June 18, 2008

Kagan Gets Personal at Expo

By Craig Kuhl

The cable industry's never-ending search for the "next big thing" will lead to an ITV panel discussion Getting Personal at this year's 25th SCTE Cable-Tec Expo in Philadelphia next week. The conference takes place on Tuesday, prior to the show proper, and requires separate registration at www.pkworldmedia.com.

Just how far ITV has come, and how long it has taken to evolve as a technology and a business, will be the focus of the conference's four panels and showcase, all moderated by Paul Kagan, CEO of PK Worldmedia.

"We wanted to do a session on the 'next big thing,' and it was ITV. It's taken about seven years to develop the standard, and it has come to fruition this year. So it was a natural to do ITV," Kagan said.

The moment

The seminal moment for ITV, Kagan believes, was the emergence of tru2way, which crystallized ITV and fostered the advancement of the key component to ITV: targeted advertising. "Finally, ITV has found its subsidy and how you get paid, and it's targeted advertising. Viewers responding to advertising make ITV interactive. And broadcast can't do that. No question, targeted advertising is the story," he said.

ITV's story, albeit still being written, will be told via the insights and discussions of several panelists at the Getting Personal all-day conference, held in conjunction with this year's Cable-Tec Expo.

Panels and more

The conference will feature key executives and four keynote speakers from a wide range of ITV-related companies, including Arris, Cisco, Comcast, Motorola, Zodiac and others, along with CableLabs.

"After multiple false starts, the time is now for interactive activities. And ITV is a differentiator," said Basil Badawiyeh, vice president of on demand strategy for Arris, and keynote for the conference panel "The Time Is Now: Designing and Launching ITV Technology."

"We'll talk about the collaboration environment between the consumer electronics and cable industries and the new revenue streams like switched digital video, VOD and targeted advertising, which will provide the financial leverage for operators to deploy advanced applications," added Badawiyeh.

The third panel, Kagan noted, will focus on applications and some of the challenges of streaming to every viewer. "It will be an intense discussion on streaming and ad insertion and the difficulties of doing them," he said. The keynote speaker will be Mark DePietro, vice president of video access for Motorola.

The fourth panel will provide a first-hand glimpse of Comcast's successful test of ITV at its Huntsville, AL, System, Kagan added.

The Showcase, which will kick off the conference beginning at 7:30 a.m., will include demonstrations of new applications and the future applications universe. The afternoon sessions will focus on strategies, capacity issues for delivering video streams for targeted ad-insertion and discussions about the intersection of "Cable Boulevard and Madison Avenue."

The Getting Personal conference schedule:

7:30 a.m.: Registration, breakfast and Interactive Applications Showcase

9 a.m.: The Time Is Now: Designing and Launching ITV Technology
Keynote: Basil Badawiyeh

11:20 a.m.: Trigger Fingers: The Future of ITV Applications
Keynote: Ramin Farassat, vice president of product management for RGB Networks

1:30 p.m.: Targeted Advertising Technology: The Science of Maximizing Streams and Ad Insertion
Keynote: Mark DePietro

3:15 p.m.: Targeting For Good Measure: Viewer Attention=New Ad $$$

5 p.m.: Close.

- Craig Kuhl

Read more news and analysis on Communications Technology's Web site at http://www.cable360.net/ct/news/.