The Impact of OTT on the Walled Garden
Does the walled garden still have a meaningful role to play?
YS: The significance of the walled garden decreases constantly, although it's still too early to speak of it as irrelevant. The superiority of OTT for both the end users and content owners ensures that over time, operators who enjoy the existence of the walled garden will have no choice but to drop this model. For now, they can still profit from it due to the type of devices and awareness users possess, but as more "truly connected" devices enter the market the walls of the garden will be cracked until they fall.
YC: Service provider portals should not be called walled garden. Operators should provide a guided walk into the internet garden, not restrict access to any content. The role of the portal is to simplify the content access, consumption, and its management. For example, a YouTube or a VOD application should be able to display content recommended by the user's social network. This is only possible if the device links these applications together and hence uses a common middleware layer.
SM: Without a doubt it has a role to play. Connected TV services are challenged because they can be too dependent on the delivery chain: Delivering HD video over the open internet raises reliability issues that are difficult for connected TV suppliers to address. For telcos, offering walled garden services can improve the customer experience by configuring the network and offering services that are known to offer a good user experience on the TV-and typically have business models that enable them to pay for this. A connected TV manufacturer alone can't do this.
SZ: Consumers are accustomed to using this model and paying for premium content, but statistics don't bode well for this approach. Service providers must realize that value chains are changing and consumers now have a lot of control. They must embrace the OTT business model, not fight it. They must become part of the new video distribution value chain.
JL: As an interim measure for operators, then yes. They need to allow consumers access to the OTT content, but may wish to limit it to reduce the loss of eyes from their own content. The key will be to get the balance right. Too little content and consumers will purchase a separate device that give complete access; too much could damage their existing ARPU.
DB: Maybe not in the traditional sense, but when selecting their entertainment, people will always want guidance, ways to explore and to save their preferences-our entertainment time is limited, our choices are personal and specific, so endless choice and the same content being available from multiple sources does not necessarily result in a good consumer experience. It may not be the walled garden we are accustomed to, but there will always be boundaries.
What role do widgets play? Is there a long-term business model?
YC: Widgets are an easy fix to aggregate various services under a single app store, into a single application framework, or at the same level. The issue is that they recreate the equivalent to desktop shortcuts. They allow quick access to a third-party environment but don't solve the issue of unifying the customer experience or managing cross-platform rights.
SM: Broadcasters are very reluctant to allow third-party content to be displayed over their broadcast services, and so this may well relegate widgets to their own part of the UI where the user cannot watch TV at the same time. While widgets can be a useful addition to the experience (the typical example being the person who uses them to check the news, weather, and traffic before leaving for work), the question remains whether there's a business model that supports them: Is this something that consumers will pay for, and if not, how do manufacturers make money from widgets?
JL: In the short term they are vital if TV manufacturers want to offer some limited content. In the longer term, full browser-based services upgradable via the internet will give consumers a much richer service and more variety of content.
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