Rovi to Deliver Digital Entertainment Advertising Program for Toyota

Rovi Corporation recently announced that it is collaborating with Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. to launch an interactive TV advertising initiative for the Toyota Tundra on the Rovi Advertising Network. Rovi’s product offering gives Toyota the ability to bring an innovative advertising experience to consumers and enables viewers to learn more about Toyota’s products through rich and dynamic content made available through advanced portals on the Rovi Advertising Network.

The Rovi Advertising Network offers advertising on Rovi guides—the ‘home page’ of the television where consumers go to find out what’s on TV—and on third-party interactive TV platforms, including set-top boxes, TVs and Blu-ray players. Rovi guides provide advertisers with a unique platform for reaching and engaging viewers via consumer destinations, or portals, while they are actively looking for new programming and in ‘decision-mode.’ Rovi guides represent a highly-trafficked area on TV: 87% of monitored households access the guide weekly; guide users on average visit the guide nine times daily; and users spend 13 minutes in the guide daily.

Because users of the Rovi platform are not limited to :30 second commercials, Toyota is able to offer consumers the opportunity to dive deeper and learn more about the Toyota Tundra. By accessing Toyota banner ads on Rovi guides, consumers can use their remote controls to view videos, photos and other Tundra product information.

ActiveVideo Urges Network-Based Platform to Speed Adoption of Web Video on TV

The president and CEO of ActiveVideo Networks called on the media, entertainment and CE communities to agree on a single, unified platform for the delivery of Web video to the television. ActiveVideo’s Jeff Miller outlined how “Platform Chaos” – the fragmentation of countless video devices and technologies -- must be overcome in order to accelerate the rollout and monetization of compelling interactive and Web-to-TV services.

Encouraging all facets of the industry to “join the cloud,” Miller talked about how the scramble to develop competing, proprietary solutions has created confusion and complexity that impacts the ability of content developers and consumers to connect. Miller stressed that placing intelligence in the network cloud, instead of in the CE device or digital set-top box, would enable developers to write content once and deploy universally to any device, and would relieve consumers of the challenge of identifying, purchasing and integrating new equipment for their home theater systems.

According to Miller, adoption of a solution such as ActiveVideo’s CloudTV™ would provide a common platform that would lift restrictions on the number and types of applications available, as well as the ability to port content across multiple devices. In a cloud-based system, Web-based applications, social media, user interfaces and other content is processed in the network and streamed to any device.

For more information, visit www.activevideo.com.

Parks Associates presents new consumer research on video services and set-tops at CONNECTIONS™ Europe

Ericsson, Widevine, Bestv, Veveo, Zeitera, and IP Vision will participate in an executive session discussing interactive TV services and other value-added services at CONNECTIONS™ Europe, November 15-16, Amsterdam.

The session “Next-Gen Video Services: Personalization and Flexibility” is one of multiple sessions at CONNECTIONS™ Europe, hosted by Parks Associates, featuring consumer data and insights about new business strategies to differentiate TV offerings.

The interactive session includes the following participants:

-- Eddie Abrams, CEO, IP Vision
-- Giuseppe Flores d'Arcais, CEO and Founder, Bestv
-- Dan Eakins, CEO, Zeitera
-- Daren Gill, Vice President, Product, Veveo
-- Erik Kruse, Strategic Marketing Manager, Senior Expert Consumer Behavior, Ericsson AB
-- Doug Light, Senior VP of Business Development and Sales, Widevine

Consumers want services such as video-on-demand through their existing set-top boxes. Blending broadcast with IP and value-added services such as 3D, widgets, interactive advertising, video mail, caller ID, and interactive gaming is a key strategy for providers to maintain revenues in an increasingly competitive market.

For information or to register, visit http://www.connectionseurope.com.

Trailer Park Becomes First Entertainment Development Partner for

ActiveVideo Networks™, the global leader in cloud-based interactive television, and Trailer Park, the industry's largest entertainment marketing agency, today announced that Trailer Park’s recently formed Advanced Content Group (TPAC) has become the first major content developer to officially embrace the power of the ActiveVideo® CloudTV™ platform currently in close to 5 million homes.

Trailer Park will leverage the widely distributed CloudTV platform in tandem with its industry-leading creative capabilities to deliver interactive entertainment to interactive TV audiences. ActiveVideo anticipates that it will be in 10 million homes by the end of 2010.

ActiveVideo immerses viewers in an engaging experience that combines Web video, Web 2.0 functionality and traditional television. With ActiveVideo, viewers can navigate a completely interactive environment of both linear and broadband programming, including rich interfaces and graphics optimized for TV and remote control navigation; social networking; personal media; niche content; and targeted, actionable advertising. ActiveVideo uses intelligent MPEG streaming to deliver the Web 2.0 experience to a worldwide television audience through both legacy and next-generation digital set-top boxes and broadband-connected devices.

For the full press release, click here.

Numericable and Nagravision launch a comprehensive widget TV solution and announce the introduction of multicast TV broadcasting technology

Numericable has chosen Nagravision's, a Kudelski Group company, widget platform for the launch of its "Widget TV" service on its network. Widgets will allow Numericable customers to interact with their TV and build a genuine social network as part of their TV experience.

The partnership between the Kudelski Group and Numericable will also translate into the introduction in 2010 of a new "SDV" technology enabling the use of an increasing number of channels thanks to the multicast broadcasting technology.

TV widgets symbolize TV 2.0. A widget is a small, easy-to-use software application that lets consumers interact with online information in a graphically appealing way. It creates a targeted and familiar environment with recommendation of relevant data for consumers making them more likely to return to a certain service of interest.

Numericable will in particular offer the "MyTV" widget that will make it possible to send program alerts to friends. Subsequently, Numericable subscribers will be able to choose widgets from a large gallery including live and on-demand recommendation widgets as well as widgets allowing them to share videos and track their updates from online social networks.

Nagravision's widget platform will allow Numericable to work together with content providers and software application developers in order to develop innovative services in relation with the content being viewed or addressing specific consumer needs. The widget platform will be open and will encourage external developments as does the Apple Store.

For the full press release, click here.

CONNECTIONS™ Europe Sessions - Day 1

Tuesday 4 December
1515-1525
IPTV and Interactive TV
From the Chair: Video Services in the Context of the Digital Home

Pillar 1 of The Digital Home is IPTV and Interactive TV, which lays the foundation for entertainment services, home networking, communications, and value-added applications. The Analyst Chair opens this session with an examination and key predictions of the current IPTV and interactive television landscape.

Speaker
Kurt Scherf, Vice President and Principal Analyst, Parks Associates

CONNECTIONS™ Europe Agenda