Capt. Midnight: Content Partner Roundtable (CPR)

From: Ramon Chen
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 11:16 AM
To: *ALL MetaTV
Subject: Capt. Midnight: Content Partner Roundtable (CPR)

Sorry that I didn’t put this out last night but here we go …
 
As some of you may know we hosted a roundtable yesterday at the elegant setting of the Acqua Hotel in Mill Valley www.metatv.com/roundtable.swf
I’m delighted to report that it was an amazing success. In yet another ground-breaking, industry leading event, little ole MetaTV managed to bring together  the 2nd largest MSO in North America and some of the biggest names and brands on the Internet.
 
In attendance were executives from Comcast, representatives from Rosewood capital as well as senior representatives from the following companies:
J. Walter Thompson,  Scripps Networks, Expedia, Ticketmaster Online – Citysearch, eBay, Harris Interactive, Ofoto, Wells Fargo, Reuters America, Vitessa Corporation, Tribune Media Services, Ourhouse and E! Online. Total number of attendees were around 25+ with some companies sending two representatives.
 
The event was kicked off during lunch by Peter Ausnit, senior financial analyst covering the iTV space with DB Alex Brown. He was introduced by Andrew L and presented a “public markets” view of iTV to level set everyone in the room about the current opportunities in iTV and financial communities view of investing in this market. What then followed were 10 minute MetaTV presentations which gave the audience a soft sell MetaTV overview.
This included a company overview, level set of the value proposition of TV portals, our technology and how MetaTV offered the complete iTV solution, leading into Matt M’s eye opening demo’s featuring our enhanced E*trade demo as well as the QVC purchasing demo off a live QVC broadcast. The broadcast iTV demo’s impressed the attendees and they certainly got the picture that the TV portal and broadcast iTV content synergistically provided the complete iTV experience.
Next up, Greg K detailed how content partners could work with MetaTV and presented case studies such as E*trade, E! Online and Ford/JWT emphasizing how MetaTV could get them to market quickly, with minimal resources and skills on their part.
Continuing the theme of wowing the attendees with MetaTV expertise and cool stuff, Ty and Lena did a double act by presenting the MetaTV TV services development process, demonstrating our extensive portfolio of achievements to date as well as providing compelling reasons why MetaTV has a depth of experience unmatched in the industry today. Their presentation culminated in the demo of our travel VOD application, which clearly got several members of the audience fired up as it represented an innovative way to leverage video assets and VOD infrastructure.
Matt M then returned, this time with Karen Montoya of E! Online to give a testimony of how MetaTV and E! Online worked together to deliver the E! Online TV service for Liberate Trial Pack. This live endorsement of our skills, process and technology further enforced MetaTV’s credibility and thought leadership.
 
After a quick break, the roundtable discussions were kicked off by John Esrey who level set that since “MetaTV would handle the technology issues, the focus would now turn to discuss business models between Comcast and the content provider attendees” clearly reassuring all that MetaTV had the implementation challenges covered. The discussions were very informative and each provider spoke about their interest in iTV and the challenges they felt they had ahead of them. There was healthy dialogue between Comcast and providers as they put on the table their thought processes around branding, rev share and carriage. In summary, the discussions were very productive and both sides gained a lot from the exchange.
 
At the conclusion of the event, the attendees adjourned for some drinks with a spectacular view of the Marin lagoon, capping a very classy and successful event.
 
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Acknowledgements
 
A big thank you goes out to Sarah Hull who planned, managed, orchestrated the event with significant help from Marj liasing with Comcast, Greg, Peter, Chris B inviting and bringing to the table the content providers. Jeff K, as usual, for managing the location, facilities, lunch. Craig and David B for technical setup and crisis management. Peter for DVD intro production. Matt M for the enhanced demos and presentation. Greg for presenting how to work with MetaTV. Lena & Ty for a great double act. Diane S and John Bartlett for recording the proceedings and facilitating the arrivals.
 
Anecdotes
 
Sweating the details – An example of going the extra mile and striving for perfection was never more evident than Sarah, Marj and John B going straight back to the office to work on the CPR logistics, discuss with Peter Ausnit his presentation, and as a result missed the bowling festivities. In addition, every single person was seated with professionally printed name tent cards with detailed analysis about who should be sitting next to whom. Each attendee receive a bag consisting of a MetaTV fleece, MetaTV pen and collateral specifically hand picked for their focus.
Also to focus on P2P, Sarah H went out and bought a bunch of candy which we placed on dishes for the attendees (small stuff but items that certain hotels either don’t offer or charge extra for). Marj ensured that the there was no possibility of Comcast being late by arranging for car service to bring them from the airport and John B and Jeff K also picked up a rental car for them at the Hertz in Mill Valley so that they could have a car for the rest of their trip.
 
Technical challenges – With the conference room in explicably not having DSL or ISDN access, Craig, Jeff and David had to run a cable from the managers office out through the lobby round the back patio and into the room. It was an amazing feat getting Liberate ISP, the VOD server demo, DVD’s, powerpoints and sound (speakers courtesy of Ty) all working for a successful presentation. A major challenge came when the line suddenly stopped working 1 hour before we were to start. David and Jeff tracked and traced the line to see if there were any severed connections and we all went into “Adapt” mode, shuffling and rearranging the agenda to extend the time they had to resolve the problem. In the end, the problem was fixed and we reverted back to the original agenda and the audience was none the wiser.
 
Clutch your sides funny – When the presentations and demos were completed, the attention focused on the roundtable discussions. Unfortunately because of the room the noise emanating from all the servers, consoles was quite loud and was causing a problem for attendees hearing all the comments that were being made. So a call was put out for Engineering help to power down the servers. As we waited for David B to come and execute, the tension started to build since the noise from the equipment was beginning to agitate folks. Finally David comes into the room, all MetaTV eyes turn to him as roundtable participants continued their discussions. David walks up to the equipment, finds the main power cords and just pulls them out of the wall. He then proceeds to wall out, a job well done. Several MetaTV folks tried hard to contain their laughter but it was indeed a classic moment. Marketing of course took copious notes on how he pulled the plug so we could be self sustaining in the future.
 
Kudos from the attendees – Peter Ausnit, DB Alex Brown was really impressed with how MetaTV was able to bring together all these folks. He said “You guys are really impressive. Bringing every one here in this forum is no mean feat. The stuff you showed today was great.” Several other attendees told us how appreciative they were of the invite and how much they benefited from the roundtable.
 
Support from our customers/partners – Karen M from E! Online and Sara Hall of JWT were extremely complementary about MetaTV and the work we had done for them. Certainly our goal of Customer satisfaction hit home with both those companies and individuals and it paid big dividends in this setting. And of course having Rosewood (one of our VCs) bring to the table several big content names was key as well.
 
Concert execution – This event brought together a major MSO and big brand name content providers. There were many challenges in timing, presentations, technical setup, logistics not to mention the different groups and potential volatility of the whole roundtable itself. In the end, we accomplished all we set out to achieve and more. An innovate event, with adaptive executing and amazing results. At the same time we did it with cost effectiveness in mind (P2P) and leveraged our customer satisfaction to further our customer acquisition goals.
 
Well done once again to everyone.
Another proud day for MetaTV.

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