Italy is certainly not the first country you think of when it comes to web technologies. This post will not argue the contrary, but it will try to explain a little bit about the Italian web scene.
That’s so six years ago
Internet usage in Italy is extremely low compared to most other developed economies. The penetration rate was only 36 percent in 2007. The Italians that use the web still see it mainly as a communication/information tool. The most visited websites include news sites and blogs.
E-commerce is rising, but still far from the average. In 2007 e-commerce represented 0.49% of retail sales, while this figure is around 6% in the UK, the top performer in Europe. Take a look at the Internet Book Shop to see a clear example of how young this market still is. IBS is the top e-commerce site in Italy with over 1.3 million uniques per month in 2007 and with €30 million turnover. The site’s graphics and layout are horrible by current standards, but there’s a simple explanation for this: the site hasn’t changed in the past 6 years! For a country known for its design and style this is outrageous, we can and should do better than this.
Computer lessons on the chalkboard
There are several reasons for the slow growth of the web in Italy, but I can certainly mention some major ones:
Slow deployment of broadband
Only 8.7 million families (37% of the total) have an ADSL connection in 2008!
Low IT-alphabetization
I hope things have improved since I was young (I am only 30), but I doubt it. I went through five years of high school and never had a computer lesson or even saw a computer. The first computer lesson I had was at University (1998) and the teacher was explaining us how a PC worked (cpu, hard-disk, memory, etc), all on the chalkboard!
Culture & habits
Italians still spend a lot of time watching television, though the younger generations are more aligned to the European/western standards and are spending more and more time online. Generally speaking Italian society is still very much run by very “wise” people and that means there’s a huge disconnection between the new technologies and the ruling class. This can also be seen by the low investments made by companies in the web industry.
There are some exceptions
Though they’re not brilliant, the Italian web scene has some interesting cases. I will mention a few good ones.
Beppegrillo.it Beppegrillo.it is probably the best known Italian blog (ranking #20 on Technorati). This comedian has understood the power of the web and is fully exploiting it. Through his blog he managed to gather 50,000 people in a square for a demonstration last year. Not bad…
Beppegrillo.it demonstration
Babelgum
A free Internet TV platform supported by advertising, Babelgum offers professionally produced programming on-demand. Babelgum is a creation of Silvio Scaglia, former founder and CEO of FASTWEB a major italian cable television-internet provider.
Crosscast-system.com
This is another video startup that aims at competing with the likes of Joost. A good review with screenshots can be found at WebTvWire. Not sure what they will manage to do in the long run, but seems very promising…
Big potential
The Italian market is largely underdeveloped which, in my opinion, leads to a simple conclusion: huge opportunities. Sooner or later, the Italian market will catch up with the rest of the world and, given the population (60 million people), it has a big potential.
Personally, I believe that the web can bring bring a positive disruptive change to the Italian market, a market that is too often dominated by “dodgy” practices. There’s still time to enter this market, you just need to get the ingredients right. For example: get some decent graphics and you will already have a competitive advantage!
If you know some interesting Italian startups. just drop me a line. It’s time to show internationally what the Italian web scene can produce…
Written on 8th September 2008
22 COMMENTS Toivo Tänavsuu, Next Web Estonian Web Tipr & founder of TigerPrises.com
The Estonians who brought world wide fame to the Internet telephone Skype are working on a new and interesting software solution enabling free video calls via television.
The project, currently named InkSpin1, hatching in the Ambient Sound Investments (ASI) investment group’s incubator, incorporates the development of the user interface utilized in the Skype Internet phone for LCD televisions. This development would enable video calls to be conducted not on small cell phone screens or even computer screens but on gigantic TV screens.
Just turn on the tube
InkSpin1 leader Martin Villig says the objective of the described solution is to make video calls as simple and convenient as possible and thus introduce an even larger user base.
Today, free Skype video calls are available to computer users, all you need in addition is a web cam. “Today, we have a solution for computer users. Yet, for an average home user, video calling is too difficult and thus they are not taking advantage of the opportunity. Our goal here is to make such calls equally easy for kids as well as parents. So that if people know how to turn on the TV and change channels, they would know how to make video calls,” Villig explains.
According to Villig, the company already has the first TV-video phone (or VTV solution) prototypes up and running and they are doing so efficiently. At the moment, additional services are being developed and they are making contact with television manufacturers, with a view to integrating the software device into television sets. Those unwilling to change their TV sets can, in the future, purchase a digibox-like supplementary device.
Backed by Chinese developers
Product development for the Skype founders’ new technological gadget is carried out in Estonia, its software development, however, takes place in Beijing, China. Villig lists two reasons behind this. First, through China, it is easier to cooperate with Asian television producers, contacts with some of whom have already been established. Second, it is more difficult in Estonia than in China to find suitable software developers in required numbers. The Chinese unit of InkSpin1 is managed by Jussi Nyfelt, a Finn who has been promoting Nokia in China for years.
But first, some research
So as to find out what the relevant user expectations are and whether or not users would be willing to pay a bit more for video-cal enabled TV sets, InkSpin1 will conduct preliminary studies in a number of countries; monetary support for this will be applied for with Enterprise Estonia. The TV-video phone could be on the market in a year or two, notes Villig. In addition to everything else, the solution is still awaiting a catchy name.
ASI, which has invested in tens of technology companies is owned by Skype founders Toivo Annus, Jaan Tallinn, Ahti Heinla and Priit Kasesalu. When eBay purchased Skype in 2005 for 2,6 billion USD, the Estonians received a significant amount in their bank accounts.
This is a guest post by Toivo Tänavsuu, editor and founder of TigerPrises.com
YouTube has become one of Holland’s top 3 most visited sites, a study by Dutch research agency Multiscope shows. Two thirds of Dutch Internet users check the video site on at least a monthly basis, partly due to the network effect of the service (You know the deal, bored people sending each other videos during work). Apart from these impressive numbers, one part in the study report particularly struck me: the extraordinarily high average visit time, which is 8 minutes. Is online video becoming a substitute for TV?
Chinese TV threatened by online videos
In China, this already is the case. The country is the home of the world’s most exciting online video market. The government isn’t afraid to pull the censorship card every once in a while, there’s tough competition, as much rumors as videos, and millions, millions of funding and views. When I interviewed Marc van der Chijs, founder of Tudou – largest video site of the world with 35 billion minutes viewing time in January -, he told me the average visitors stays on Tudou for 47 minutes. “For young Chinese people”, he said, “it is a substitute for television”.
Will Europe follow?
So while the first signs of a similar trend are appearing in the Netherlands, the questions arises whether we Europeans will face a similar scenario in the near future. Comscore recently released data from their online video measurement service, indicating that 23.2 million French Internet users viewed 2.1 billion videos online in January 2008. That number of 23.2 million viewers makes up for 79.5 percent of the total French Internet audience. So almost 80 percent of French Internet users watched on average 90 videos in one month.
There’s of course one major difference though — European television tends not to suffer from censorship threats, thus it’s not as biased as in China. No frightened kids who run to the “unbiased” and fun environment of online videos. Though when I think about it, the quality of Dutch TV isn’t particularly high either. Will we abandon the couch en masse to watch four-minute clips?
Although some say television has become redundant – co-editor Boris doesn’t even have a TV subscription anymore -, I do believe that television series are here to stay. Why? They fascinate people. Because of the long time spans, extra complexities and layers are added to the series – persuading us to follow six plot lines at the same time. Apparently, most people are fond of that – as new monster hits keep popping up. And you know what? It even makes us smarter – says Steven Johnson in his book Everything Bad is Good for You. London-based Paul Cleghorn has built a social media experience around these series with Tape it off the Internet (TIOTI).
UGC can be enlightening, if there is any
This social media aggregator for television allows users to browse through almost all successful TV series – each with a page containing wiki-like content, a link to a torrent, and loads of UGC. Spoofs, bloopers, alternative endings, mash-ups, and commentary from lovers and haters dominate the series’ profiles. At least, that was the idea when the service launched in October 2007. So far, there isn’t much going on.
When I’ve seen a movie that leaves me questioning “What the hell just happened?”, I browse to IMDB to see what other film freaks have to say about it. That’s always great fun – sometimes even enlightening -, and I’m glad to have found a potential similar experience for TV series. If only more users would leave their blunt comments.
The torrents might be responsible
The torrent links are a nice side-effect, making it possible to track down the episode you’ve missed. Or all of them, if you’re like me and refuse to stay at home for an episode. But I do think that the torrents are partly responsible for the lack of activity on TIOTI. Users just click through, eager to see the episode, and forget about the whole social aspect.
An aggregator after all
Although TIOTI has hardly any social activity on its site, it does link to other sources where discussion take place – like TV.com. Combined with the torrent links, YouTube clips, Flickr pictures, and official links, this makes TIOTI a good aggregator after all – handy for people who want to quickly see a show or learn more about it. But I guess Cleghorn isn’t satisfied with that. I’m sure he wants an active community. Of course he wants that, since it will give his social media aggregator for television soul.
While typing this article, I’m listening to an intimate concert José Gonzalez gave in Berlin. It’s published on Sly-Fi, the music channel of Berlin-based Hobnox, that is temporarily functioning as the new MTV for me. Especially as they’ve interviewed the musician as well. Exactly the kind of experience marketing manager David Noel was hoping for: “MTV stopped producing music focused shows that also feature upcoming bands, we think that there is a gap to close.” So the team from Hobnox wants to satisfy all the music hipsters who are fed up with the musical atrocities of Rihanna and Enrique Iglesias.
Noel: “Right now, we produce editorial content for three channels in the broad areas music, film and culture”. The next step though, is more interesting. Hobnox will integrate content from talented users into existing shows or create new shows around them. “The existing formats are always made in a way that our users can easily make these shows themselves. Like the iNterview format. Just grab a laptop with a webcam and answer the questions your fans or friends send you.” (Here’s the latest episode with The Ting Tings)
The player does have some problems (in Firefox) though, as I can’t manage to get the embed code or a direct link. But if Noel and his team fix this, I think I can call Hobnox once again one the coolest start-ups of this year. These new plans make it even better. Seesmic has already proved that using your users’ content for shows can turn out to be really good move, as the funny g-spot episode showed. If Hobnox does the same, but with media talent, this German site could soon become one of my favorite channels.
ComScore recently released data from their online video measurement service, indicating that 23.2 million French Internet users viewed 2.1 billion videos online in January 2008. That number of 23.2 million viewers makes up for 79.5 percent of the total French Internet audience.
So almost 80 percent of the French Internet users watched on average 90 videos in one month. The average video had a duration of four minutes. Please let me get this straight, January is a dark and cold month, Christmas is over and spring is far away, but… 90 videos?! Does French television programs suck that bad?
Although Google has the largest share in the French online video market (28.8 percent), French viewers watched a total of 28 million hours of online video on Dailymotion.com, more than any other site. So we’ve got a classic chicken and the egg story here. What came first? Are the French watching billion of videos online because of the successful video site Dailymotion? Or is Paris-based Dailymotion such a success because French people watch billions of videos?
For me, the digital revolution that has been raging on for quite some years makes perfect sense. I don’t look back at another era of media usage, but I can imagine others do. All those weird Web 2.0 services that fulfill needs people couldn’t think of having ten years ago can make you nostalgic. Right?
I think BBC editor Darren Waters agrees with me. In his dot.life column of May 25, he looks back at those good ol’ water cooler moments. Colleagues used to chit chat about last night’s television show, as they had all watched the same one. But all the new technologies like video-on-demand, DVD boxes, torrents, and YouTube killed that precious daily ritual. Everybody is watching something different.
Yet Waters has now found a new way to discuss the highlights and low points of modern television: Twitter! The microblogging service honors the water cooler as the perfect metaphor. When Waters watched the Eurovision Song Contest a few days ago, he didn’t just turn the tube on. He also browsed to Tweetscan and Summize (Not Summarize, Mr. Waters) to see what others were saying. It’s like putting the TV next to the water cooler. Moreover, people posted links to background stories, which makes watching television and Twitter at the same time “informed viewing”, and that, my dear readers, is “exciting”.
Interesting conclusion by Waters. But it wasn’t the only thing about his article that struck me. Waters is twittering with people not because they’re acquaintances, no, because they’re watching the very same show. Is Twitter moving towards some sort of revamped and improved chat box?
The New York Times business section opens today with an interesting story about mobile TV. For those of you who think this is a service born for the niche – except for Asia, you seem to be mistaking. Alright, in the US it is: Verizon Wireless has been offering this service since March 2007, but it has fewer than 100,000 paying viewers. However, some European countries have adopted the service entusiastically — in Switzerland, 40,000 people watch news broadcasts on a daily basis, and a million Italians pay 19 euros a month to watch a dozen mobile TV channels.
Several American and European investors have started to expand the infrastructure on which mobile TV relies, which the New York Times describes as “special transmission towers that beam to tiny receivers in the mobile phones.” In the UK, France and Germany, mobile video services like these are on their way. AT&T is shaking things up in the US by launching a mobile TV service as well.
These rapid developments exceed the expectations of experts. A year ago, research firm Screen Digest predicted that the adoption of mobile TV services in the UK might have to wait until 2012, due to a shortage of spectrum. The new infrastructure might speeds things up.
The big question remains though: who will watch mobile TV? People stuck in traffic jams or public transport? And still, when caught in a situation like this, wouldn’t you prefer an episode of Seinfeld or anything but a news broadcast? I suspect that people have already found their sources for news: the TV bulletin in the morning, mobile news sites, screens in public transport and for that matter, the newspapers. Who would want to pay another 20 euros for 100 seconds of news broadcasts?
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd’s Panasonic announced today (via Reuters) that it will start development and production of television sets that will allow viewers to watch photos and video streamed live from the Internet. The hardware will be developed in close coordination with Google. The television sets will allow viewers to directly access videos from YouTube and view, edit and share Picasa Web Albums.
No word on Gmail, Docs or general Search at this point. It isn’t clear at this point if the TV sets will be named TeleGoogles or simply come with a ‘Google Inside’ sticker.
Written on 29th January 2009
8 COMMENTS 
Long before anyone had heard of the Internet, early home computer users could read their morning newspapers online … sort of.
Written on 29th September 2008
Written on 8th September 2008
Written on 25th August 2008
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd’s Panasonic announced today (via 
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