CTAM Summit '06: Tech Roundup

by Leslie Ellis // July 27 2006

From high definition TV as a broadband video killer, to multiple declarations that user-generated video is the hottest thing going, to Intel's repeat observation that cable "doesn't have to die," the recent CTAM Summit, which gathers cable marketers in one place to talk shop, produced a laundry list of juicy, tech-side tidbits.

Let's start with this spicy quote from Mark Cuban, CEO of HDnet: "I'll tell you with complete certainty: No one will be streaming HD video, not this year, not in 5 years, not in 10 years."

His point: Overall broadband capacity, and especially video-over DSL (digital subscriber line), isn't roomy enough for high definition video streaming, which requires 6-8 Mbps per stream -- even with the most advanced compressors.

And yes, the language of HDTV remains confusing to those consumers wading through the gibberish of aspect ratio and screen type. But from a retailer's perspective, HDTV is "a steamroller that's moving very fast & it's a runaway train," according to Douglas Moore, EVP/chief marketing officer, Circuit City. As for high return rates on HDTV sets -- they aren't as high as, say, phone answering machines, and "very few people actually bring (an HD set) back to the store."

Also on the retail front: When it comes to making the decision to buy an HD set, women are as influential, if not more so, than men, said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association. "For some retailers, it's a shift they haven't figured out yet."

User-generated content

Nearly every keynoter at the CTAM Summit mentioned the term "user-generated video" as the new-new thing -- including Judy McGrath, CEO of MTV Networks; Shawn Gold, chief marketing officer for MySpace.com; and Intel's McDonald.

(If you're older than 30, "user-generated video" is the stuff you capture on your cell phone, and send along to your friends. If you're under 30, it's the stuff you capture on a phone or a camera, edit and manipulate to make it better/funnier, and upload for mass-sharing to a web site like Youtube.com or JibJab.com.)

McGrath, for instance, called user-generated content "he biggest trend in the first six months of this year."

The sweet spot for short-form content appears to be eight minutes, by the way, or at least no longer than 30 minutes. So much for the American attention span.

Self-generated video cropped up regularly in breakout sessions, too. Our favorite one-liner on the subject: "Youtube-styled video is the new black." (Compliments of Leo LaPorte, on-air personality for TechTV Canada.)

Sling me

Time-shifted video is now nearly mainstream; location shifting is next. No great surprise, then, that Sling Media's Slingbox came up in several CTAM Summit sessions.

From the operator side, it's not as easy as duct-taping a location-shifting module onto a set-top, because "then I'm in a thousand and one conversations about whether or not it's allowable, in the construct of our commercial relationships" with program networks, noted Mike Lee, chief strategy officer for Rogers.

From the observer side, Sling is cool, useful, and easy to use but not the most beautiful consumer device to grace the living room. "It's such an ugly little box," said Molly Wood, executive director of CNET.com.

TechTV's LaPorte: "It's the ugliest industrial design I've ever seen."

How to Pick the Winners

Perhaps the most practical bit of marketing tech talk came from Kaan Yigit, president of Solutions Research Group, who offered four attributes to help determine whether a new technology is headed for success, or is just another interesting idea that falls by the wayside.

The four attributes: Things that save consumers time, things that show up in business and life, things with pricing that conforms to the existing value equation, and things that conform to the dominant design.

Example: DVRs save time by scrunching the viewing of a 60 minute show into 40 minutes (sans ads.) Connectivity devices, like Blackberries, cross between personal and professional use. Subscription pricing is familiar; pay-per-song, as one example, is a relatively new pricing model.

As for conforming to dominant design -- remember those weird computer keyboards that split into two pieces, supposedly for ergonomic relief? They never really took off, because they didn't look or feel like "regular" keyboards -- they didn't conform to the dominant design.

Not Dead Yet

Probably the most peculiar outlook at this year's Summit (besides Freakonomics author Steven Levitt likening cable to crack cocaine) came from tech-side keynoter Donald McDonald, VP/GM of Intel's Digital Home Group. During his speech, he interspersed two death-related quotes (one by Isaac Asimov, one by Somerset Maugham. Then he closed his remarks with a similarly odd observation: "You don't need to die.' (Good to know.)

If you're thinking you've seen this Intel scene before, you have. Andy Grove, Intel's guru, spoke at the same conference, on the same day (July 18), in 1995, and delivered a similar theme: Keep ahead of the broadband competition (which, at the time, was telco ISDN) -- or else.

In closing, and as a matter of full disclosure, I assist CTAM in building that necessary but elusive bridge between technology and marketing. I can say with certainty that the amount of tech-side material emerging from this yea's Summit surprised me -- in a good way. Even Intel's death comment redux was amusing ... must've been that British accent.

This column originally appeared in the Technology section of Multichannel News.

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