De interactie van een videogame met het bereik van een televisiehit: ziehier de toekomst van massa-entertainment. ‘De televisie is een slaaf van onze tablet.’

‘Een ding is op dit moment duidelijk’, zegt Jeroen Elfferich aan het eind van ons interview. We zijn neergestreken in een Amsterdams hotelrestaurant, voor een lunchgesprek over de toekomstige invloed van gaming op televisie, en andersom. En in Nederland moet je daar Jeroen Elfferich voor hebben, CEO van het Amsterdamse bedrijf Ex Machina, specialist in gaming, sociale media en televisie-producties – bij voorkeur doen ze alle drie tegelijk.

De ‘tweede scherm-app’ van The Voice of Holland, waarbij je op je tweezitsbank mee kon doen met de show? Hun werk. Het online panel bij Kassa, van de VARA? Idem. Net als toepassingen voor programma’s als Spuiten & Slikken, verkiezingsshows. Is het dan gek dat Elfferich op het Festival of Games (Amsterdam, 24 & 25 april) komt spreken over ‘interactie in entertainment’?

Mass appeal

Nee dus. Een half uur lunchen en je hoofd duizelt met haast achteloos verkondigde toekomstbeelden. De toekomst van gaming, van televisie, van consoles, gamers – alles gaat op de schop, op manieren waar je nog helemaal niet bij stil had gestaan. De dynamische interactie van gaming verandert het passieve medium televisie – straks meer hierover. Andersom komt de ‘mass appeal’ van tv naar gaming – ook die informatie krijg je nog. En in de tussentijd worden ‘hardcore gamers’ marginaal en is Smart TV een leuke marketing-term, maar gaat het de televisie niet redden. Komt allemaal straks, die duizelingwekkende vergezichten. Maar eerst het beloofde beetje helderheid: wat is er op dit moment, middenin die techno-storm die je schetst, ook alweer precies duidelijk, Jeroen?

Slaaf

Een glimlach, tussen twee happen aardappelsalade met curryworst door. ‘Die toekomst is voor een deel al bepaald door de consument, die massaal heeft gekozen voor touchscreen devices, waarop we feitelijk alles doen wat we individueel interessant vinden. En daarmee heeft het televisietoestel ineens nog maar één uniek verkooppunt, en dat is dat je er met meerdere mensen tegelijk naar kan kijken.

Verder is ons vertrouwde televisie-toestel hard op weg een slaaf te worden van onze behoeften op touch-screens. Wil je iets nieuws bedenken voor ‘family entertainment’, dan kun je er niet meer omheen dat je je product aan moet bieden op een tablet of smartphone, met een verbinding naar een televisie, en niet andersom.’

Vogels

Om met Cruijff te spreken: je ziet het pas als je het ziet. Maar als je met Elfferich meekijkt in de glazen bol, zul je begrijpen dat de dominante rol van televisie bij massa-entertainment zal gaan veranderen. Voor hedendaagse ‘tweede-scherm’ toepassingen bij televisieprogramma’s loopt misschien niet iedereen warm (‘lees hier meer informatie over in onze app’) maar dat komt omdat we nog maar net zijn begonnen. Elfferich: ‘de eerste vliegtuigen leken ook op vogels, dus het is niet zo vreemd dat de eerste toepassingen lijken op hoe televisie informatie verspreidde. Maar dat verandert snel, en gaming speelt daar een rol bij.’

Een volgende stap is bijvoorbeeld het invoeren van ‘feedback loops’, zoals gaming die ook kent. Elfferich: ‘Het idee is: er is een groep mensen die naar een tv-show kijkt. Die activeer je door op televisie te zeggen iets op hun tweede scherm te doen, bijvoorbeeld in de app van de show. Daar komt een reactie uit voort, die direct wordt vertaald naar bruikbare data voor het verloop van de show. Zien kijkers die invloed terug, dan krijg je een hoge mate van betrokkenheid bij het programma. En dat is helemaal niet zo ingewikkeld om te maken.

De volgende stap zou kunnen zijn dat je de data van de kijker gebruikt om het programma in zijn geheel te laten sturen. De data van de kijkers genereren het programma. Op dit moment is nog de vraag of dat interessante televisie oplevert, maar technisch gesproken is er op dit moment geen belemmering ermee te beginnen.’

Allemaal kijken!

Met andere woorden: de interactiviteit van gaming gaat een rol spelen bij het televisie-aanbod, waarbij ons ‘tweede scherm’ een grote rol speelt bij de uitvoering. Maar ook het omgekeerde gaan we beleven als het aan Elfferich ligt. Games zijn dan wel interactiever dan televisie, het is nog steeds geen massa-medium. Een van de sterke punten van televisie is dat het ‘appointment-based’ is. De uitzending begint zo mensen, allemaal kijken dus! Elfferich: ‘Het ‘event-aspect’ van televisie heeft de laatste jaren een grote vlucht genomen, zeker onder invloed van sociale media. Mensen willen graag onderdeel uitmaken van iets groters. Ik denk dat je dat aspect terug gaat zien in games: dat je events kunt creëren rond een game op een afgesproken tijdstip: vanavond om acht uur gebeurt er iets bijzonders! Dat kan iets heel heftigs opleveren. Dat buzz-idee, dat iets echt het moment grijpt, dat is met games nog nooit gebeurd, maar dat doet televisie een paar keer per jaar.’

De lunch zit erin, we moeten verder. Voor het sluiten van de markt nog even een vraag: pikken gamers en televisiekijkers het wel dat ‘hun’ media in elkaar over gaan lopen? ‘Een paar jaar terug had ik ‘nee’ gezegd’, zegt Elfferich. ‘Maar de klassieke gamer die zo lang dominant was in ons beeld van ‘gamers’ is een niche aan het worden, met zijn hardcore console-games. De massa heeft game mechanics ontekt: iedereen vind het leuk een spelletje te spelen op zijn smartphone of tablet. En dat nieuwe gamer-publiek is niet anders dan het televisie-publiek: dat komt graag op nieuwe game- of televisie-ervaringen af, net zoals mensen op The Voice afkwamen of Big Brother. Gewoon: omdat het de volgende dag leuk was het er op het werk over te hebben.’

sourch: DNP written by Arjan Terpstra

Value creation: user engagement, monetization and co-creation
Our aim is to make people’s TV experience even better by offering new, valuable options to broadcast, producers and advertisers that dramatically increase user engagement and potential online revenues.

Based on our extensive and international experience with successful formats such as The Voice and Next Top Model as well as our solid track record, we have gathered interesting data and insights on second screen technology and viewer behavior. This makes us not only a reliable technology partner for companies like Talpa, Microsoft or Zeebox, it also makes us a valuable sparring partner for fitting second screen into existing TV show and co-creating ‘made for second screen’ formats.

Working together with both large production companies, format owners as well as with small indy companies, we have developed several groundbreaking, interactive formats that take user engagement to a next level.

If you would like to know more about REVOLVER, AD SPOTTER, PLAYTOTV FOR ELECTIONS, international second screen benchmark THE VOICE/HOMECOACH or how to take your format to the next level, we welcome you at our booth at MIPTV. And of course you’re welcome to meet us in Amsterdam, London, San Francisco or your office in case you can’t make it to Cannes this time around.

WHERE TO FIND US AT THE MIP?

MONDAY APRIL 8 – THURSDAY APRIL 11

MIPCUBE BOOTH
Place: Palais building, ground floor, booth number 01.09 (next to Sony).

SATURDAY APRIL 6

MIPFORMAT: Format of the future. Will it come from social media?
In this panel Ex Machina’s co-founder Frank van Oirschot will shed his light on the social element in future formats.
Time: 17.40-18.30
Place: Palais des Festivals, Grand Audi, Level 1

WEDNESDAY APRIL 10

MIPCUBE: New partners, new business models, new ways of working
In the session ‘turning big data into big revenue’ Jeroen Doucet will join social TV’s biggest data-gatherers to discuss how to put analysis into context, creating money-making opportunities.

WHO’ S AT THE MIP [LINKEDIN PROFILES]

JEROEN ELFFERICH – CEO
FRANK VAN OIRSCHOT – CO-FOUNDER
JEROEN DOUCET – MD STRATEGY AND CONCEPTS
WIETEKE SEVENHUIJSEN – ACCOUNT MANAGER
RICHARD MORRIS – UK DIRECTOR
SABINE JANSSEN – MARKETING DIRECTOR

With its fourth edition, the DIA has become the award show for the interactive industry. Each case is judged not only on creativity and design, also achieved impact and project realization are taken into consideration.

This year the number of categories has been expanded to 12. Kassa Panel has been nominated for the category “Tools and Application” as one of the five best cases.

On April 12, nominees are given the opportunity to present their work to the jury and convince them that their work is among the best in their category. The winners will be announced on May 16, during a festive award ceremony.

By now many media companies and advertisers have realised that second screen has become an important part of their content and social strategy. Obviously a solid technology framework needs to be in place to power second screen at scale for formats, networks, brands and distribution platforms. But it also is becoming a key agenda item for creative and business leaders. As our team, expertise and skills have been bolstered substantially in the past year, Ex Machina is in a great position to be the strategic partner of choice for forward thinking media companies. Of course our technical prowess still matters a lot, but the business and conceptual side has become at least as important. For this purpose we’ve created a new business unit: Ex Machina Strategy & Concepts. To make a flying start, we were looking for an experienced digital strategy advisor and today we are proud to announce that Jeroen Doucet has joined Ex Machina to be the Managing Director of Strategy & Concepts.

We now offer a full range of second screen management consulting services, including (in house) workshops. User engagement, ‘made for second screen’ concept development and monetization are core subjects when we talk to our customers and partners and based on Jeroen’s (or JD, as we like to call him) experience in these matters we can confidently make this a featured item on the boardroom agenda. Should our new services be of any interest we look forward to hear from you.

Contact Jeroen Doucet at jeroen.doucet@exmachinagames.com
More info:
LinkedIn nl.linkedin.com/in/doucet
Twitter @doucet

The voice of Holland is the biggest new TV show in years. It has taken the talent show genre to a new level. And now Talpa, the creators of the show, are taking it to more and more countries. Ex Machina is the partner of choice for second screen for The voice of Holland since season one, where we introduced the live rating functionality.

HomeCoach

The voice uses PlayToTV for second screen interactivity during and in between shows for all episodes across all three stages: Blind Auditions, Battles and Live Shows.

During the blind auditions every week there’s a pre-show game: you can do your own blind audition and listen to performances of the upcoming episode on your phone, tablet or computer at your leisure. Based on what you hear you pick the talent that you think will make it to the next round. When the show airs, you’ll instantly see if you predicted correctly as soon as the judge reveals their pick. And several additional live prediction events are offered during each show as well.

For the Battles, the pre-show game means you’ll listen to two competing performance and you pick the one you think will win. During the show again your prediction will be matched against the judges opinion, as well as many other predictions.

In the Live Shows, you can once again choose from candidates to make it through to the next round in the pre-show game. And every single live performance can be rated with an intuitive slider, giving live feedback and a real time visuals about how the second screen users like the performance. The graph is regularly shown on TV in real-time as well, giving more meaning to those who participate.

Facts & Figures

• 650,000 downloads
• 10% votes via app
• more than 10 million games played

The following video is taken from the first live show broadcast in Season 2 on December 2nd 2011, and explains the live rating feature:

Partnership enables broadcasters to easily configure a range of interactive experiences for consumers in zeebox

London, UK, 10th December 2012: zeebox and Ex Machina announce today that zeebox has licenced Ex Machina’s PlayToTV technology for massively scalable, realtime interactivity. A range of new, interactive widgets – including polls, play- along games, prediction games and voting – will be integrated in zeebox and made available to millions of consumers in the US, UK and Australia.

The PlayToTV widgets will be fully configurable by zeebox’s broadcast and content partners using its Mission Control web dashboard. This enables broadcasters to create new interactive experiences on the fly across all TV channels, without needing to develop or promote stand-alone apps. The widgets will be plugged into the zeebox social graph, instantly enabling zeebox users to play along with their friends, which is simply more fun.

Today’s media consumption is rapidly evolving because more and more viewers go online while watching TV in a phenomenon known as ‘second-screening’. Zeebox and Ex Machina are pioneers in creating relevant and meaningful second-screen experiences and are both considered market leaders in their respective fields.
Zeebox is recognised worldwide for its breakthrough second-screen app that has taken the UK, US and Australian markets by storm, while Ex Machina has an unprecedented track record in providing technology and solutions for realtime online interactivity to broadcasters and TV production companies around the world with massive numbers of concurrent users.

Anthony Rose, Zeebox co-founder and CTO, says: “By integrating PlayToTV into our Mission Control platform, we’re making it easy for a broadcaster to create a play- along, social TV or interactive experience delivered within zeebox without needing any technical resource – and that’s a huge game changer.”

Jeroen Elfferich, Ex Machina’s co-founder and CEO, adds: “We are delighted that Zeebox has selected our PlayToTV platform as the core technology for large scale, realtime interactivity. Zeebox offers the best overarching second screen experience today already and we look forward to help make it even better by adding truly exciting interactive features.”

Zeebox’s revolutionary Mission Control web dashboard allows content owners to enhance their shows and channels on the zeebox app in a matter of hours, distributing exclusive content to consumers, connecting directly with fans through live interactions and social engagement, and monetizing the second screen alongside TV commercials through synchronized, targeted, relevant advertising and affiliate links. The PlayToTV widgets add to zeebox’s growing library of consumer experiences that its partners can choose from to engage with the fans of their shows.

Zeebox is available on the Web, on iPad, iPhone and Android smartphones at http://zeebox.com.

In March 2011 we launched the realtime, synchronous online companion to Germany’s Next Top Model – by Heidi Klum, one of the strongest entertainment brands in German television.

PlayToTV provides live rating of models on the catwalk, numerous multiplayer polls, predictions and trivia quizzes, the first TV check-in on the German market as well as realtime Facebook integration: whenever one of your friends joins, you’ll be able to keep track of their interaction and vice versa! Playable on web, iPad and smartphones.

Facts and figures

• Broadcaster: ProSieben
• Countries: Germany, Switzerland, Austria
• 13 episodes Spring/Summer 2011; 12 pre-recorded, one live final
• Content created and interactivity managed by Sat.1 staff in house using PlayToTV’s director client
• HTML5-based client optimized for web & tablet usage

In the run-up to the parliamentary elections, RTL News aired the latest political news under the umbrella title ‘Dutch elections’. Through various programs and online activities, RTL News positioned itself as the source of information for anyone who wants to keep up with the latest developments surrounding the elections. The formats were hosted by news anchor Rick Nieman and political reporter Frits Wester.

Real time participation and social integration

While watching, the viewers could express their sentiment, their appreciation or disapproval, of the on-going discussion using a like and dislike button. During (commercial) intervals, viewers were asked to take a stand followed immediately by the results of this poll in the webapp. Twitterfeeds using ‘#watkiestnederland’ and RTL’s selection of twitterfeeds were integrated in the application allowing viewers to see what the rest of the nation was saying about the political discussion on TV. And every time a friend reacted to a poll or expressed his sentiment, your second screen would show this.

And the winner is…

For the first time in history, the winner of the debate was officially determined entirely by the crowd instead of the usual experts, political journalists or a small poll. The choice of the broadcasters to hand the power completely to the second screen user turned out to be ground-breaking. It was the starting point of an unprecedented domino effect ending with a significant shift in official opinion polling, giving the candidate who won over the second screen a substantial boost in the campaign period.

Facts & Figures

• Enriching the news coverage for September 2012 national elections
• Used for 2 Debates, 13 Talkshows, 1 Election night
• Live ‘sentiment meter’ and realtime polls
• Social integration: see what your facebook and Twitter friends are doing
• Debate winner determined by second screen users
• Results feedback on TV, discussed by presenters and guests
• Final debate: 120.000 participants, 55.000 votes for winner
• More accurate prediction of election outcome than the official polls

For the first time in German history, Public Broadcast Station SWR/ARD offers a unique TV film viewing experience. While watching the film Rommel, about the controversial German Field Marshall of World War II, viewers received additional background information via their second screen device (smartphone, tablet or lap or desktop) and could follow or participate in the discussion around the film at the same time.

Live stream information and open dialogue

The film, or better said its main character, received a lot of media coverage prior to the broadcast causing heated debates on the role of the Marshal Rommel played in the war: was he a Nazi, a war criminal, a hero? For SWR even more a reason to provide the viewer with historical information and invite the viewer to start a dialogue with others as well as being able to ask questions to for example the director of the movie.

Rommel trailer on Youtube

For the younger audience, the simultaneous use of a smartphone or other device while watching TV is common behavior. SWR sees this as an opportunity to start a dialogue with their audience, offer in-depth content and appeal to an online-savvy audience. Other SWR projects have shown that especially the younger audience discusses our TV formats, desire more information and would like to be more involved via this medium

Facts & Figures

• Synchronised experience during the broadcast of Rommel
• Offering extensive background information
• Facilitating communication about the film and its themes
• Optimized for smartphone, tablet and laptop
• Link to the SWR special

Play the VIVA.tv ClipQuiz

VIVA is the music video channel of Viacom in Germany. After the success of ClipQuiz in Belgium, MTV asked Ex Machina to create a completely new edition for the much larger German market.

Playout

ClipQuiz is playable on mobile, tablet & laptop for one hour eight times a week. It’s a high-paced, highly interactive social trivia quiz, with questions synchronized to the music video’s currently playing. Fully automated integration with MTV’s playout system means the questions and results of ClipQuiz are frequently shown, further driving the conversion of viewers to players.

ClipQuiz is the first project based on Ex Machina’s new Standard Client, offering powerful features in an elegant, user-friendly interface.

Facts & Figures

• Fully integrated with MTV playout system, showing real time results on TV
• 8 episodes per week