Is Netflix Becoming To Big to Please Everyone?
By Todd Viegut, Kannuu CEO
With over 48 million members in more than 40 countries enjoying more than one billion hours of TV shows and movies per month, including a growing offering of hugely successful original series, Netflix is today the darling of OTT and the world’s leading Internet television network.
Perhaps the most vital ingredient to Netflix’s on-demand success is the company’s commitment to an extensive personalized video-recommendation system based on ratings and reviews by its customers.
But Netflix’s recommendation prowess and voluminous navigation grid, which served the company well in catapulting its OTT service into mainstream TV, is seemingly losing its luster as consumers have grown weary of the endless scrolling that has become synonymous with the Netflix search and discovery experience.
Most notably, TV talk show host Bill Maher lampooned Netflix search and discovery in his show’s wildly popular “New Rules” segment.
Quipped Maher, “New Rule – Since the business of Netflix is showing movies, they have to explain to us why they make it deliberately impossible to find a movie!”
Changing TV viewing habits change everything
Netflix’s continued success hinges heavily on its ability to adapt its search and discovery experience to changing TV viewing habits.
More specifically, Netflix needs to do a better job with direct search. Today, Netflix remains wedded to the woefully inadequate, consumer-loathed, hunt-and-peck onscreen keyboard.
NetFlix is by no means alone on this score. Much to the consternation of consumers, virtually every player in the TV-based video entertainment universe (Pay-TV, VOD, OTT, MSO, etc.) employs the onscreen keyboard for direct search, representing what we at Kannuu believe is the TV industry’s greatest, collective failure of innovation in the connected-TV era.)
According to Wired, 95% of consumers rank finding what they want to watch when they want to watch it the number one smartTV feature they desire.
Veveo reports that 80% of users know what they want to watch on TV half the time or more.
Time-shifted TV viewing and binge watching are also on the rise, as reported by Harris Interactive and Rentrak, among many other industry pundits.
Time-shifters and binge viewers know exactly what they want to watch before engaging a service, and as the shortest path between two points is a straight line, direct search — re-envisioned and properly presented — is the best tool for bringing content quickly and easily to the consumers who know what they want to watch.
Netflix has not been deaf to the mounting dissatisfaction with its search and discovery feature.
During his keynote presentation at Internet Week held May 19 -25 in New York City, Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt discussed Netflix’s plan to phase out its current navigation interface in favor of a more refined and personalized layout.
Said Hunt, “Our vision is, you won’t see a grid and you won’t see a sea of titles […] Instead, Netflix will deliver increasingly personalized recommendations.”
While no one outside of Netflix can say exactly what this new format will look like, we can hope, for starters, that Netflix will elevate the role of direct search — and do away with the onscreen keyboard in the process.
Kannuu accomplishes this by replicating on the TV screen the directional pad (D-pad) featured on every remote control — accompanied, of course, by stunning video artwork, clear viewing options and ‘aha’ visual prompts.
In the backend, advanced train-of-thought algorithms, partial-word segmentation techniques and a comprehensive recommendation engine crunches data in real-time.
Using just the D-pad on the remote nestled in their hand and looking only at the screen in front of them, the Kannuu search and discovery system empowers consumers to rediscover the efficient power of direct search — now custom-built for the TV screen — to find the movie of their choice in a matter of seconds with only a few button presses.
Netflix is great at recommendation, and recommendation is great, except when it’s not.
Time shifting and binge viewing are just two examples of when the need for direct search trumps recommendation. There are many, many others, and when they inevitably arise in the daily habits of TV viewers the absence of easy-to-use direct search on the TV screen is conspicuous. More accurately stated, it is downright off-putting.
Any concerns that elevating direct search might expose a shortcoming in a service provider’s library of content are ill-founded, misguided and flat out wrongheaded.
What better opportunity can there be to showcase the beauty of recommendation than when a system knows right off the bat exactly what a consumer is searching for?
Consumers are demanding. They want what they want when they want it.
Consumers are fickle. If displeased with a service, especially with its search and discovery gateway, they will move on in a heartbeat.
Consumers are fanatic. Give them what they want, and their loyalty is cemented, their endorsements fly, and their wallets open.
If the endgame of the ever-evolving, video-viewing landscape is to create innovative, meaningful technologies that have an immediate and positive impact on the consumers’ ability to enjoy quality video content — including live TV programming and premium cable channels — anytime, anywhere, on any device, then heads’ up.
A recently announced partnership between FYI Television and SiliconDust has significantly moved the needle on this score.
FYI Television metadata and entertainment image content expert, accumulates and distributes TV entertainment content and linear scheduling data from over 12,000+ TV networks daily, aggregating the information into customized formats for various television, mobile, internet and print clients. Through the vast array of applications our entertainment data is filtered into, hundreds of millions of consumers engage with FYI’s content daily.
The epitome of sustained innovation, SiliconDust first brought us HDHomeRun, the first network-attached digital TV tuner, allowing customers in the US and Canada to receive over the air broadcast and unencrypted digital cable TV on their PCs. Subsequent products released at a blistering pace include HDHomeRun Plus, HDHomeRun Dual and HDHomeRun Prime, among many others, set the bar for enabling consumers to watch live TV all across their home network, from PCs, to tablets, to game consoles, smartphones and smart TVs.
As is the case with all meaningful partnerships (Read: those that transcend self-serving back-slapping and hollow marketing hype.) the FYI TV / SiliconDust duo brings value to the consumer that is greater than that (though significant) delivered via the individual players.
In this case, consumers can now make faster, more informed viewing decisions across devices connected by SiliconDust’s many industry-leading applications and products.
Ours is a fragmented industry. Kannuu applauds FYI Television and SiliconDust for their mutual focus on customer satisfaction, and for setting an example of the sort of collaboration vital to moving the connected-TV world forward.
By Todd Viegut, CEO, Kannuu
Last week at the 18th-annual CONNECTIONS™: The Premier Connected Home Conference hosted by Parks Associates in San Francisco I had the great pleasure of participating on an interactive panel discussion moderated by Bret Sappington, research director for Parks Associates.
The conference was well attended, and I was both pleased (and a bit nerve-wracked) to see a standing-room crowd for the panel discussion I participated on, “Rocking the Boat: New User Experiences and Content Discovery” — a testament to the fabulous job Parks Associates and Brett Sappington do in creating a conference where the most pressing industry topics are brought front and center.
As the title implies, this panel’s focus was on innovations shaping the future of the user experience and how innovations in the user interface will impact the overall video-viewing experience.
Fellow panelists included Yosi Glick, co-founder & CEO of Jinni; Gene Wang, CEO & co-founder of People Power; and Justin Whittaker, co-founder of i.TV.
There are many aspects of search and discovery, but Bret cut to the quick in framing panel discussion, citing research findings from Parks Associates that highlight the growing importance of search and discovery in general and the UI/UX specifically:
“Over 75% of U.S. homes now have broadband as well a growing number of Internet-connected devices, and since 2010, weekly video consumption has grown approximately 30%, to nearly 30 hours per week. The user interface has evolved from a functional purpose to a cultivated experience, with various players battling to own the interface, thereby owning the consumer.”
The overall discussion was vibrant and informative, with Brett, me and my fellow panelists sharing more than a few experience- and research-based insights and serving up a number of provocative perspectives on what we all agreed is a vital component of today’s dynamic, rapidly evolving video-viewing landscape — the user interface for search and discovery.
Suffice it to say the topic was given exhaustive treatment, but things really took off when Brett prompted the panel with a live exercise — challenging us to generate a list of features and characteristics vital for a “next-generation” user experience.
The results of this pressure-cooker exercise were telling, as it forced us to collectively weigh the pros and cons of many contrasting aspects of search and discovery and tackle some of the formidable challenges that surface whenever innovation and opportunity force disruption on an established, high-stakes industry such as television.
For example, how much innovation will consumers embrace vs. consumer affinity for traditional search methods; how to present second-screen interaction in a manner that best enhances the primary viewing experience; balancing the interests of tech-savvy young consumers and behaviorally entrenched older consumers; striking the optimal mix of recommendation, free discovery and directed search; balancing the benefits of personalization and the importance of consumer privacy; weighing the efficacy of input options such as voice, gesture and manual entry; and providing a consistent experience across TV, tablets and smartphones (while exploiting benefits and heeding the limitations of each video-viewing option).
It would be impossible for me to fully recount here all of the great perspectives and ideas Brett’s exercise generated, but I can tune you into you where Kannuu nets out on the importance of the user interface for search and discovery by way of these two overarching themes that surfaced during our panel discussion: context and melding.
Context
Amidst much debate, respectful and thoughtful, consensus was clear among the panelists on the importance of context-aware search. No great surprise here. It stands to reason that the more that is known about the consumer at the moment of selection, the better a system, including the user interface, can be tailored to provide a suitable search and discovery experience.
Delving into what constitutes ‘context’ is where the real magic happens. Is the consumer male or female? Watching by himself/herself? Where (on what device and geo-location) and when (time of day, season ((sports)) is the consumer watching? What is the consumer’s viewing history? What might the consumer be in the mood for watching? What are his/hers special interests? What level of detail (show, actor, director information) does the consumer want? How much time does the consumer have in this viewing session? What are the consumer’s favorite channels (traditional programming, pay-TV channels, OTT services, etc.)…
The list of what constitutes ‘context’ goes on and on…
It is important to note here that as the circle of ‘context’ expands, the amount of data a search and discovery system must crunch grows exponentially, inviting a host of technical, backend challenges – with scalability, hybrid delivery (on device and cloud), and high-speed analytics topping the list.
Regardless of, or despite, big data challenges, computational strain, network limitations and algorithmic complexity must never spill into the search and discovery user experience – which must always be fast, satisfying and successful.
Melding
This theme has tremendous value when applied to the question of what makes a great, next-generation search and discovery experience.
Our’s is a very fragmented industry, and as Brett pointed out, there are many players “battling to own the interface.”
This has resulted in more than a few false dichotomies and ‘winner-takes-all’ battles that, when considered strictly from the perspective of the consumer, are revealed as short sighted at best and downright self-serving in the extreme.
Put another way, many things that might appear as competing or contrasting are in fact (or at least as we at Kannuu see them) complimentary or contextually determined.
For example, when looking at the question of how much innovation consumers will embrace vs. consumer affinity for traditional search methods, we believe there is much value to be had from melding a bit of both, as opposed to an ‘innovation-at-all-costs’ mindset and what we’re seeing as a tendency toward over engineering at the cost of eloquent design.
Take the remote control. Generations of consumers have used the remote to control their TVs. There is tremendous behavioral equity accrued in this device, more specifically, in the directional pad (D-pad) centered on every remote.
In contrast, forcing consumers to ‘hunt and peck’ their way to a movie selection using the traditional onscreen keyboard grid is unacceptable by any measure.
Melding in this instance means leveraging familiarity with the traditional D-pad and doing away with the onscreen grid.
Kannuu does this by replicating onscreen the D-pad in the consumer’s hand, accompanied by video artwork, viewing options and ‘aha’ visual prompts.
In the backend advanced train-of-thought algorithms, partial-word segmentation techniques and a comprehensive recommendation engine crunch data in real-time.
Using the D-pad in their hands and looking only at the screen in front of them, consumers find the movie of their choice in a matter of seconds with only a few button presses.
Melding is also helpful when weighing the various input possibilities for search and discovery. Advances in voice and gesture, among other input technologies, hold great promise.
What is counterproductive is to elevate one at the cost of the other, when the truth is, each comes with its specific, use-case pros and cons.
What’s needed here is a balanced, ecumenical approach that includes all input options, including a modified experiece for manual search entry such as Kannuu’s.
Sincere thanks to Brett Sappington and my fellow panelists for a great discussion on next-generation search and discovery.
In the end, we raised more questions than we could possibly answer in the allotted time — which was the point of the exercise, and a worthwhile lesson for all of us in the industry.
Meet Kannuu CEO Todd Viegut at The Cable Show 2014 in at the Los Angeles Convention Center from April 29 – May 1, 2014.
Learn how STBs can drive improved consumer experience (and revenue) for both Pay TV providers and OTT services.
According to a recent Digital TV report, more than 1 in 4 global TV sets will be Internet-connected by 2018. NPD reports that in the U.S. alone there will be 202 million Internet-capable TV devices by 2015, a 44 percent increase from the 140 million at the start of 2013.
No real surprises here. Industry pundits have postulated meteoric growth for connected TVs for several years now.
Regrettably, as the worlds of traditional Pay TV and OTT collide in today’s rapidly evolving TV landscape, it has become fashionable to pit one against the other — incumbent Pay TV providers vs. OTT upstarts in a ‘winner-takes-all’ fight for TV viewership.
Recent performance numbers from both Pay TV and OTT providers expose this battle as a false dichotomy, or at least an overly simplistic (and somewhat misleading) framing of the dynamic, highly complex debate surrounding the evolution of TV currently underway.
The 100 leading pay-television services around the world gained 18.98 million subscribers in 2013, an increase of 6.3 percent, informitv reports. ABI Research reports that the worldwide Pay-TV market reached 903.3 million subscribers in 2013, generating $249.8 billion in service revenue.
On the OTT front, global subscribers exceeded 66 million in 2013, according to MRG. The research firm forecasts OTT subscription levels to surpass 120 million by 2017. According to Digital TV, OTT revenue will rise from nearly $16 billion in 2013 to almost $35 billion a year in 2018.
This data suggests that, instead of a winner-takes-all battle between Pay TV and OTT, both services can accurately be described as leaders — with viewership and revenue on the rise for both.
What can be said with a fair measure of accuracy is that, as of today, traditional Pay TV holds an enormous market-share advantage over OTT, and on the flip side, the rapid emergence of OTT signals what is arguably the greatest period of disruption in the history of TV.
There is universal consensus that connected TV holds enormous monetary potential, is hugely in demand by consumers, and has fostered fierce (and healthy) competition among myriad players.
To be sure, ours’ is a fragmented, disjointed ecosystem. There will be market leaders and laggards and a fair amount of shuffling among established companies and newcomers as the future of connected TV plays out.
STBs with the Personalized QualityExperience Will Determine Connected-TV Leaders
A good way to keep your finger on the pulse of who’s pulling ahead and who’s falling behind in today’s connected TV world is to examine innovation delivered by the ever-evolving set-top-box (STB).
From an historical perspective, variations of the STB go back to rabbit ears, UHF converters, original cable boxes, VCRs, DVD players, DVRs, Blu-ray players, and video game consoles.
In today’s highly connected TV world (and for the sake of simplicity), by Set Top Box, I include any device that delivers independent connectivity to streaming video including Cable boxes and IPTV boxes (Internet Protocol Television) – particularly popular OTT services like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Vudu, and Crackle, along with a growing host of additional streaming services.
Driven by OTT’s growing popularity, the STB category is rapidly and radically being redefined by dongles or thumbdrives and other such devices that provide Internet access and streaming media capability.
No one wants to be left behind in the ever-expanding connected TV market. Smart TVs are grappling with the limitations inherent in their proprietary, ‘walled garden’ approach to app stores; Pay TV providers are leveraging their STB presence to drive innovation and enhance their services through inclusion of OTT offerings; and a sustained wave of established and new STB streaming-media players is cashing in on the demand for OTT specific content.
In particular, Pay TV providers are working mightily to put IP reception and advanced capabilities into their next-generation STBs, which only makes sense.
What would not make sense is for Pay TV providers to invest billions building the infrastructure that makes connected TV possible, including the costly ‘last-mile’ connectivity, and then not make every effort to capture the ‘last-touch’ — the consumer experience largely determined by STB-enabled functionality.
IHS forecasts a total of 45 percent of all STBs shipped in 2017 will be connectable, up from 26 percent in 2012. HIS also reports that the global market for connectable set-top boxes (STBs) will surge by 91 percent from 2012 through 2017. Worldwide shipments of connectable STBs are forecast to rise to 125.6 million units in 2017, up from 65.8 million in 2012, HIS reports.
Without question, IPTV/OTT via STBs is the most impactful element transforming all aspects of the delivery and consumption of video on TV. The number of connected TVs will continue to grow, the amount of IPTV & OTT content will soar in the years ahead, and the STB will evolve to satisfy consumer demand for a simple and pleasurable viewing experience across all content.
This brings into clear view connected TV’s greatest challenge. Namely, the difficulty and frustration consumers face as they hunt and peck across a growing number of siloed OTT services, VOD offerings and exhaustive linear programming to find what they want to watch on their connected TV.
Enter Kannuu
Guided by the inviolable rule that with video content growing exponentially, connected TVs nearing ubiquity, and viewing options increasing on a near daily basis, ‘findability’ is the linchpin to consumer satisfaction and service provider success.
Kannuu’s driving mantra is ‘The Quality of the Experience”. By combining innovative user experiences with state of the art personalization techniques, Kannuu’s findability engine intuits in real time what a consumer is searching for, presents ‘aha’ prompts and most importantly, dramatically reduces the frustration and time traditionally associated with finding that perfect movie.
Consumers crave instant ‘findability,’ and Kannuu delivers with an experience second to none, providing exceptional user experiences tailored in a personalized fashion to allow a unified discovery experience across all OTT/IPTV services, VOD offerings and traditional linear programs.
At the same time, Kannuu affords service providers – both Pay TV and OTT –boundless opportunity to differentiate their offering, attract and retain consumers, drive extra spend, increase ad revenue, and fully monetize their video assets.
The icing on the cake — being platform agnostic and committed to open standards, the Kannuu search and discovery platform integrates seamlessly with all Internet-enabled STBs (present & future).
According to research firm ABI, consumer exposure to advanced recommendations engines will grow to reach 75% of Pay TV households on multiscreen services and 55% on set-top boxes within North America by 2018, up from 20% and 10% in 2013, respectively.
This significant growth is driven by today’s highly competitive viewer landscape for Pay TV and OTT operators. At the core of this are search, recommendation and discovery technologies that rely heavily on rich metadata as well as user analysis and learning.
Said Multimedia Research Group Vice President of Global Research, Norm Bogen, “Recommendation engines will control our TV viewing behavior and customer satisfaction […] They will be instrumental in attracting new service subscribers, and will allow providers to expand advertising revenue and optimize profitability. Recommendation systems will usher in the new personalized TV experience.”
Read FYI Television blog post: The Rise of the TV Recommendation Engine
Last week Amazon released Fire TV, yet another fine streaming media set top box that excels on so many fronts but stumbles when it comes to what consumers want most — easy & accurate universal search — succinctly put: the ability to search across all channels, apps & services for something to watch.
While we’re glad to learn Fire TV’s ‘Siri-like’ voice control helps search along, truth be told, voice control & gesture alone will never vanquish the search limitations inherent in connected TV. Just as the typical search using an onscreen keyboard will keep connected TV from achieving its full entertainment potential. (Disclosure: Kannuu is ecumenical when it comes to search input — so long as the results are lightning fast and completely accurate, and most importantly, consumers are thrilled with the experience!)
As we pointed out in Top Takeaways From #TVConnect London – OTT is King & STBs Reign, the present and future for STBs are bright as consumer appetite for OTT content continues to prove insatiable.
The reviews for Amazon Fire TV are mostly positive. But a recurring critique is how voice control falls short when it comes to universal search.
According to a review on PVRblog, “Amazon Fire TV First Impressions,” “The biggest failing is that end users (that’s us!) don’t get a truly Universal Search.”
And industry guru Colin Dixon on nScreenMedia, cites “No unified search” as reason number 1 in his review, “4 reasons not to buy Amazon’s Fire TV.”
We wish Fire TV and the entire STB industry the very best.
More than this, however, we wish STBs would give consumers what they want and tap the unbridled power, proven performance and ease of use of the Kannuu search and discovery ‘findability’ platform!