that the more established players have not had to deal with and are currently struggling to address.

Microsoft has had quite a few successes recently with their products: Xbox and Xbox Live, Kinect, Bing and arguably Windows Phone 7. However these advances appear on the surface to be promoted and conceived from more creative and flexible units such as Microsoft Gaming and not the main corporate core which has been their Operating System and Office Units. From merely an objective viewpoint, the sheer reluctance to integrate these platforms with comparative services points to a significant hesitation on Microsoft's part. However with the acquisition of Skype it is clear that Microsoft does in fact realize the potential opportunities that they have at their fingertips. With their purchase, Microsoft can create a very strong cross-platform, voice and video communication offering for their customers.

I would like to point out that I am not a strong proponent of Microsoft products. I think that for a number of years they have languished, becoming significantly out of touch with their an increasingly sophisticated customer base that has rewarded more nimble, innovative and just plain better customer-friendly competitors such as Apple and Google. However that does not mean that Microsoft is not capable of adjusting. Yet being the company of one of the best-selling consumer products, a la the Kinect, has only minimally been addressed by Microsoft. In fact the more interesting possibilities seem to be coming from the Kinect hacks where independent developers inspired by the device have started to create their own ecosystem. While it is true Microsoft has mentioned that they intend to fully produce and support a similar idea in their own way, it is not really clear to myself that they are fully committed to the idea. I use Apple as sort of measuring stick in adjusting to "surprise" hits of their products. The App Store started as an experiment a little after a year they realized that their iPhone was doing so well. So it is not quite a year yet for the Kinect, so Microsoft has time to adjust.

With so many promising recent evolutions and entries, I am sort of surprised to see Microsoft being so slow to capitalize on the momentum they have gained. The long wait times and independent efforts tend to show more of a company in conflict with itself or taking too long to respond to market demands. So while I applaud the move by Microsoft in acquiring Skype and understand some of the great opportunities it represents, the pessimist is taking a "wait and see" sort of attitude to the whole affair. With so many great opportunities to move forward, Microsoft seems to be taking far too long to move which in my opinion ultimately impact how customers respond to their products.

Innovation Everywhere - Mobile, Gaming, Social! Oh My!

Recently there has been a flurry of innovative advances on a variety of fronts that while not new in concepts, they have definitely started to make their make in the market.

Mobility is one of the most obvious forms of innovation that has fundamentally changed the game. Apple and Google are new yet they have had such a deep and meaningful influence that one can scarcely have discussions in the local conferences without coming across a conversation about these devices and advances in the mobile marketplace. Also it's not just the developers and handset manufacturers looking at this market with a new eye. Even the American carriers such as AT&T and Verizon are doing so with services such as smartphone payments and others. It is clear that businesses small and large are looking at this market much more differently than they did a mere 5 years ago.

Gaming is another major area of innovation. While traditional games such as Starcraft 2, World of Warcraft, Red Dead Redemption and others have legions of faithful followers, it is the changes as a whole in the gaming world that offers studies in innovation for other industries. Companies such as Valve's Steam gaming service is an excellent model demonstrating what people expect for paid software deliveries. Gaming platforms such as Microsoft Xbox whose ability to include services such as Twitter, Facebook and NetFlix demonstrates a greater diversity of offerings for existing platforms while at the same time fundamentally challenging long held views of what consumers expect platforms to be. Even games such as Zynga's Farmville who came onto the Facebook scene not too long ago has done well in demonstrating what casual gaming can do on a non-traditional platform.

Finally another area of innovation happens to be growing era of social networking. I simply call it social innovation. These are the various ways of discovering and engaging others along various dimensions of interest whether it be personal interests, professional interests, political interests, hobbies, news, or any combination. In this emerging area it is clear that consumers desire and expect to be able to consume what they want, when they want, and interact how they want to in a manner that they personally deem safe and secure. What one person thinks is perhaps too public may be considered highly restrictive to another. In this new digitally-based socially connected network, who you know is really a powerful factor. After all, it's not a site you are necessarily visiting, as opposed to people that individuals find interesting or value that drive the activity.

While there are certainly many other areas of innovation, all of them represent some universal truths about the marketplace: they are new ways of looking at old problems, the entrepreneurs in these areas are bold, brave and fast, and the consumers they are tapping into are not brand new generations but rather existing generations. These new innovations are really about how to reach people in ways that they understand, in meaningful and valuable ways, and simplifying significant degrees of complexity. 

It is certainly a wonderful and exciting time!