Should Facebook be the authentication provider for TV Everywhere?
With over 300M consumer accounts and adding 5M new accounts EACH DAY, Facebook will likely reach the 1 BILLION in 2010. It is therefore safe to assume that the vast majority of Comcast, Time Warner, DirecTV, and Dish subscribers will have a Facebook account.
Without any doubt, Facebook has now become the "identity gatekeeper" of the web. Facebook is the defacto openID provider. As such, there ought to be an easy way to leverage Facebook to solve TV Everywhere's authentication challenge. Imagine if we could link our cable / satellite accounts to our Facebook accounts. A couple clicks using Facebook Connect on the cable provider's web site is all it would take. Once a link is established between DirecTV and Facebook, for example, DirecTV could provide Facebook with that user's content access rights (such as: user has rights to HBO content but not Showtime). Here's a back-of-the-napkin use case of how it might play out:- Let's say I am a basic Comcast cable subscriber and have a Facebook account.
- I sign into Comcast.net with my Comcast-assigned username and password. I am prompted to click on a FB Connect link and then the "Authorize" button. Comcast sends my cable TV account info to Facebook, which Facebook stores as part of my Facebook profile.
- I then go to Yahoo and select the latest Simpsons episode to watch. Yahoo's TV Everywhere "enabled" video player (see explanation below) prompts me to sign in via Facebook Connect. I click "approve" and Facebook sends the video player my Comcast profile, which tells the video player what I'm eligible to watch. The player stores my cable profile info via a cookie and begins streaming the episode. When I try to watch a HBO content, the video player knows to block the stream.
- The above example could take place on ANY website that uses a TV Everywhere "enabled" video player. This could simply be a "chromeless" Flash-based player with Facebook Connect implemented and logic to interpret content provisioning based on cable account profiles.
- Using Facebook Connect for authentication, any site would be able to present TV Everywhere content and (almost) every cable subscriber would be able to participate after only a few "I Authorize" clicks.
OK, I know the above may be overly simplified, but hopefully you get the gist. The big question here is whether the MSO's would be willing to share any customer account information with Facebook. To make TV Everywhere work easily for consumers, I believe they will need to share.
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Also, I doubt any media company wants to give Facebook that added power and weight. It really doesn't do Comcast any good to make Facebook more of a behemoth and penultimate gatekeeper. Bad cultural mix.
Far more likely would be simple alliances with Mobile Providers where a User's Mobile and Mobile Number, including Mobile billing, are integrated into the TV-everywhere model. Those deals could be implemented quickly and also avoid any prospective anti-trust actions.
Of course, this is all if you believe that TV-everywhere has a chance of becoming what it's promoted to be? Or, is it a self-fulfilling suicidal move that will further fracture an Industry? DRM didn't work. Free doesn't work. Everywhere with little payments or ads attached?
Maybe something less obvious is more likely. I'd look to a Google-Mobile Carrier alliance (or, Goog just starts their own mobile network with cross-carrier payments integrated into the platform), that would be a gateway with a business model attached. But, again, it would be based on Mobile, not Facebook.
Who knows? It's all speculation. But, I don't think Facebook is going to move in this direction or that anyone would allow them to.
But I agree that would be a courageous step for the MSOs, even if it's necessary to realize the full potential of TV Everywhere.
"As for Facebook v Google: The fact that facebook is only 5 years old and has about 27% reach, says something doesn’t it. I think the two are going pretty neck to neck."
If those numbers are right, then it's 27% to Facebook and 100% to Google. And, some of us believe that Facebook will level out as the social media space sub-divides, while Google continues to grow because it assimilates and doesn't sub-divide. It can think in terms of Decades, not years.
Google may be the only common denominator for "everywhere."
Regardless, the biggest problem with "TV Everywhere" seems to be that there is nothing to watch, but that's a whole other subject.
Google is not 100% market reach. Remember, we're talking about REGISTERED USERS, with profiles. Facebook beats Google in that category with over 300 million user profiles created. I'm not sure where Google is, but it can't be more than 300 million.
At least I can't think of a better one!
However, there is no single mobile provider with the same market reach as Facebook. So we are back to square one: needing an aggregated database provided by a neutral 3rd party.
You're right of course. I should have been more specific.
Now that mobile devices are the growth application platform, there is an opportunity for an "application/service provider" to provide the verification/authentication solution. No small task, but I am somewhat surprised that a clear solution has not yet emerged. Sure RSA has a vested interest in preserving their token business but the ubiquity of mobile devices make them overwhelmingly appealing as the token.
The mobile players will need to benefit from the application or (to your point) you'll never achieve the aggregate user-base necessary to make it succeed. What's lacking?...not technology. We need a business model and clear leader to gain a significant market share. Once the market share reaches a critical mass any mobile provider hold-outs will join or loose out.
Many challenges to overcome of course but I believe that the solution is so compelling that it is only a matter of time.
I'm guessing that the ultimate TV Everywhere approach won't involve Facebook Connect (as simple as it sounds) for political and strategic reasons.
You may very well be right. Momentum is important and FB definitely has that.
