An iPad App that Stays in Sync with Your TV

The days when TV viewers did nothing else while watching their favorite shows are long over. Instead, many viewers now multitask while watching TV and browse the Internet on their laptops, iPads and smartphones. Now, a new iPad app from ABC (iTunes link) wants to bridge this gap and turns the iPad into an interactive companion to the TV network's new "My Generation" series (a fake documentary) that will make its debut next week. The app uses the iPad's microphone to listen for audio cues from the TV and then displays relevant interactive content as every episode progresses.

While this is currently just an experiment focused on one show, it's not hard to image that TV networks could turn to similar apps for all of their programming.

The free My Generation Sync app will give users the ability to interact with the show by taking quizzes, for example. Viewers will also be able to access behind the scenes footage and bios of the show's characters. In addition, the app will also allow them to connect with other fans in real-time.

An App that Listens to Your TV

The app was developed on top of Nielsen's Media-Sync technology and uses the iPad's microphone to sync up with the show by listening for audio cues embedded in the show. Thanks to this, the app will also work when you are watching a time-delayed version of the show on your DVR, for example. The app will also display a limit set of information when it isn't synced with the show. For the full experience, though, users will need to use the app in parallel with the show.

Overall, this looks like a very interesting experiment. Even though it is currently limited to just one show, it will be interesting to see if other networks will launch similar apps. These apps will allow TV networks to draw viewers deeper into the show, while also getting them to focus more on ads (the networks have to make money after all). At the same time, this will also give the networks new analytics and a better idea of who their viewers are.

Will You Use these Apps?

Can you see yourself using apps like this? Do you want your iPad to stay in sync with the show you watch, or will you continue browsing the Web while watching the show instead of waiting for interactive content to show up on your iPad?

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Strategy Roundtable: 5 Cloud Computing Opportunities for Entrepreneurs

At today’'s roundtable, I started with a presentation on blue sky opportunities in cloud computing based on our Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing (TLCC) research. I took the audience through five cloud-based business ideas, discussed why they are relevant and pointed them to the sources I derived those ideas from.

For you, readers, here they are:

1. Cloud-based collaboration among bio-medical researchers around large volumes of data

Dr. Marcos Athanasoulis, CTO of Harvard Medical School discussed this idea with me recently. There is a tremendous amount of data sitting at various pockets that bio-medical researchers are trying to collaborate around. The data needs modeling, processing, visualization, etc. – all activities in the domain of computer science, not bio-medical sciences. There is also need for researchers at various institutes to collaborate around this data and models, all problems that point towards a cloud-based solution. An entrepreneur should pick this one up ASAP. From cancer research to genomics, wide arrays of research areas are looking forward to your innovation.

2. Cloud-based legal records management, digitization, archival, retrieval

Michael Aginsky, CTO of Gibbons P.C. pointed me to the vast masses of paper archives sitting at law firms, waiting to be digitized, and archived in meaningful ways along with efficient retrieval capabilities. Law firms are looking for cloud solutions that include security, disaster recovery, and other goodies.

3. Charge-back accounting solution for large enterprises deploying cloud technologies

Ric Telford, VP of cloud services, IBM pointed me to the rather significant move towards rolling out private clouds at large enterprises, a move that IBM is spearheading by providing full stacks of infrastructure technologies. Now, let us say you are an enterprise that has rolled out a rather extensive private cloud, and all your divisions and business units are using it freely. How do you keep track of who is using how much of the resources? How do you account for the charge backs to the business units or functional areas? This is an open opportunity for an entrepreneur to build a custom solution.

4. Cloud-based flexible pricing solution for telecom vendors

Jim Dunlap, CIO of Alaska Telecom discussed with me the increasingly serious problem that telecom vendors are facing due to bandwidth consumption skyrocketing. Today, the telecom industry charges customers based on fixed price business models for data services.

But to keep up with the rate at which bandwidth consumption is scaling, telecom vendors almost certainly will need to adopt a variable pricing model, such that they can charge based on consumption, just as they charge for voice services. The utility industry charges based on how much energy or water is consumed, but the telecom industry assumes unlimited data usage for a fixed fee. Jim’'s interview with me (coming shortly) sheds light on why this will change, and how the infrastructure needs to adapt.

5. Cloud integration services around specific vendors

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The Social Layer: Good for Google Apps but Not So Much for the Rest of Us

The enterprise community has been talking about the "social layer," for almost a year. It's the SaaS services such as Salesforce.com, Socialtext and Socialcast that have popularized the concept. Now the practice is entering a new phase.

The enterprise activity stream from SaaS services is flowing into consumer services such as Seesmic and Facebook. And now Google is looking at the social layer as the focal component of a service reportedly called Google Me that will surface activity across all Google products, including Google Apps.

The activity streams that surface information in the enterprise create a social layer that is valuable for the purposes of doing business. The activity stream in this context is a social aggregator. It works. In fact it woks far better than engaging in a pure social context.

The enterprise has always been averse to the concept of using social technologies. It stems from a concern that people should be working not using Twitter or other services to chat about the day. But the social aggregator is a different beast. Activity streams that surface information can help people do their work better, be smarter and more engaged.

The inverse is true for consumer grade social platforms. In the consumer world, the concept of the social aggregator has its passionate advocates but mainstream acceptance has been elusive. On the flip side, services such as Twitter do quite well as they provide what Fred Wilson calls "social intent." Twitter offers people a way to engage in a social context.

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With Android in Hand, AT&T CEO Gushes About the Cloud

We ran across an interview excerpt with AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson that will run in the Sunday print edition of the Dallas Morning News.

There are two interesting takeaways from the interview:

First, AT&T is taking a deep interest in the cloud. Stephenson talks about the networking deals it is winning by providing infrastructure to major cloud computing services.

And second, Stephenson spent the interview showing off the Android-powered Samsung Captivate he's currently using.

Here's what Stephenson had to say about cloud computng:

"A classic case would be Royal Dutch Shell, a big multinational company, and they have hundreds of thousands of people around the globe, and a lot of these big companies manage their own networking capabilities. They came to us and said, 'This stuff is changing fast, it's moving fast. Would you just take this and all of our people and just manage it for us?' We won that bid. We did the same thing with IBM. IBM's global network capability, we took thousands of their people onto our payroll, took over managing all of their networks, and bam, we do it much, much more efficiently.

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