Dear Mr. Schonfeld,

Last week you were quoted (video here) as saying:

"We don’t think plain vanilla video is the native experience people expect when they’re watching online on their tablets. You expect to touch it."

I hear you. And in many other cases I would agree with you.

But I have to call bullshit on this one. The argument you are trying to make is too nuanced to say "people expect" more interactive video.

The many millions of people watching video online are most certainly not looking to touch the video they are watching while watching it.

To understand what people might want to do while watching video on their tablets, you need to understand what they are watching and when they are watching video on their tablets. Only then will you understand what they want to do with that video when they are watching.

What they are watching

A recent eMarketer study shows that people are watching more longer form content, including movies and TV shows, on their iPads. Specifically:

• People are watching movies 25% more on tablets than on smartphones.
• People are watching almost 60% more TV shows on tablets than on smartphones.
• People are watching 28% less user generated content (e.g. YouTube) on tablets than on smartphones.

When are they watching

People are spending more and more time watching video on their tablets. They're watching longer form content. It's happening in homes, in lean back mode, in bed or on the couch. The busiest tablet usage times seem to be between 5PM to 10pm (adjusted to person's local time).

What does this mean?

Yeah, people might be on the couch watching some YouTube video, or more likely an episode of Parks and Recreation via Netflix, but regardless they’re in a mode where they just want to be entertained, not to have to think, not to have to decide what button or widget to click that appears over a video.

There is already too high of a perceived cost in choosing what “vanilla” video to pick to watch. Adding interactive features on top of a video only increases the cost of choosing what video to watch.

Mr. Schonfeld, I would love to see some empirical, non-self selecting, evidence that shows otherwise.

In your interview you also said:

"What hasn’t really happened yet is a revolution in creation – everything we see is still a lean-back experience..."

I often think that video on a tablet is lean-back for a reason. The tablet is something you hold. Something that has the opportunity to be closer to us than our TVs (both literally and metaphorically speaking) and I'd like to see the experience outside of the actual video get better, not what is plopped on top of the video I actually take the time to dig into and watch.

Yes, I think there will be some place for interactive video in the future and your insight into the timing is well thought out. The advances in bandwidth available to people and increased processing power in tablets will lead to some interesting things, but for the most part, people just want to be entertained as simply as possible.

I would love to continue this conversation and hear more of your thoughts on the future directions of online video.

Best,
Henry Sztul, Ph.D.
Entertainment Scientist
Shelby.tv

How web series are going no where until a habit forming subscription model is found.

In May 2013 I found a new web series that I absolutely loved** but despite the fact that it was really funny and the topic was one that I feel like I live through every day, I could not keep up with it for the life of me. I probably watched 60% of the episodes published in the shows first “season” and I totally missed the boat when a second season came out.

Who remembers to go back to that publishers page (within YouTube for instance) to check if something new has popped out?

If you discovered the series early in its lifespan, the onus is on you to do the work to keep up.

If you found the series later on, awesome, binge away! But once again, when the next “season” (or whatever we are going to call bursts of episodes in the future) starts, good luck with that!

Nurturing a hunt and peck approach

YouTube has been pushing viewers to subscribe to channels they find interesting and they will show you video from those sources when new content becomes available.

This has one main flaw: it predicates that you are buying into YouTube as your source of episodic web video and checking back in on a regular basis. The issue: this is a very lean forward approach. You, the viewer, have to remember a lot. Remember that you had something that you enjoyed on YouTube. Remember that the show you watched on YouTube is episodic and might come out with a new video in the next week or two. Just too much to remember for a supposedly relaxing thing to do!

Blip.tv and Vimeo have similar offerings with episodic video series that you can “follow” and get actual notifications when new content is available. They realized that what YouTube is trying to do is too complex for the end user. The end user can’t be left responsible to remember to come back to try and find that video series they thought was cool. It has to be simple. KISS.

Episodic content exists because of habits

I would postulate for the average consumer Blip, Vimeo and YouTube are all too complicated when it comes to video viewing habits though,especially for episodic content where follow up views must become a habit. Author Nir Eyal points out in his book Hooked:

“Habits form when the brain takes a shortcut and stops actively deliberating over what to do next.”

What seems to be missing from the experience of trying to consume any episodic video on the web is that there are no shortcuts available to give the brain a rest. That little bit of rest is what most people are looking for when sitting back and watching something that is supposed to be entertaining.

Most people come home from work, sit on their couch, and just want to be entertained. They know that Monday night, Football is on; Thursday night, The Big Bang Theory is on; and Saturday night, SNL is on. It’s all a habit.

What does the future hold for episodic web video?

While the production quality of episodic web video is making tremendous improvements (really tremendous) there is still no product out there with the reliability or ease of television (as most people know it) to form habits that will stick.

The product that can simplify, unify, and make episodic web video a habit for the average viewer will instantly click with consumers and become the heir of the traditional TV model as we know it.

** The series in question is: “Convos with my 2 year-old” (Also available on Shelby.tv as a continuous stream of full screen video here.)

Here are a list of some other web series that are great:

• The Morning After (Above Average)
• Jake and Amir (College Humor)
• High Maintenance (Helping You Maintain)
• Hooked Up (Reserve Channel)
• Comedians in cars getting coffee (Jerry Seinfeld)

An approach to achieving something big

I have lots of ideas for products, both for digital and physical products. A lot of people I know are like this. Under the right conditions ideas just flow. For some people it happens in the shower. For others it's on a run. Regardless where it happens, what you do with those ideas are what matter.

Last week I had an idea.**

On of the first pieces of feedback I heard was:

That's too small an idea. You should think bigger!

Thinking big is great, and for years that's what I tried to do. But I have a secret to tell you.

Thinking big has never gotten me anywhere.

I've actually never experienced "thinging big" as a thing that actually helped me get anywhere. Don't get me wrong, I've heard it get people places, I've just never seen it get anyone anywhere first hand.

Goals are great, right? Absolutely! As long as they are realistic that is. If my goal is to be President of the United States, well, that just not realistic. Maybe a good idea but not something I can make happen.

So with this idea, I'm taking a different approach (than I normally would take at least).

I'm starting small and "thinking little".

I'm asking myself questions like:

• What's the simplest version of this idea?
• What's the smallest incarnation of this idea that can be successful?
• Will this little idea for a product/service work?

...baby step onto the elevator... baby step into the elevator... I'm in the elevator. -Bob

If I can start to answer some of these questions and execute well, then it's time to think a little bigger and ask myself how what I've learned can translate into something bigger.

I'm learning successful big ideas comes from a well excecuted series of little ideas. It's not that I don't have big asperations. It's not that I can't see my little idea turn into something big. It is the case that I see my little idea having a better chance of seeing the day of light if I keep it little and realistic.

If I set a goal for myself to take my kids to the read a book to my kids every night. That is something meaningful. That is something worth working towards. That is something small that can go a long way. Thinking little to achieve something big.

Whats the smallest idea you can think of that you can execute will in a realistic time frame thats worth your while?

** And almost no idea is truly original. Ideas do not form in a vacuum. Rather, ideas are born from a magical place where experience meets creativity. Most ideas are born from a connection that is made that connects things that exist in a new and interesting way some times with new and interesting constraints. This idea came and was advanced by discussions with several people.

This is a blog post written using Ghost... BOO!
Not sure what I am going to do with this yet, but its here!

Overall my thoughts on Ghost so far: impressive project; looking forward to more themes being created; really looking forward to seeing what this team does in the coming year.

Getting all set up was pretty straight forward so I will try to summarize what it took below.

Create a virtual machine

1. I really like Digital Ocean more and more. The guys at Digital Ocean are building a solid cloud hosting product using SSD tech so I went with them. Did I mention that the base box costs $5/month!?! Its really simple to get started. I setup a SSD cloud box with 512MB of RAM and 20GB HDD space in 2 min.

2. I created a user for myself to work with that has sudo privilages.

Install Node + NPM + Forever

1. Node: I used a package manager. Find instructions on how to here. Depending on your version of Ubuntu (or whatever you roll) you might need this:
   sudo apt-get install software-properties-common

2. NPM: Depending on the version of node you install you might get npm for free when you install node. If not you should be able to tack on this after installing node:
   sudo apt-get install npm

3. Forever: I am using forever to keep the node process that runs Ghost alive. To install Forever:
   [sudo] npm install forever

4. Make sure all this worked. Try out:
   node -v
forever --help

Download Ghost

Right now you need to be a backer of the Ghost kickstarter project to download the source code. I'm not how strict the Ghost team is about sharing the source code right now, but if you are interested in getting an early copy, email me here and I will inquire if its kosher on your behalf.

Once you have downloaded the source:
1. unzip what you downloaded. duh.
2. cd into the ghost directory.
3. To start ghost all you need to do is run:
npm install --production
but to get this puppy up and running for the world to see you must...

Install NGINX

Simple:
sudo apt-get install nginx
Now to proxy things correctly (a little more challenging, probably the hardest part of all this)**:

# /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
http {
    ...
    include sites-enabled/*.conf;
    ...
}

# /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ghost.conf
upstream nodejs {
    server 127.0.0.1:2368;
}

server {
    server_name {yourservername.tld};
    root /path/to/ghost;

    access_log /path/to/ghost/access.log;
    error_log /path/to/ghost/error.log;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://nodejs;
    }
}

Reload + restart nginx: sudo service nginx restart and you should be good to go!

I have a domain, ghost.sztul.com, pointed to this new box so the server name in the above code block points there. Bing, bang, boom, My ghost blog is live.

Now, the question, what to do with blog.sztul.com and how to transfer whats there to here!

** credit for this config goes to this post in the ghost forum.

First, if you haven’t checked if you can get the new GMail interface with categorized tabs, try clicking on the “gear" icon (top right) and click on ‘Configure inbox’ in the drop down (if its there, you can enable this new-ish feature).

I found myself wanting to move between categories with my keyboard.
The trick:

Use the ` key to navigate between ‘Primary’, ‘Social’, etc.

Dishes are done dude.

Google I/O was an interesting event this year and as usual, Google gave all attendees a parting gift. A Chromebook Pixel. A machine I never would have bought myself, but the more I use, the more I like.

As a second laptop, one that for the most part stays at home or comes with me on trips, the Pixel is just about perfect. Also it follows a paradigm that my 3yr old daughter expects (i.e. it has a touch screen).

Where the Pixel has fallen flat so far is as a machine to develop with.
Until yesterday.

Over the weekend I left my Macbook Pro on my desk at Shelby.tv and ventured into the great unknown that is developing on the Pixel!

Step 1: Developer Mode

My first thought was I need shell access! Pressing ctrl-alt-T gets you a terminal but its crosh. So I endevoured to get my Pixel into developer mode which gets you a real shell to work in. I followed this helpful tutorial. Then I realized that while this was close to the right direction. It’s not really what I need right now.

Step 2: Embrace the Cloud

My framework of choice is Ruby on Rails and for the most part when I build something on the side, it’s using Heroku. So the next step on my journey was getting a cloud server to develop on which I could then connect to Github, Heroku, etc.

The guys at Digital Ocean are building a solid cloud hosting product using SSD tech so I went with them. Did I mention that the base box costs $5/month!?!

SSH onto that box. Set that machine up. Git, Vim, Heroku to your hearts delight.
BUT I’m a web developer and I want actually see and feel what it is I am working on. In my browser. Not just in the code. So…

Step 3: REALLY Embrace the Cloud

Enter Cloud 9. Cloud 9 gives you a pretty full fledged IDE experience (pictured below). You can push and pull to Git to your hearts delight. Although I couldn’t get the feature to work properly you are also supposed to be able to deploy to Heroku too.

So my workflow over the weekend was:
1) open a new window in ChromeOS
2) open Cloud 9 in one tab
3) open the terminal ssh’d into my new cloud box in another tab.
4) I write code in Cloud 9 push it to Github and in the tab with my terminal, I pull changes and deploy to Heroku!

One additional way to improve this workflow in the future is going to be to create a “scrap” directory in my apps where I code pure html that I can preview in Cloud 9 before I add any ruby erb goodness.

Stay tuned

This can’t be the ideal setup, so I’ll be updating this post in the near future.
I’d love to hear if you have any other tips for developing on this machine

Follow me on Twitter @sztul (and say hi!)

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.

AOL, Facebook, and iOS are each a walled garden in their own way.

I have never really understood why people flock to walled gardens on the Internet, until something clicked recently and now its clear as day to me, or at least as clear as this snowy day can be to me.

Walled gardens such as the ones listed above provide a few things (of course) but the one that I think is the most important is constraints. While I’d like to think I dont need them (on the Internet) most people definitely do.

AOL provided clarity online when most people didn’t know what to do or where to go as there was no instruction manual. AOL was their manual for the Internet.

Facebook provided a purpose for most people who were looking for a place that made sense to them to communicate with and learn more about their friends. Facebook was their happy place.
iOS provided quality to the cell phone app environment and by setting standards and boundaries, people wanted in. iOS apps were wanted due to the bar set to be allowed in that marketplace.

Good constraints act like a yellow brick road to get you from something you’d like to do to actually getting that thing done.

Constraints provide clarity, purpose, and quality.

Constraints create value.

This past weekend I figured I’d see what all the kids are talking about and gave Temple Run 2 a whirl on my Samsung Galaxy S3.

The overall game experience seemed cool at first. Until I got ~5 sec. into the game. I have played the original Temple Run once or twice (ok, more like a lot) and knew I was looking for coins and looking to not run into or off of shit. What ensued was pretty funny.

I ran off bridges, into walls, and into rivers.
I collected no coins (unless it were by chance) and overall I was left with a WTF moment.

I had no idea what was going on. Until I realized… I am color blind and this games color scheme was TOTALLY not designed for me. The coins blend in with the ground. The turns are mostly masked by color similarities. Totally unusable for me!

After recently reading this article about how Duck Hunt works I was left with thinking about the importance of contrast and simplicity in design. In Duck Hunt, the sky is blue and the birds are white/black. So easy to establish what you’re objective is and how to obtain it. In Temple Run 2, the ground and the coins are each a different hue of yellow (i think).

Setting users up for success in an app means being explicitly clear what’s going on at all times. What is going on and what is expected should be crystal clear.

The creators of Temple Run probably did not consider the color blind when designing. Thats forgivable and probably understandable. BUT what they should have considered is creating and using contrast to establish what should be done in the game. Instead, they are relying on the success of their first game.

Note to self: Be explicit and and design with contrast in mind when building anything going forward.

You hear over and over things like “ideas are a dime a dozen" and “talk is cheap" where the overarching message is that execution is king. Maybe nothing new here but some things I find important to point out.

Simple ideas are hard to come by.

Execution of a simple idea is harder than it seems (much harder).

There is tremendous value in simplifying the complex.

I am making it a priority to keep these three points on simplicity (or complexity) when evaluating other products or my own.

You often hear about people saying Twitter is so simple (technically speaking), nothing special there. Well guess what. Executing on that simple idea of what Twitter started as and solving the complexities that must have popped up along the way, is incredibly hard and impressive.

Now think: If executing on some simple idea is hard, whats it like to execute on something hard?