Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hey guys, my name is Tim Schmoyer and I want to talk with you
guys about some of the ways that smart TVs are, might be changing
our industry here on YouTube and how we interact and engage and
develop our audiences here with our video content. I'm going to
link to an article below from AllThingsD and basically it is
showing a couple different graphs and it's showing just how much
smart TV purchases are continuing to grow and escalate over, you
know, the past year. In fact, 2012 was the highest rate that
we've seen of TV purchases and it looks like going forward into
2013 as TVs continue to get smarter and they continue to have
more and more functionality and they do better, more things
better connected to the internet and all that kind of stuff,
we're going to see a lot more of these purchases being made, even
during the recession and so what I'm thinking about is, "Okay, if
people are going to be watching our content more and more on big
screen TVs compared to, you know, mobile devices or desktop
computers, what difference does that make for those of us who are
video creators?" And I think there's seven ways I just thought of
initially. If there's more, I'm sure there are, I want to hear
from you in the comments below. Number one, I don't think we can rely
on the annotations anymore to communicate something or to
facilitate interaction or engagement because they don't work on
smart TVs nor do they work on mobile devices either. So we
had to be really intentional about saying things and showing things
visually on the screen and not just relying on annotations.
Number two, I think interaction is going to become way more difficult
because there's no easy way on it if they're watching on a TV for
them to comment, uh, they can give it a like, you know, a thumb's
up and stuff like that, uh, but it's going to be really difficult
with the exception of if they've had a mobile device paired to
their TV and then they could control what videos they're watching
on the TV from their mobile device and then also comment and like
and share and do all that kind of stuff of there and if you guys
missed the video, I gave you a complete walkthrough tutorial
about how to do that. I'll link up to that video below, uh, so
you can go check that out if you want to see exactly how to do
that and I think it would be maybe even wise to encourage our
viewers to do that if they're going to watch on their TV that way
we can continue to interact with them like normal. Number three, I
think sharing is almost impossible if they're watching on a smart
TV because, like, Facebook and Google Plus and Twitter and Tumbler,
like those aren't integrated into the smart TV apps, so basically
they have to watch it and then they can move on to the next video
in their playlist or in their queue. Number four, watching video content
on a television makes it really easy for the viewing session to
become way more passive than when it's on a desktop. In fact,
people refer to this in this industry as lean-in experience,
which on like a desktop computer if you're watching internet
video like on YouTube, people tend to lend forward in chairs and
put their, you know, elbows onto their desks and kind of become
more immersed into the video, whereas if people are watching on a
television that's called like a lean-back experience because
people are probably playing on other devices or they're doing
other things and they just kind of have the TV going. So it's
much more like a passive experience and so I'm kind, I kind of
like it that people have a lean-in experience hopefully with
online video and I'm kind of like, it kind of bothers me a little
bit, I don't know, it worries me that people that would change
from being a lean-in experience to becoming a lean-back
experience. But on the flipside, and this is number five, we might see
audience retention scores go up because the same thing is true on
a television, I'm assuming, as would be true on a mobile device,
people have less distractions, there's less video thumbnails
enticing for them to click away from your content like there are
on a desktop version of YouTube. And so audience retention tends
to be a lot longer, uh, on a mobile device and I'm guessing
hopefully that would be same thing would be true on the
television. However, it could also be true on a television
because they're just passively watching and they could click
play, but leave the room or be doing something else and not
really watching your content, even though you got high retention
scores, it might not actually review high eyeball retention
score, if that makes sense. Number six, and I think this is just kind
of a gimme, recording in 1080p and recording high quality
audio, unlike I'm doing right now, is going to be very important
if you believe in watching these in all their HD glory and have
nice speakers and sound systems hooked up to them, you want to
make that content as enjoyable and pleasurable as possible. And
number seven, you can't really refer your viewers to click on links in
the description below or refer them to information you put down
there because finding that right now on a smart TV is really,
really difficulty. It's really cumbersome. Now, hopefully as
smart TVs get smarter and YouTube can develop the apps more,
especially how television interact with mobile devices in
people's hands while they're sitting in front of the television,
I can expect that maybe a lot a lot of this will get better in
the future, but as of right now, it's really not the ideal
viewing situation for those of us who are trying to engage our
audience and trying to, and trying to interact with them and
illicit feedback and all that kind of stuff. I'd love to hear
from you guys what you think some of the impact that smart TVs
will have on our audience development and the content that we
make here on YouTube and all that. Comment below and let me
know! I'd love to interact and dialogue with you guys there. Also,
if this is your first time hanging out, make sure you subscribe.
We're continually talking about news and things and changes
happening and the online video industry and what that means for
those of us who are online video creators, so make sure you click
on subscribe button. Got a lot of awesome stuff coming for you
guys like Google Hangouts and an eBook and a whole bunch of stuff,
so make sure you also check us out on Facebook and all the other
links there below, Google Plus and all that kind of stuff for
sure. So, looking forward to hanging out with you guys more and
I'll talk to you guys soon, bye.