For Set-Top-Box Sailors, It's 1492

by Dave Zornow, Dec 24, 2009, 12:45 PM

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Research and technology pioneers in the set-top-box space seem to have their own timeline for delivering the New World of STB ratings for the media business: Dateline 1492.  

 Early findings from STB vendors have underwhelmed some critics in the media business. Some have even suggested that spending any more time on finding a route through this New World of data was a waste of time.  

Industry leaders probably feel a little bit like Isabel and Ferdinand when Columbus came home without a shortcut to the East Indies. After all, they were looking for spices and a quick ROI, not stories and continued investment without a clear payoff.  

Eventually, Columbus' explorations paid off. Although he didn't meet the initial goal of replacing the dominant methodology of the time for reaching Asia, he piqued the interest of others whose findings changed the course of history. Eventually, Columbus even changed the conventional wisdom of his time, too.

  An impatient media industry wants it to be 2009, but STB vendors and researchers know it's more like 1492. The early findings of set-top-box research suppliers only begins to suggest some of the valuable insights that lie ahead. Set top box may never become an alternative currency. But patience and investment will lead to new commercial creative and programming/promotion insights -- and many other uses we have yet to discover.  

Columbus may not have been much or a navigator, but history indicates he was a pretty good marketer. His stories of exploration changed the focus from the Far East to the New World, convincing traders that there was as much ROI to the West as there was to the East. Only time will tell if today's early STB efforts will have the same impact.     

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0 comments on "For Set-Top-Box Sailors, It's 1492".

1. Mike Einstein from the Brothers Einstein
   

   commented on: December 28, 2009 at 9:56 a.m.

   Trouble is, all the good marketers were in Columbus' fourth ship - the one that went over the edge.

2. William Lederer from MediaCrossing Inc.
   

   commented on: December 31, 2009 at 5:02 p.m.

   Typical Zornow we have come to know and love: very thought-provoking.

   To my mind, New Year's Eve, 2010 in Advanced TV and Digital Video feels a bit more like a combination of where the US automotive industry, US retail gasoline distribution, and the US highway system was 100 years ago.

   My view: the next 5 years will manifest in TV/Video equivalent progress made by these symbiotic transportation partners in the period 2010-1960, suggesting that we are still a full advertising cycle away from Advanced TV and Digital Video catching up to "traditional" internet user experience and marketing tools.

   Love to think it will happen sooner, but industry forces are against it.

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