The truth is, Magic Ruby is evolving to meet the needs of the industry. As a rule, apps cost too much, take too long to build and return too little revenue; the companion content experience is uneven; and regular users still comprise a minority of those who download the app. These are fixable issues. Commerce and advertising generates revenue, but only if they are presented in a relevant and engaging format. Meanwhile, the largest – and most variable – time component of second screen app development by far is the sourcing, encoding, production and placement of the companion event. With the Quasar Production Platform, content is created more seamlessly; integrated into the look and feel of the app; and can be targeted based on users’ interactions, preferences and demographics so that it is always relevant.

The SFVBJ article catches us right at the point at which this platform takes shape. We are proud to have developed synced commerce for SOA, in partnership with Delivery Agent. It frankly proved many doubters wrong, experts within our own industry who contended that no one would actually buy “Jennifer Aniston’s sweater” from their app. With Quasar, Magic Ruby is going to be able to take that commerce experience to a new level – customizing the items in the catalog in a dynamic fashion. Sourcing new merchandise mid-season based on consumer demand. We’re already starting down that road with the Rogue and upcoming Wizards vs. Aliens apps (look for an announcement soon!).

Look for more news on Quasar and the cool things it lets us do with our upcoming apps.

A quasar is a very bright, energetic galactic nucleus that emits 1000 times more energy than our entire galaxy, the Milky Way, which contains hundreds of billions of stars. So it’s an appropriate name for a platform that is designed to power a myriad of apps with monetization, personalization and targeted advertising.

Wow, three hundred. That’s a lot of apps.

I bring this up for two reasons: first, clearly the space is alive and kicking. As recently as Q4 of last year, The Intersection counted only 200 or so. And consumer usage is tracking along with this proliferation, even if some reports are missing the point. The turning point will come when apps give viewers an experience they cannot satisfy on their own, with Twitter, IMDb and Wikipedia. And Magic Ruby is working hard to bring that kind of experience, particularly on Rogue: The Second Screen Experience.

But there is a much bigger play here. Right now, the vast majority of deep content apps are created in a one-off fashion. Created manually by skilled developers, enhanced by third-party APIs that deliver one service or another, delivering a reliable – but not necessarily flexible or customizable – companion experience. Isolated stars in a nighttime sky.

Just imagine if there existed a platform – an infrastructure service that could unite all of those independent apps and convert them from isolated stars into a constellation. For the user, this kind of back-end platform would significantly enhance the experience by serving customized content based on preferences, location, psychographics, usage – across multiple apps. The kind of customizability that would paralyze a one-off app with even a few thousand users. Customized polls, trivia, commerce, ads…

The scale that has been elusive to all but a few apps , keeping brands on the sidelines for the most part, is suddenly within reach. Monetization suddenly no longer a buzzword, but a viable model, no matter how large or small the app, no matter what its primary function may be.

This is what Magic Ruby is building. Starting with our Production Platform, which we teased at CES. Over the next several weeks and months you will be hearing a lot more from us on the Platform side of things – new tools that enable new experiences, that allow developers to scale their offerings at a significant cost savings, that allow studios, networks and production companies to fully embrace the potential of this technology.

Yes, we will still be developing apps. And each one will be powered by the same Platform tools that we make available to other developers and their clients.

Rogue: The Second Screen Experience app

We are proud to announce the release of our newest second screen companion application, Rogue: The Second Screen Experience, available in the Apple App Store here. The application syncs with DirecTV’s original series “Rogue,” premiering Wednesday night on the Audience network, channel 239. If you have DirecTV, you no doubt are familiar with Audience – home of the simulcast Dan Patrick Show and The Artie Lange Show, as well as original series Damages and Friday Night Lights and syndicated hits such as The Wire and 24. It’s a good destination for groundbreaking series.

“Rogue” takes this even further: starring Thandie Newton (Crash, Mission:Impossible 2) and Marton Csokas (Aeon Flux, Asylum), “Rogue” is a rich universe of crime, obsession and complex family relationships – and the Rogue: Second Screen Experience app is the perfect way to help you navigate its complexity, with synchronized insights directly from the writer’s room, as well as bonus video, exclusive images, bios, trivia, location maps and more.

Rogue: The Second Screen Experience delivers what we believe to be the fundamental precept of the Second Screen: consumer engagement. Ultimately, we tune in to be entertained – to follow a story, well told. This app expands the story – gives the viewer more context, both behind the scenes and within the narrative – with the help of Rogue’s Writers’ Input.

Download the app – even if you don’t have DirecTV, you’ll still get a sense of what we’re building. And if you do have DirecTV, download the app and sync with this week’s premiere episodes!

• “Until now, the industry has focused on what second screen technology can do and not what consumers can do with it….Let’s leverage the distracted viewer. If consumers are fiddling with their tablets and smartphones while they watch TV, maybe they simply want something to do!”

Last week I wrote a response to Noel Murray’s Grantland blog post on second screen apps, closing with much the same premise – “the consumer problem of give me something to do for the next hour.” The point cannot be overstated – viewers are moving beyond the one-screen (TV) medium in search of a meta-content experience. Some of it is social, a lot of it is search, some of it is none of the above.  But the point is, the appetite is bigger than one screen can satisfy.

Douglas later proceeds with his Second Screen Wish List – the first item of which is incorporating the second screen into the narrative. We could not agree more. Because no matter what you want your app to accomplish – whether it’s revenue generation, ratings, marketing or deeper brand engagement – it has to give the viewer something he or she cannot DIY (because that’s what we had before second screen apps anyway).

It’s easy to focus on the prize – USERS! REVENUE! WORLD DOMINATION! But the most critical unit of measure is audience engagement. And the surest way to get that is to make the app a true authentic and irreplaceable companion of the broadcast. What’s happening in the other room when these two characters are having a conversation? What’s the song you can barely make out in the background?

We’re all trying to get our arms around the right recipe for the sticky experience that keeps bringing viewers back to the app. Maybe the magic ingredient is more of why they tuned into the show in the first place: a good story that unfolds on multiple levels. Once you have that, I think the commerce, advertising, ratings and engagement will come – in droves.

“Here then is where we come back to that old disconnect between what consumers want and what content providers want them to want…Right now, the majority of the second-screen apps aren’t solving a problem, or even providing a new kind of entertainment that didn’t exist before. Instead, they’re mainly just taking what Twitter and Wikipedia already do just fine and slapping their own logo on it.”

Murray reviewed mostly network-produced apps (like USA Anywhere) and social TV apps (like GetGlue and zeebox), covering a fairly representative sample of apps and programming. His observations get right to the heart of the matter about user experience, utility and distraction. Without spoiling the article – it really is a good read – here are some thoughts on what we think makes for a better second screen viewing experience:

• Be more than just an aggregator. Providing Twitter functionality and content scraped from IMDb and Wikipedia serves a purpose – having everything on one dashboard is a nice to have – but as a nation we are already accustomed to toggling among screens, apps – even devices. Incorporate other social networks. The experience has to be new – whether that means more streamlined or just more. Serve the social conversation in a way that is easier to digest. Give me the trivia I don’t already know (or cannot find easily). Which brings us to the next point…
• It’s all about the content. Relevance and variety are our friends. Polls are fine once in a while, but we want actor bios, scene information, images, games, even added layers of storytelling. And there is a huge premium on exclusivity, whatever the content. Oh, and we want commerce. Seriously, we do. Of course, with all this content, it begs the next question…
• How frequently should events refresh? It’s understandable – networks really don’t want to distract viewers from the main screen, even if it’s with their own branded app. You spend a million or two making an episode, and a fraction of that for an app. But the opposite – serving content at a slow drip – only frustrates the viewer who bothered to download and engage with the app. So how often should new material be presented on the second screen? It’s highly dependent on the program, of course, but we at Magic Ruby have a rule of thumb – one event per minute, plus or minus. It’s enough content to provide a truly immersive experience, and to get viewers hooked. And for those concerned about viewer distraction, let’s remember the statistic we all cite (and the real reason we cite it): 85+% of viewers are already distracted. We are a short attention span society. We can either sit by while viewers text, e-mail and search for content that isn’t relevant to the show, or we can create a walled garden to satisfy their cravings with more relevant content. And then…
• Accommodate DVR and time shifting. This means the app should not only work technically on DVR’d content, but should avoid spoilers for viewers who tune in late (or, in some cases, tune in on time, but on the West Coast). If the app is compelling enough, it should address the ad-skipping behavior that makes DVR viewing less sticky. Finally…
• Keep the experience going with an offline mode. Murray points out that the app needs to be functional for more than an hour a week – and we agree. Gamification that exists in both online and offline modes, that encourages viewers to interact with social media and program web sites across multiple platforms during the six-day interlude between airings.

By implementing all five of these principles, we are at least providing a new kind of entertainment that didn’t exist before. And we believe that is solving a problem – not just the ecosystem problem of inefficient advertising, distracted viewership and declining ratings, but the consumer problem of give me something to do for the next hour. That need is outgrowing what television by itself can provide. We need a second screen to pick up the slack.

While many people know us for our Second Screen synced commerce app SOA (for which we won a TEC award and have been nominated as a finalist for an Appy), Magic Ruby is a pioneer in Second Screen solutions for all types of programming, including live events, films, reality shows, serial dramas and sitcoms, and kids & family programming. Look for announcements soon on  upcoming kids’ shows that will synchronize with Magic Ruby-produced Second Screen apps.

For more details on the Cynopsis:Kids! Webinar, click here.

The SOA app is Magic Ruby’s flagship application that allows viewers to buy items that appear on screen in sync with FX Network’s hit drama Sons of Anarchy. When characters appear onscreen wearing a belt buckle, hoodie, bracelet, leather vest or any of the items in the SOA store, viewers canpurchase the same item in real time, right from the app. This synchronized commerce feature leads to higher average order values and a higher completed purchase ratethan on any other platform.

The full list of 2013 Appy Award Finalists can be viewed here.

Thomas Engdahl, CEO of Magic Ruby, will be a panelist at the US FPD Smart Devices conference March 18-19 in San Jose, California.

This event, now in its 15th year, examines how key differentiators in a multi-screen environment drive the way consumers interact with products – impacting the entire value chain. Technologies and business models for the connected device market will be analyzed, with reaction from key industry participants.

Tom will participate in a discussion regarding best practices for monetizing the connected environment, along with executives from Rovi, MobiTV, Gracenote, Accedo Broadband and Cognitive Networks.

Stop by the show and catch Tom’s panel!

Click here for conference information

Fairmont Hotel

San Jose, California

March 18-19, 2013

The execution could be as simple as the app knows I’m a male between the ages of 35-54, so the ads I see – whether for a car company or breakfast cereal will feature a “hero” of my same demographic. Don’t underestimate how powerful that can be – ads have to not only convince me the product is good, but that it’s good specifically for me. Every little bit helps.

Of course, targeting can be more involved, depending on the information available – in-app user behavior or preferences, psychographics, location, social graphs…each element adds a nuance to the messaging or call to action, all in an effort to make the ad more relevant.

There are tools to automate this targeting – and even more exciting, tools that will soon be able to automate the customization of the ad itself, making this type of targeting more affordable for brands and agencies.

All that needs to happen is for second screen audiences to reach a critical mass.