In this emerging multi screen world - who controls who?

£35.00 seemed reasonable to hear about technology convergence development between TV, devices and social media. I knew the audience would be primarily drawn from the tech development sector, as it was held at Innovation Warehouse in Smithfield, London, a new digital start up hub. I did not recognise any TV people that I know. Tony Fish of MashUp* did a good job playing Devils Advocate.

The Speakers were:

Anthony Rose - Co-Founder and COO of Zeebox - www.zeebox.com

Anthony was previously responsible for iPlayer development for the BBC and worked on the YouView project. The development and broadcasting community is keen to see what he comes up with. He has spoken at various conferences this year, and I was pleased to meet him and hear about his work. Anthony's business is due to launch an innovative service this autumn. The free zeebox app automatically syncs your iPad, phone or computer with your TV, shares your viewing and shows you what your friends are watching in real time. You can connect and chat around any TV programme, interact with live shows and get more info about any person, thing or topic on air. You can even buy anything on screen with a single click. We call this "augmented TV".

David Bloom - Commercial Director of IP Vision - www.ipvision-uk.tv

Owners of Fetchtv.com, www.fetchtv.co.uk. An additional set top box offering consumers on demand options, BBC iPlayer access and distribution of some Sky services.

Tom Weiss - CEO of TV Genius

A TV recommendation engine, a personalised, digital TV/Radio times

The discussion was about who owns who in a multi device world. First run broadcast material (also plus channels and first re-runs), remains a very valuable commodity, with TV audiences ever stronger. Broadcasters are firmly in control of TV screens. But who owns who on second devices, tablets, mobiles etc? Again, so long as the rights are in place, and the distribution deals are well negotiated, I cannot see how content owners cannot win out on time shifted viewing and personal scheduling of their content. But others, like all the Panel member companies, will build up subscription revenue streams from their new services, maybe ad revenue too, particularly as social ad revenue grows, but others like FaceBook, Google +, Twitter etc will do well here.

I'm sure that Advertisers and their Agencies are reassessing engagement during ad breaks now that some consumers are multi tasking with tablets and mobiles at the same time. Consumers are savvy about fast forwarding through recorded content. I would seriously look at reducing ad minutage/sponsorship idents in prime time, recoup losses by increasing prices, and create even more relevant ad breaks for consumers to engage with, plus work on new innovative interactive options for Advertisers on 2nd screens.

It is more than 10 years since digital TV launched in the UK, and my service provider, Sky EPG is looking rather dated. In my house, with big sports fans, Sky is essential. The SkyPlus service was a step forward, but has not kept up with consumer demand, for example limitations on watching a third programme whilst 2 others are being recorded on the living room TV, and woe betide the person who deletes an item to make space to record what they want to view, as storage is limited! So loads of room for improvement, which might come from Broadcasters, after all it was the BBC who brought us the iPlayer, and Sky that has brought so much innovation over the past 20 years, or perhaps it will be that new Broadcaster, Google?

The discussion touched on Google's intention to move their tanks further from the digital market (13% share of global advertising 2011), into the 46% share of global advertising that TV currently enjoys (source Carat). Google are extending their assets further with the recent launch of User friendly Google+, their social product. Search was not considered to be a suitable tool for finding content, as consumers are more likely to be put off by not finding what they want, hence the development of services like ZeeBox, but I'm sure that Google is working on something similar.

Tess Alps, CEO of ThinkBox, the central marketing body for commercial TV in the UK, is right to be wary of "Greeks bearing gifts" with regard to her recent open letter to Eric Schmidt CEO of Google, http://bit.ly/nAxEjV. From no fault of their own, except their superior technical genius, Google does tend to marginalise partners. I once worked for Ask.com, then Google's largest global search partner, later on trumped by AOL. Both partner organisations now have a much smaller share of their respective markets, but still revenue growth through their Google partnerships. Google have signalled their intention to become a original content producer, (they are already a Broadcaster via YouTube). They have the expertise to design access tools to update the entire ecosystem, that's if innovators like ZeeBox and others are not run away successes first.

The latest TV Wall technology was mentioned, as this was unveiled at IBC in Amsterdam recently. It's certainly created quite a buzz.

IBC: Wall-sized displays suggest higher-def TV

I don't think there were any conclusions drawn from the event, but I enjoyed the discussion about existing and upcoming disruption, and hope that they follow this up in a few months time.