At 9:01 on March 31, 2013 I took out my iPad and opened the HBO Go app to see how HBO was going to handle the season premier of Game of Thrones.
Were they going to follow the old model of premiering on TV only or were they going to be somewhat forward thinking , be all hip and cool, and let me watch the season 3 premier on my iPad?
The answer: Hip and cool. all. night. long.
All the tiles that are normally there for movies and shows became one big ad for Game of Thrones.
I watched the opening scene on the ipad using airplay assuming the experience would suck. Airplay has never been great for me, streaming “live” (quasi-live in this case) never really works well en-mass still, but to my shock, it was great!
The only use case I see for this type of consumption where I have to log in on my ipad to watch content that is available on my TV is leaching (i.e. using a family TWC password that is not directly in “ones” household to view HBO Go).
That all being said, it is really interesting to see the approach that HBO is taking versus Netflix. They seem to be converging from opposite ends of the media consumption curve and approaching the torso where content is largely on the device of your choosing and consumed at the time you wish.
The new TV model might be heading ala cart, it might be heading all on demand, it might be heading to Shelby.tv but what is for sure is that media is converging on the torso of the media consumption curve.