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NewsGlobe: Today's News
Cable Targets User-Generated Content
CableLabs ‘Innovation Showcase’ Audience Picks Simple Star’s PhotoShow
by Jim Barthold
The cable industry, usually more tightly shuttered than a
Louisiana bungalow in a hurricane, has opened a window
slightly enough to see that user-generated content is a top
item on operators’ wish lists. An audience of cable executives
attending the CableLabs Winter Conference Innovation
Showcase chose Simple Star’s PhotoShow platform as the best
new idea or most likely to succeed company.
PhotoShow is a personal media sharing platform that’s
already operating with Time Warner Cable in its Oceanic
system in Hawaii and is developing a format of user-
generated content in the form of photos on cable’s VOD
platform “so if you’re a digital cable customer as well as a
high-speed data customer you can go ahead and share these
shows directly to cable TV and watch these shows through
video-on-demand,” said Chad Richards, CEO of Simple Star.
Conference attendees were polled on their preferences from
among 10 companies winnowed down from 75 demonstrators,
all of whom were trying to grab attention for cross-platform
technologies and services to run on cable systems.
“The thing that struck me is so many of these really leverage
the unique assets of the cable network,” said Tony Werner,
CTO of Comcast Cable, who said Simple’s Star’s user-
generated content fits into this mold. “This is rich and good
content but it can be fragmented into a variety of things –
especially if you’re in control and partnering with it – so that it
really is a service that doesn’t impact the network.”
The content also isn’t a bandwidth hog that will impact cable
network operations, Richards said.
“Mostly it’s because of the way the platform is set up, it’s
about people’s personal media so it’s really people’s personal
photos,” he said. “We let you include video, but it’s very short
clips of video; it’s video that came from your digital still
camera.”
The concept has been popular in Hawaii, Richards said,
where “both Time Warner and Simple Star were really
surprised at the level of viewing that’s occurred” and it was
popular enough to grab the attention of those polled at the
conference.
“This forum was not intended to do a deep dive into each of
the companies and evaluate them and pick a winner,” said
Marwan Fawaz, CTO of Charter Communications and the
conference’s chair. “We simply highlighted Simple Star
because of the key message that was quickly understood by
the audience.”
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