Earlier this week at Microsoft’s Advance08 conference, Robbie Bach and Mark Kroese presented some examples of how the company is putting the fun in ad-funded experiences on three screens – TV, PC, and Mobile devices, with content examples including Gaming , Video, Music, and Mobile scenarios.  I wanted to provide a few additional thoughts about what was shown to the audience of advertisers but with a consumer perspective.  It’s our job to make sure there is a clear value for the consumer, often in the form of “free stuff” in exchange for a sponsorship message that’s lightweight (read, doesn’t piss off the consumer) while meeting the goals of the brand advertiser who is footing the bill.  Here are a few examples:

Gaming – Among the 12M+ Xbox 360 owners, nearly 10M have Xbox Live accounts, connecting to the community to participate in multiplayer games and community activities such as tournaments.  One of the most popular features on Xbox Live are the free downloads – for example, a recent Nissan/Forza 2 Motorsport promotion involved a free downloadable car pack for in-game play, and an online tournament where the winner won an actual Nissan car. 

The Result: Over 350,000 downloads of the free car pack, and over 6.7 million game sessions played during the tournament.

Video -  Movies are universally appealing, and Xbox Live Video Marketplace is no different.  McDonald’s recently completed their “Burgercon” promotion on Xbox Live by offering a free movie download to all Xbox Live users, in this case “Austin Powers”.

The Result: The movie became the most popular movie ever downloaded on Xbox Live.

Music  & Mobile – Like Movies, Music is also universally appealing and a largely social type of experience.  Zune Social is an online community where Zune owners can opt-in to share their music interests and listens with friends.  In the past four months, nearly 2 million Zune owners have chosen to participate the new Zune Social.  One concept we’re piloting this summer is the ability to connect with artists and music events as “friends” on the Social.  The goal is to take what’s been so successful on Xbox with gaming and video, and extend that value exchange to music enthusiasts on Zune Social.  The experience is a microsite on Zune Social, offering free music and video downloads, sponsored by brands such as Doritos in the example shown and connected to music downloads from the CMJ Music Festival. 

Rule #1 is, “Put music in their ears and a smile on their face,” so we’re going to be very careful in how sponsorship messages are presented.  In the example shown this week, it’s just a background wallpaper with attribution to Doritos – no in-song ads as some have speculated.  As a Zune Social member, I'd have to opt-in to download this Zune Card, and even then, it would be presented separate from my music library.  Brand sponsorship might be displayed in album art or wallpaper on the downloaded playlist that includes a small brand logo such as the image of the Zune 80 from the demo at the right.  We've had no discussions about putting ads into song tracks or the like- that would go against rule #1!  But like game and movies downloads, someone has to pay to offer the free and legitimate download. We’re finding just like at music concerts, there are plenty of brands interested in sponsorship opportunities, in this case offering free downloads in exchange for creating a positive connection with music lovers. 

As mentioned, this is a pilot launching this summer, will always be opt-in and the team will be actively soliciting your feedback.  Just like on Xbox, the goal is to put the “fun” in ad-funded downloads with Zune.  Trust is earned and there are plenty who will assume the worst- that's part of the fun (and the challenge) of my new job.

I've always been a fan of Roku's Soundbridge devices, back to demonstrating them on-stage with BillG for the "Digital Entertainment Anywhere" event in 2005.  Bill and I had a long conversation about UI and interaction model during rehearsals back then, so I'm eager to see what Roku is up to with their newly announced NetFlix Player.  Engadget has their impressions here, reporting video quality maxes out at 480p today, until NetFlix gives the go-ahead for HD.  Some HDMI problems to be sorted out as well.  (Note: My Apple TV still freezes up on the Apple logo and my TiVo Series 3 won't display intermittently when switching HDMI sources - this is an industry-wide problem).

Will it rival the Apple TV?  Time will tell but something tells me this is a feature that needs to be built into multi-function devices such as mainstream consumer DVD players, not a dedicated box.  For some folks like my Father (a converted NetFlix user), this might be the right solution provided NetFlix is able to beef up their library.

I'm hoping to review the unit at some point in the future.  Review roundup so far:

Read - Roku Netflix Player officially introduced
Read - PCMag review (4 out of 5)
Read - CNET review (7.7 out of 10)
Read - Wired review ("...just shy of totally amazing.")

ZatzNotFunny is reporting Seven Media Group is prepping to launch TiVo in Australia, minus the subscription fees. How about the US?  I ditched all but one of my TiVo boxes (the one that was grandfathered in years ago for a hefty fee).  I would probably own another TiVo were it not for the subscription fee on top of the hardware purchase.  I wonder what the margins are on the hardware... even the performance of the hardware is starting to look long in the tooth compared to solutions I've seen recently...

A Microsoft VP once told me, "In the world of business, there are Pioneers and there are Settlers.  Microsoft needs both."  I've always gravitated toward the startup opportunities within Microsoft.  A few years ago, I was given the opportunity to help take a fledgling technology called, "WPF/E", name it, brand it, and launch it as "Silverlight", with my team.  The response has been phenomenal, with over 1M downloads/day and a developed balance of features for RIA-focused and Media-focused features. 

A number of months ago, I learned of a new opportunity that what right in my wheelhouse of consumer-focused digital media as a steward of user experiences in the Entertainment and Devices Division as Director of Product Planning for Ad-funded Experiences.  Looking back on the most personally rewarding times of my career so far, I've most enjoyed building teams that focus on the user experience, and deliver "free stuff" for consumers. One could argue my first attempt there was developing the original XP Digital Media Fun Pack and Powertoys, many of which included a small sponsorship message.  Following the acquisitions of aQuantive, ScreenTonic, and Massive Inc., it became clear to me where opportunity intersects with my personal interests.  Put another way, working on the Silverlight platform and seeing so many cool apps developed helped me to realize I missed having a hand in building consumer products myself.  It/s hard to leave the amazing leadership of Scott Guthrie, Soma and so many friends, but I'm not going far.

So what does the job involve?   It starts with working with many of the teams in Entertainment & Devices - Zune, Mobile, Xbox, and more to identify market opportunities where the consumer wins and brand advertisers get impressions.  This is a new area and we're going to step lightly and take feedback as we did with over 10M enthusiasts on Xbox Live who regularly download free add-ons for their games - Map packs, cars, tracks, and even feature-length movies sponsored by brand-name companies like McDonald's, Frito-Lay, Nissan, Ford, Nike, and many others.  The question is can we do the same thing for more media types and devices.  In a nutshell, that's my job - to put the fun in ad-funded entertainment experiences.

And I'm hiring. More on that later :)

At last I can talk about Live Mesh - Dave Zatz you got it right.  Many articles have now been written on the topic, such as Mary Jo's, On10's Video Demos, TechCrunch, the NYT's John Markoff, Scoble, and the Beeb so I won't rehash that here.  What I will say is that it's changing how I work fundamentally, even in it's nascent form.  I'm storing most of my documents and recent photos in the "Cloud" for easy and secure access from work and home.  I'm using Remote Access to "RAS" into my office computer from my Mac.  And when I've been away from home, I've been able to retrieve documents using the web-based UI.  And soon, sync with Mac and other devices. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Live Mesh is a computing platform, a merging of software + services that seems simple in concept. What winsock was to enabling the Internet on Windows, Mesh can and should be the same to personal sync, network app enablement and so much more.  It's hard to see what's on the Horizon (wink), but this is the platform that I really hope developers stand up and take notice of, give feedback on.  The Tech Preview goes out shortly.  If I have invites, I will offer them up here.

Congrats to the Live Mesh team and thanks for solving a major pain point.  If you're a consumer and asking, "Huh?" to all of this, check out the On10 Video.

Next week, i can finally talk about some tech that is truly changing the way I work.  How's that for a teaser? ;)

(Back from Blog Hiatus)  I have an Apple TV - I'm a gadget guy, I work on Digital Media, and of course, want to understand the space.  So I recently purchased a refurbished unit off the Apple online store, and fired it up.  The UI is minimalist, and overall I've been happy except for what I'll call, "The Curse".  Apparently, my Apple TV decides to lose its marbles regularly and just display the Apple logo- no error code, no nothing.  Clicking the remote with cause an auditory "bonk" noting it's working, but the bootup Apple logo is all I have on the screen. I figured it was just a refurb issue.  Then i started searching and found this thread with over two dozen posts from users reporting the same issue.  Apparently factory restore wasn't working and some folks have hunted it down to a possible HDMI handshake issue.  Either way, rebooting my TiVo Series3 and my Apple TV make me cringe...

Update: Version 2.0.2 of Apple TV Firmware is out.  I'm downloading now and will report back if it fixes the issues.

This sounded too strange to be true. I really like Charlie's interviews and the fact that he went on-air without a healthy dose of makeup to cover the black eye makes the story all the better.  Would I do the same for my Dell m1330? Maybe...

Yesterday was my 34th birthday and I had a wonderful time with family at home while our roof was being replaced (cedar shingles) with a next-gen composite roof (another topic for another time).  Despite the hammering, we had a great dinner and this year, my mom gave me a Thermapen, connecting my love of grilling and BBQing and gadgetry.  This device was originally designed for laboratory use and now is used by culinary professionals around the world. It displays actual internal or liquid temperatures in 3-4 seconds vs. the 20 most take today.  I had the opportunity to try one out at least year's Eggfest and have been pining for it ever since.

The packaging is well done- each unit is individually calibrated and noted in pen by an inspector, it includes an NSF certification and certificate noting its rated to over 500 degrees.  Flip out the temperature probe and it automatically powers up.  If you have a chef or grillmaster in your family, this is a must-have gadget for saving them from singed knuckles.

Ryan Stewart and Long Zheng summed it up nicely.  This kind of banter and candor is why I work at Microsoft.  A CEO who will go, "Monkey Boy" just to please his customers.  Guy had some really nice things to say about the new Microsoft culture which was great to hear.  I'll post the keynote here when available.

Angus Logan asks:

• Do you have media like *.mov files which Silverlight doesn't speak?
• Do you really really want that media in Silverlight?
• Do you have an abundance of bandwidth to push un-encoded files up to the cloud?
• Sick of melting your CPU to encode media? we can do it in the cloud.

On his site you'll find a video demonstration of the experience and details on the coming API's.  This isn't a replacement for Expression Encoder, rather I see a compelling service for everything from next-gen ad solutions for customers  looking to ingest a myriad of formats into standard video formats for broad distribution, to design/development houses looking to use Silverlight Streaming as a service for video delivery.  Congrats to the Silverlight Streaming team!

Learn more here.

http://tinyurl.com/33kl26  Ray Ozzie is speaking right now.

Thanks Jeff. 

The show officially starts in a few hours, but the events started last night. The night started off with a great dinner off the strip at a "foodie" approved Thai restaurant, "Lotus of Siam" with Dave Wolf of Cynergy Systems. Twitter was white hot with updates from different events and ad-hoc get togethers.  Later I stopped by the Blogger Party and met up with a number of familiar faces and met some new ones. I took some grief for not blogging enough so will try and do better.  Ryan Stewart stopped by and we played Rock Band, jamming to NIN's "The Hand that Feeds".  I'm sure there's some irony in there somewhere. My performance was marred by a semi-functioning yellow button on the axe but we had a good time.

Late last night, an update mail went out internally asking most MSFTies to watch the keynote from the overflow room. Apparently attendance is packed to the gills with very few no-shows or last minute cancellations.  So I'll be in the "other" room if you want to stop by and say hello. Lots of great sessions and meetups happening today and tomorrow.  Sure to be a topic on the floor today is Job's comments about Flash on the iPhone.  It's long been rumored that Apple has been working to create their own RIA platform with Safari at the center.  With Jobs making comments such as "There's this missing product in the middle", one has to wonder if there's a connection with Apple's March 6th event?