Analyst Predicts Death Of The DVD And Media Metric Mayhem

The Next Google will solve this media metric mayhem because it will be able to collect data, second-by-second, from all services/devices connected to the broadband pipe and deliver relevant advertising to ANY display.

CDs are dying, are DVDs next?

Michael Nathanson, analyst for Bernstein Research, is predicting the demise of the DVD as the dominant vehicle for consumer video. His prediction comes as DVD sales are down more than 4% for the year according to data from Nielsen VideoScan.

Perhaps a more pressing problem for the movie industry is consumers' increasing preference for watching movies through Video on Demand (VoD) services.

Another development of note to Nathanson is the popularity of game consoles. “Media investors take note,” he writes. “As if we don’t have enough to worry about already, the growth of next generation video gaming poses a new and legitimate risk to traditional media consumption on many fronts.”

“The rising interest of next-generation gaming presents traditional media with a basic core problem - my kids (and millions of other kids) are now opting to play their Wiis rather than watch TV,” he writes.

“While the TV viewing data does not bore this out, the observational evidence is obvious (to me)…the level of consumer interactivity and engagement that these next-generation game platforms offer fulfills my children in a way that TV cannot. And while I am not complaining about that, the media analyst in me winces about this future generation’s use of traditional media.”

Want to know who is the Next Google?

Could This Be Bigger Than Google?

What would make Google even more powerful?

If they were able to analyze ALL of your Internet activity (non Google related sites) and deliver appropriate advertising. In order to provide that, Google would have to embed an application higher up the "broadband chain", like the modem. This would allow them to collect data and provide advertising on ALL websites you visit.

How can they do that or is it already taking place?

That would be pretty valuable, but that would only provide information (and advertising) for one of the "triple play" services, the Internet. Missing from this database are the activities from TV, Voice (and soon mobile).

The Next Google will be able to collect data, second-by-second, from all services/devices connected to the broadband pipe and deliver relevant advertising to ANY display.

Services include the Internet,TV, voice and mobile. Devices include PCs, laptops, game devices (Playstations etc), home phones, cellphones.

The Next Google is the gatekeeper, or "toolbar" of the pipe coming into your home, not just to your PC.

This company exists and this service is coming.

Last night their CEO said ""We believe ******'s ability to report actual anonymous second-by-second program and advertising audience viewership data from tens of millions of set top boxes (STB)s represents a huge technological and informational leap from today's television measurement standard"

"We currently have access to 500,000 set-top-boxes (STBs) made available to us through different network operators from multiple TV markets from which we are collecting,
aggregating and reporting anonymous, second-by-second data to our development partners."

"Similar to our ******** service that is collecting anonymous, census-level data representing more than 45 million set top boxes (STBs), we have architected ******* to comfortably scale to handle this same granular level of anonymous data from significantly more STBs in the 110 million U.S. TV households today."

When Google teamed up with Nielsen for TV ads, I explained there is a much bigger market they are missing. A much better solution.

I discussed how this company, and their service, could be The Next Google .

It has even been called Holy Grail census-level sample of all set-tops.

Know what company this is?

The Next Google Is The "Pipe" Gatekeeper

Last week I posted a story called Who Or What Is The Next Google?

A simple infomercial allowed me to ponder what the Next Google will be.

Google is great at delivering relevant ads when we search for content online, but they can only analyze (for now) one stream in our "pipe" and only when we actively use their site on it.

The Next Google will be able to analyze all content coming in and out of our "pipe", from ALL devices, whether it is used actively or passively.

Using a recent incident, I can envision what the Next Google is and how valuable the info it generates is worth to many industries.

This past week I was doing the old surfing(besides the Net) through TV channels and came across an infomercial for the Express101 Meal Cooker, a waffle-like contained George Foreman cooking device.

For 39.95 I thought I would try it out, so I called the 800 number on the screen to order. They use a speech recognition system to take orders. After a couple of "I'm sorry if that isn't correct" responses, I decided to go online and buy the device. In order to confirm the order, I had to give them my email address.

After I received my purchase confirm email, I realized what the Next Google is or does.

The Next Google will be able to determine and utilize the following info:

- how "sticky" that Express101 infomercial was
- what ad I WAS watching when I started surfing
- how long it took me to watch the ad before I called to order,
- the/whose speech recognition application did not work
- the phone number I used to place the order
- how long after failing to get a response from speech recog did I go online
- what website is my home page and what browser I use (more info to come with ipV6)
- did I type in the specific URL or did I use a search engine to find the product site
- if I used a search engine, what keywords did I use
- what credit card I used to buy the product
- what my email address is
- did I click on any of the ads on that site
- did I continue to watch the infomercial after I bought the product

Think of how much more relevant and targeted advertising can be on ALL of your connected devices when ALL of your "pipe" behavior is take into consideration.

Software is going on millions of set-top boxes and collects all of this data. In my opinion they will be the "Next Google".