The future is coming into view. Soon, entertainment won’t be bound to the platform it came in on — the content you want to watch will finally be accessible wherever you want to watch it. One of the most important venues is of course the living room. Between gaming consoles, browser-enabled TVs, startup set-top boxes, network DVRs, simple cables — it’s a battle to see who can bring the flexibility and variety of online video delivery to the comfort of your couch. There are only about 10 million Americans accessing Internet-delivered content on their TVs today, so who will be the one to bring it mainstream?
There’s a corollary: traditional television operators going online. This is the year of “TV Everywhere” and other initiatives to stake a claim on Hulu’s turf — cable, satellite and IPTV providers are all innovating in a hurry to fend off cord-cutters before they proliferate. Authenticated TV services are the great hope for a new web business model: paid content. Our conference is timed to coincide with the first releases of these tremendously promising (but not necessarily perfectly executed) TV Everywhere offerings.
