 Well, hello there and welcome back to the Predictions and Trends 2012 series. I am Forest Markers and Hopkins Editor-in-Chief of SiliconANGLE and I am joined today with Mark Philip of Are You Watching This, a startup and app that we have covered several times on the pages of SiliconANGLE and someone that I met at South by Southwest back in March and we talked a bit about his project as well as his thoughts on the evolution of video and cable and I thought that he would be a great source of an ear on the ground, so to speak, of what's going on in this space. This is something that we'd watch here at SiliconANGLE. So welcome you to the program Mark. Thank you much Mark. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you as well. So I kind of wanted to start out a little bit for those that aren't familiar with your project or app. Tell us a little bit about what's new with Are You Watching This and what it does first of all and you know what, because you had an announcement last week I believe it was. That's right you know I've, as far as startups go, a bit of a senior citizen I've been around since 2006 and the startup world was very different back then. The vision from the beginning is helping sports fans get to the couch at just the right time. I've always been frustrated by hearing about a game the next day when I've gone to sleep earlier. I was raking the leaves or something equally as boring. So the goal has been getting those alerts and then getting someone to the TV. So just recently we launched an app for Android that started at Google TV app and then grew into a smartphone tablet app also. That not only gives you the recommended scores and news that you'd expect from any sports app, but it gives you alerts. It gives you lots of interesting filtering and the ability to pair with your Google TV Tivo or Direct TV receiver so that you can sort of swipe from game to game or click on a station level and have it change channels. Getting us away from that boring and sort of antiquated programming guide that we're all used to into something more into it. Right. Well, and it's been, I got the screenshots and I think it was Maria that may have written it up or Siraj that talked about all the different new apps or new versions they have. I think they are that for Google TV and of course, they were already available on Android and ILS. So and they're looking really good, very uniform experience across all all the platforms it looks like. It's been very interesting. And I think there's always a question with developers about fragmentation on Android. And I think if I started early with a native Android app, I would have been just as frustrated as that. It's starting from honeycomb on it was really getting the Galaxy Tab like oh, last year is what really got me going with a native app. Starting from that point on it was actually a great experience. It's one code base runs on the phones, tablets and Google TV, couple of statements here and there, for example, a big device or small device. But if you start from that point on, it was a great program for Siraj. I've been a now and then user of Android. I have switched and used this by every platform. But I recently came back where I put my tablet down, but I have a new tablet, new Android tablet, running Honeycomb and it's a much smoother and better experience, just all around. This is a great, it's a great platform. I'd say compared to maybe like the iPad, it's like 80% there, which is pretty good, you know? It is and I'm really curious what ice cream sandwich on the tablets are going to look like. I think ice cream sandwich on the phones was new to a lot of people, but of the small minority of us that have the Honeycomb tablets, a lot looks really similar. So I don't think it's going to be a light year's change when we go to the ice cream sandwich on the tablets. But I think there's some couple of questions I'm curious how they're going to answer. Right. And you kind of the last, you know, mile or whatever you want to call it for the mobile development experience, it's certainly getting there. I mean, the big thing for me, I think that'll really, it's two things that are really, I think, holding back the Android tablet experience is kind of off topic for us today. But interesting nonetheless is the fact that so many of these tablets are tethered to the service. And the ones that are not tethered to a service are not necessarily the premium tablets that are out there. I found one that she would thrive which is certainly a pretty decent tablet. Still had some minor problems, but you know, it's it's fast and it's not tethered, which is a big thing for me. So you know, and that's that'll come along. I'm sure it's just the evolution of the market. But so talk about developing for Google TV, Direct TV and Tevo, which were the three main bullet points in the recent release, those, those were, those have changed dramatically over the last year. They have, you know, Google TV is such an interesting platform. I was a fanboy from before it started. I was first in line to get the TV device at Best Buy when it first came out. And I was thoroughly disappointed that any living device that doesn't have a previous channel button just shouldn't be launched. And I understand a lot of interesting issues with working with Centile Boxes, where it's not easy to put that on there. But already when they first started, I was pretty frustrated, felt they missed the mark. With Honeycomb, it gets a lot better. Granted, there aren't really new remote controls, but the experience is a lot better. Now there's actually a half source of developers like me, whether I'm small or someone large like the NBA can start building interesting apps. And on bias, but sports, I think is what's really going to carry the day with a lot of these applications that you start to see some interesting stuff. And I'm excited about this remote control stuff that we're able to do from the phone from the tablet to interact. But I found remote controlling with Google TV, at least implementing that was a lot harder than implementing that on Direct TV or Tivo. Interesting. For Tivo and Direct TV, they have unbelievably easy APIs interacting. And they're not private, they're completely public. Anyone that Google's Tivo API, actually Google Tivo Telnet API, or Direct TV, S-H-E-F is accurate, Chef. Direct TV actually uses a simple web service, you get a URL and pass in the channel number and it changes. For Tivo, you just telnet support 31339, if we can read it directly. Yeah. Pass it in a couple commands, and it changes right away. So those APIs been around for years and I really didn't realize I'm surprised more apps haven't tied into it. Yeah. Well, I mean, and all around, this is one of the things that I don't think people talk about enough in the kind of the new TV space is the fact that APIs aren't very particularly uniform or easy to work with in all cases. I know the Netflix API is particularly unwieldy and they're everywhere, so you can't really ignore them. In most cases, if you're a video developer. Right. Absolutely. And even just developing for these two devices, the customer support for Telnet is very different than the customer support for someone trying to connect to Direct TV. So it's been, it's been interesting. It's been new for me and new for a lot of the users figuring out, wait, is my receiver actually connected to my home network or not? Right. So putting in an FAQ was huge for cutting down the support because not only is it a new app, but it's a new experience for a lot of us. So with home control from a set of developers. Well, let's skip around a little bit because there's a lot of talking points between here and the next question that I'm going to ask you. But the Xbox, I have to ask because we're looking at developing some apps for the new Xbox platform for our video operation. And there I'm finding that there's a, there's not very many developers that are out there that will say they're developing for the Xbox platform. They're working for EA or somebody if they are. So and it's a difficult API to get your head around. Granted, it's the same XNA framework that they use for the mobile platform. So you'd think there'd be some people out there that do this stuff. But when you say I'm developing an Xbox app, you can hear the crickets in the room when you ask, is there anybody that willing to develop this for me? I'll pay money. Sure. Yeah. There's not a lot of them. It's interesting. Just just hearing people doing Windows mobile apps, let alone Xbox. It's such a small community. And it's interesting because, you know, I think one of the big problems with RIM was that their relationship with the developers wasn't signed. And for anyone that tried to develop an app on them, that was the first black one I thought about. That was back in like a seven or eight back when I was like, great girl. And it was something like $200 to get into the program, but that only counted for 10 revisions of your app. Yeah. And for it to be phrased like that was so off-putting. But then you look at what Microsoft is doing, and they, you know, you hear the stories of them paying developers to create apps on the platform. They're doing all these interesting, you know, bootcamps. They had one and also just a few months ago. And they're really being aggressive about going after developers. And that's so important. But I don't understand why you still don't see more developers out there. Especially with Xbox. I have had Xbox since the original. For me, it's generally just a halo and a rock band device. You read more than anything else. But going sort of bigger picture than that, that's how I keep up with my college phones. I'm extremely entrenched with Xbox. And it's not a question of if I'm going to renew my Xbox web account every year. It's, okay, how early am I going to get it if I can find a good deal. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm completely entrenched. So there's there's a big market there. But at the same time, I haven't built a favorite Xbox for Microsoft either. So, you know, I'll be at CS in, gosh, next week. And Microsoft's doing a lot of stuff there. I'm going to go to a lot of their talks. Because there really is a lot of value there, especially when you start to look at some of the big players like the Comcast, that's what's with them, where Xbox is kind of a juggernaut. It's moving slowly, but I think it's going to be around for a long time. About 30 million. Well, first of all, I think they've maybe not decisively quite yet, but they've won the console wars. I would say it's fair to say that PlayStation has lost money or Sony's lost money because of PlayStation last year. Nintendo is still trying to get, you know, relevant again. And, you know, there is Microsoft with 30 million Xbox live subscribers. And they've just shoved video in their face last month, and said, here, watch live TV, here, watch YouTube. And it's all the thing that's so curious to me, and I want to get your take on this is, is that it's all side by side. It puts new media on equal footing with old media to a certain degree. I can watch anybody that has a YouTube channel, I can watch their, you know, full length programming, the same, you know, the same level of comfort in my living room that I can watch anything on, you know, my Verizon cable subscription. Yeah, it's, it's interesting. The first real app that caught my eye with ESPN 3, so sports focused. And it's so interesting, especially someone like ESPN 3 or any of the smaller providers like the versus of the world, which is now NBC Sports, they're not in your regular flow of living with channels. We all have our pattern, whether it's someone like me that goes ESPN, ESPN 2, then I'll hit USA and TBS and that sort of cycle through the loop. With ESPN 3, it's not really a destination you go to unless there's something like your alma mater that you know you're going to tune in at 7pm. So putting it a little bit more in your face, I think it's really interesting and a great fit for ESPN 3. The trouble is, there's a little bit of a cost in turning on my Xbox, you know, flipping through the channels is instant. My Xbox, I generally find the controllers probably under that shelf where I normally keep it, push the button, wait for it to boot up. So that 15 seconds of waiting for it to get to the content I want, I think is an expensive 15 seconds. And I think so the Comcast stuff where it becomes your set up box where it's always on removes that cost. And I think that changes things even more where we're used to getting this new media YouTube on our TV, at least the early adopters are, when you start to make that even easier to get to, and then sort of this, I don't know if you call it newer old media with ESPN 3, you put that on the same footing, where all of a sudden it becomes this hodgepodge of everything, where it's this limitless content, just a matter of which one you're going to pick, because it's all right there from Right, right. Very interesting. And by the way, it brings me back to a request that comes from my wife is, you could start tracking all the college volleyball games. Are you watching this? We have, she has become a fan of watching that she's a volleyball player herself. And she watches it all. ESPN 3 has an amazing selection of college volleyball, and of course, some of the international teams as well. But Sure, Australian rules football is one that I find myself watching a lot on ESPN 3. I'm not really sure why. But it's interesting. I'd love to add more sports. The engine is ready to go. It's one of those things where getting data is amazingly expensive. I'm still waiting for someone to come in and disrupt that a little bit. But just as a touch point, if I was to add, let's say, international soccer, it would double my sports cost. Oh, really? It's a really interesting market. It's pretty much a duopoly. I'm hoping we'll see more competitors or something. Yeah, we'll talk about we'll talk about that off the air because I've got some I got some thoughts on that as well. We're, of course, big data. We play in big data. We've got a couple of apps and we've seen some interesting cost structures around that as well. So but yeah, everything's NDA when you talk about those things. So we can't talk about that on the camera. You can have it. The the evolution of the Comcast platform and the evolution of cable in general. So the ones that have been on my radar, as I said before, we started taping were resin files to a lesser degree AT&T's, Ubers and their Comcast. But those are the ones that seem to be kind of innovating from a device perspective or a how they offer their, you know, the networking perspective as well. Sorry, but from platform perspective, it seems that Comcast and Verizon are leading the pack. That's just my perspective. You probably have a better sense of this. So what are your what are you seeing that? Sure, I've had a lot more talk to Comcast than I have with Verizon. I'll say that upfront. Comcast with their Excalibur project is in some tests right now in Georgia. And it's supposed to be an amazing product. They're looking much more to be a thin device is I guess the best way to put it. I don't know how open they will be. I'm hoping that they will be very, but I think that they're creating something where developers will find it a lot easier to plug into. I did have a call with Verizon and granted this is just one developer's experience the well that but I called them about building a widget because I thought it'd be a good fit. I love doing anything in the living room. And we're maybe halfway through the call, maybe 20, 30 minutes or so. And I asked her about cost. And she told me it would be $50,000 to get my app into the market. And I was shocked. And I apologize. I'm obviously wasting your time. There's no way I can bang. Yeah, just again to your market. And I hope that's changed granted that was at least a year ago. And I haven't touched base with them since. So hopefully that's different. But I know when you look at Verizon, when you look at ATT Uverse, they're very robust platform. They can do a lot of interesting things. Uverse is the next platform we'll be supporting with are you watching this app, because they have an API you can plug in to also. There's this sort of new, the same way you have the jet blues of the world, this, the new metal that they can do interesting things that the older guys have to retrofit to do. They have a bit of an advantage with the Uverse and files because it's brand new. How they'll interact with the developers is always the question. I know Comcast hasn't opened anything up yet. But I know I've had lots of great talks with them because they understand that working with developers is a good thing. It's just a matter of once they open the doors, what's the relation? So and I think this is this is something that varies discussion or maybe emphasis. And this this this is consistent across from Verizon to other video developers, Microsoft with the XNA platform, all so many of these platforms. So with the XNA on Xbox, you have to pay to get into their API it's not much is 300 bucks. But is there's still a barrier to entry of course 50 grand is definitely the largest barrier to entry I've heard of in this market, but it kind of bears out that that cable and video providers have not yet discovered that which the mobile providers already know. And that is when you have a thriving half marketplace, you it creates a whole new experience that you know, it just creates an ecosystem. And I understand why I mean, Microsoft has given many numerous explanations why they charge people develop on the Xbox and as to keep out, they don't want that big of an ecosystem, they don't want knockoffs of every game they've paid licenses to support to the Xbox certainly makes sense. So you put a minor barrier to entry there. But you know, in cases like Verizon, I can tell you as a subscriber, there's maybe like, you know, a half a dozen widgets in there. And they're all major brands that already have channels on the network. So there's not a thriving ecosystem. The only one I think is non network based is Twitter. And I think that may have been subsidized by CNN. So interesting. Yeah, it was the same thing when you booted up a Google TV for the first time, the original version, you know, you see a bunch of big brands, and they do essentially what you thought they would do is Twitter on my TV is and or on my TV Netflix on my TV. And there's nothing really paradigm shifting about it. No, it's just the app on a bigger device. And so it's your spot on when you're able to let you know, the small guys like me try to do something new, we're more nimble than the the NBA might be or Facebook might be. And we're willing to take more risks. And if you were able to open the door for a non five digit price, then you get to see some really interesting things and have people feel attached to your device, whether it is directed to your universe or for the rise of us. Yeah. So is that is that I'm gonna I'm gonna try to pin you down on a prediction. Is that something you expect to see in 2012? Is there gonna be is there gonna be an opening of this? Is this gonna be kind of more the same? How does that you how do you expect that to change on the next year? I think if you look at Misa, they've had a few announcements recently about hooking up with direct TV and with ATT Uverse. Now, the companies are different with setting something up to run on TV or direct TV is easy. API is right there. But for someone like Uverse, it's you have to talk them, signs of things with that you're good to go. I think you're going to see a lot more of those announcements and don't use direct TV as a barometer, but use the U versus and the Verizon files. This is wrong because those are dated for now. Right? The announcements I think you see from startups being able to interact with those platform, let you know how much they're open enough because I think those guys realize they have to direct TV. I know knows they have to they're very good about talking developers to people on the platform. But I think the real barometer is whether those few providers stay closed and if they are, how many developers are on the platform? So in here, there's a there's two kind of questions that are related. One was kind of spurred by Fred Fred Wilson, ABC dot com, who proudly proudly maybe but very loudly trumpeted the fact that he pirated a nix game over the weekend. I don't know if you saw that, but and the reason behind that was there was a blackout and he couldn't watch what he wanted to watch to be more than willing to pay extra or whatever to watch nix game, but he could not watch it. So he asked the internets and the internets told him how to pirate it and he did. And it took a little snapshot and watching it via I think YouTube or something. I thought I saw YouTube logo on the corner. YouTube live logo. Anyway, he's watching on the living room. So question is, there's been an interesting year for blackouts and abbreviated sports seasons. Do you think that there will be any type of rise or maybe kind of shifts with, you know, piracy because piracy is a major driver of innovation and change disruption this year with how sports is consumed? It's a great question. And, you know, it's interesting. I was watching that closely because I was one of Brooklyn, New York and I have an experience. I feel like we might do some good stuff this year. It is, it's tough because we're getting to the point where we're having these large packages pushed in our faces for all sports leaps, whether it's NFL, NBA, NHL, Center Eyes, you can get some sort of package for on your 50 to $250 that lets you get every game for the season. But most of us don't want to watch every single one. Right. If you're, you know, for football, it's maybe 250 to 300 games offhand. But really, I want to watch about 15 or 20 of them that I wouldn't normally get. One of the, you know, the visions I see for are you watching this is you get an alert that says something like LeBron has scored 60 points through three quarters. Do you want to pay $1.99 to watch the last four? Or for some reason, my all the moderates in some national championship, I went to MIT, so it's probably some division three, double A. But if there was a way to watch, you know, overtime for some reason, I'd be 2.99 to get that on my TV or on my phone somewhere. Yeah. But with these large leagues, because of the relationships with the cable companies, I don't think you're ever going to see any time soon that sort of a la carte, let me pay $10 for one game. It gets very complicated, very frustrating to think someone like the NBA, I'd love to sell my data to them to power something like that. On demand, watch a portion of the game. But even if they were to pay, you know, proportionally much more for that game relative to the $150 to $200 for the season package, it's not going to happen. And a lot of that just has to do with licensing rights and the distributor rights with the major cable. Yeah, again, not to keep going back to the Xbox is one of the things that excites me about it is because you're seeing sports being sports is always the biggest anchor to cable that we have. And because it's one of the few things that's worth watching live, as opposed to on demand. And the the fact that it's got ESPN three, but also I don't know if you noticed, but in the coming app section, the MLB TV thing is coming. Yeah, it's over. You got to scroll all the way over to the end of the apps marketplace and what's coming in 2012. And MLB is launching an app that I presume let you watch live games. I haven't heard much about it. Maybe on demand games. I don't know how much value that would be. But something by MLB probably pretty similar to what's offered on their website and their subscription packages on the Xbox. So that that of course, you know, shifting consumption habits to device also a slight detailing from the cable company, you know, it's bits and pieces, ribs and drabs. But I do have some hope that, you know, this is this is important to the things to come, you know, it's interesting. I I watch ESPN closely because you know, I don't know how many people understand the subscriber rates and licensing fees, but ESPN makes more than $4 a month for every subscriber, everyone. So if you have ESPN on your cable provider, $4 that we build more than goes to ESPN for just ESPN, it's a dollar something for ESPN to it's it's a lot of money they make billions and billions of dollars on their on their licensing fees from cable satellite companies. Because ESPN is doing interesting stuff with ESPN three, I think a lot of folks are watching very closely because the last thing ESPN wants to do is cannibalize cable because that's where they make their money. But at the same time, they're doing really innovative stuff with ESPN three. Well, I mean, that's what you got to love about ESPN. I mean, that's another if you watch anything by John Furrier, one of my partners in crime here in Silicon Angle, you can tell he's a student of ESPN because of I mean, there's a lot of what we've done with our video operation we've modeled around the early days of ESPN in the 70s and 80s, starting out in the trailer in Connecticut and, you know, going from there to, you know, where they are now. I mean, you watch like you can go to YouTube and this is absolutely fascinating to watch, you know, live ESPN covering NCA NCAA fencing or division three cross country or something like that. And, you know, that was and then, you know, they get up to, you know, actual major, major league events in these days and the journey from here to there required a lot of, you know, run gun and on the cheap shoe string stuff. They basically had to evolve with the market and recognize where, you know, where they needed to be, you know, in terms of technology to make the money and do what it is they want to do with sports. And I think what's so interesting about it is the ESPN of the 70s and 80s is the ESPN three of now. It's just college volleyball. It's Australian youth's football. It's just the random sports that you'll pick up. One, it's similar, but in ways it's so different because they could put so much more out there, but it's all about cannibalization. Do they want to start pulling stuff on ESPN two and put on ESPN three on the risk of people stopping there or cutting the cord at their table? Sports is the glue. It is the sheath that keeps people from cutting that cord because there just aren't viable options if you are smart. Yeah. So at some point they're going to have to, because I mean, right now when it's with, because I'm on the Verizon, of course, and I've got all these options with the Xbox, but they're all tethered to the fact that I must have a video subscription for it to work over the data channel, but at some point you have to, you have to assume they're going to give you an option to pay directly. If they see usership of their app exceed a certain threshold or something, they're going to, you know, I'll wonder how many people would pay us a dollar or four dollars. Sure. I mean, maybe it's something like Hulu plus, and that would make a ton of sense to me, and I think there are a lot of people, I think there are a lot of people that would easily pay $5 a month, $10 a month to get ESPN3 with multiple tiers, and I think if they slowly work people into that, then I think you'll start to see, you know, maybe it's a bold game here and there, maybe it's a late season, what regular season NBA game on there, and they even had a World Series game live on ESPN3. That's true, that's true, and I think they're playing with it, and I think they are going to leave the way as far as media goes, because everyone wants to know what they're going to do, because they make the most money out of anyone from what questions they need. Yeah. So, let's see. I think we've covered just about anything. So what is it that you expect to see that's going to change the way cable is consumed or change the way that you interact with cable over 2012? What are the things that you're planning on planning on happening next year? Well, I don't think there are many apps like mine that are doing the remote control sort of thing. There are the standard, you know, devices that you'll get like with Google TV standard remote. There are really interesting companies like Peele that are doing really cool things with hardware and software to help obliterate the EPG that we're used to and get you to a more customized guide of what's on TV. But I think it's going to become powerful. I think you're going to see a lot more apps taking advantage of the massive amount of content that's coming over the pipe and directing you the best thing to watch right now. Yeah. I'm focused just on sports. I have thought for years that someone would come in and really focus on curating the rest of the content on TV. I mean, there's a bounty of news content and Lord knows there are people out there that know how to curate news. So. Absolutely. And even with just linear content, I talked about the loop that I have where I go through all my channels and I remember one day I accidentally hit down when I meant to hit up and I ended up on oxygen, which isn't my demographic at all. But they were playing Oceans 12. And so whether it's, you know, Pirates of the Caribbean on ABC Family, whether it's a 007 movie on sci-fi, there's always great content in places that you may not know where to look. There's a wide open space. I'd love to see like the guys at Miso, the guys at Get Glue go after this more because I think it's right and no one's going after it. There's a lot of stuff that could be done there, just like are you watching this but beyond sports, getting the movies all the way. I think part of it is the interface though because what I've always thought, and maybe it'll work with Google TV better than some of the set-top boxes, but you know curation in no small part is about the interface with which it's presented and the cable companies have total control over that and don't, you know, really wish to relinquish what it looks like to any developer that may want to skin it. And I think if there's any one thing that would dramatically change what types of things are developed for these platforms, that would have to be it. I think you're right. I think the Trojan Horse though is a lot of these API. If you can get, you can pull someone's Facebook logs, if you can pull their Get Glue or Miso check-ins, you have 80% of the problems solved there on what they want to launch. If you can start plugging into Direct TV API or the Keto API, which you don't need permission for, you can just start building today developers. Just start building something cool. Say, I'm not going to show you a guide of 1500 channels. I'm going to show you a list of the five things on TV that we think you'll like. We won't even tell you the channel number because channel number doesn't matter. Right. If you want to watch a video, I don't care if it's on Vimeo or YouTube or anything like that. I just want to see this funny cat that's playing the piano. So give me the movies, give me the shows that are on TV and take me to them, which is essentially what I do without you watching this, but there's so many more genres that could be absolutely. All right. Well, I think we've covered a wide swath of information from mobile to TV to the future of new media. So is there anything else you want to say before we tag this thing out? Let people enjoy 2012 for themselves. Oh, yes. I don't want to keep them from that. Go check out. Are you watching this? It's in the market. I'd love to hear what you think. Absolutely. Thank you, Mark Phillips, for joining me and we will see you all throughout the new year and I hope to see you at South by Southwest this year again. I'll see you then.