On 19th July, we took over Google’s Campus building in Shoreditch to host the latest TechTalk Live. This time, Zeebox CEO, Anthony Rose took to the stage to explore what the future holds for TV and in particular, the role of the second screen.
Take a look of the first video below to see the highlights of the night or the second to see the full version of Anthony’s presentation.
Highlights:
Full video:
The television experience is constantly changing and evolving with the increasing number of devices and platforms available to watch video content. This year two of the tech giants, Apple and Google, have seriously entered the market to make the web accessible through your television screen. However, both have very different strategies as the battle over openness and control will play out through your television sets in 2011.
How IPTV has changed in 2010
The trend towards mobility and connectivity as outlined in Q2 continues to drive growth in the tech sector in Q3. Both consumers and businesses are investing in new hardware that enables them to be more productive and to access a diverse and exciting mix of services and software. This unquenchable thirst for advanced technology has resulted in 2.2% year-on-year growth (value of EUR 44.0 billion) for the Western Europe technology sector. The technology industry is showing great resilience to the recession as total revenue is expected to reach the same level of Q3 2008, just a year on after the economic crisis. Sales of notebooks and smartphones are all driving factors of growth in Q3 2010, which is highly likely to continue into 2011.
The consumer technology market in Western Europe has grown for the third quarter in a row (year-on-year figures) according to a recent report from GfK TEMAX. Growth is being driven by increasingly demanding consumers who are seeking more innovation, connectivity and mobility, which is leading to a blurring of market categories.
The same GfK TEMAX report showed that Q2 2010 saw a +3.6% increase in comparison to the same period last year. Particularly strong this quarter were the Consumer Electronics (+8.9%) and Information Technology (+4.6%) sectors. And this isn’t surprising, given the rapid pace of innovation and thus the enormous growth in breadth and depth of product range for both sectors.
Despite smartphones and mobiles with open operating systems (making up a quarter of the mobile market in Western Europe) having a volume growth of 62%, the Telecommunications market actually declined in year-on-year figures (-0.2%). It’s an extremely positive sign that the consumer technology market appears to be back on track, particularly after the year which was dubbed the “year of crisis”.
IPTV is no longer tied to commercial bundles of high speed internet access, television and telephone (triple play), but the success of the technology continues to be dependent upon the strength of the home broadband connection.
The uptake of triple play offerings in the UK is somewhat sluggish compared with the US and other EU markets. However, along with the two established players, Sky (satellite) and Virgin (cable), the adoption of high speed broadband internet connection over recent years has led to the rise of various forms of bundled and unbundled internet protocol television (IPTV) services.
For the purpose of this article, IPTV as a term includes subscriber-based offerings requiring the installation of set-top boxes (eg BT Vision, TalkTalk TV, etc.), but also free or commercial services that offer some sort of live television, time-shifted TV programmes, and video on demand (eg BBC i-Player, ITV Player, Channel 4 on demand (4oD), YouTube, LOVEFILM etc.) relying on other customer-premises equipment (CPE).
