Angry Birds on TV? Maybe Not

With multiscreen video here to stay, operators have been working on unifying consumer interaction across devices, in part through a user guide that translates across media. Taking this a step further, the question becomes just how similar the cross-device functionality should be.Specifically, in the mobile world, apps have become key to the user experience. Should the same be true for television? The answer is both yes and no, said Terry Hughes, managing director and SVP of AppCarousel. While consumers do want more experiences, the expectation must be that apps for television should be different from those on mobile devices."I don't see the long-term benefits of having Angry Birds on the television," Hughes said. "That is a touch screen app that works nicely on tablets. Why replicate the experience? The apps on TV are more infotainment ... apps that are relevant to the context you are in."In other words, apps on TV should be optimized for that medium: checking the weather or the status of home automation, getting news snapshots, or engaging further with programming. MSOs also could use an app paradigm to deliver long-tail content or as an additional advertising realm. And they could use apps to integrate things like Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and YouTube into their service offering."If you go the same way (as mobile) with apps in a silo excluded from linear TV, that is not the right strategy," Hughes said. "They need to be a more integral part of the TV experience where users might not even know they are using an app."There are three main obstacles currently to the explosion of apps for television: lack of platform standardization and distribution and monetization challenges. For starters, even though Samsung has made inroads with its smart TVs, the comfort level isn't there yet for developers who would like to "write once, run anywhere," Hughes said.Second, there are questions about where the apps would reside - the set-top, the gaming console, the TV, for example - and there isn't a mechanism for monetization."With mobile, you can download and pay for apps. Those systems aren't really in place for TV," Hughes said.The good news for operators is that they are in a good place to drive what Hughes calls the new app economy. As providers of video and Internet services, cable ops have a connection into the home, giving them the opportunity to drive standardization of the termination device. And they are ideally suited for leveraging their subscriber relationships and back-office technology for distribution and monetization, Hughes said.Taking a straw poll during his presentation at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Atlanta last month, Hughes determined that the so-called "storming stage" for TV apps is probably next year. The battle lines will be drawn as the industry wraps its head around the concept."Norming is three to four years away," Hughes said. "Norming is where we were three to four years ago in mobile when people started to accept that apps were what they wanted and the ecosystems matured ... that is where we need to get to (in TV), although it will be very different from what we see on mobile."Monta Monaco Hernon is a free-lance writer. She can be reached at [email protected].