#CoxCiscoTV TweetChat at CES and #PersonalTV Instagram Photo Contest

Guest Blog by Sarah Evans, Social Media Correspondent

Sarah Evans (@prsarahevans) is the chief evangelist at Tracky and owner of Sevans Strategy, a public relations and new media consultancy. She’s the author of new book, [RE]FRAME: Little Inspirations For A Larger Purpose (published by SlimBooks). It’s her personal mission to engage and employ the use of emerging technologies in all communication that connects her with a rapidly growing base of more than 120,000 people. A “for good” advocate, Sarah worked with a local crisis center to raise more than $161K in three weeks via social media and is a team member of the Guinness Book World Record holding #beatcancer. Sarah can be seen in Vanity Fair’s Americas Tweethearts, Forbes’ 14 Power Women to Follow on Twitter and Entrepreneur’s Top 10 Hot Startups of 2010.

For the past few days I’ve had the privilege of serving as entertainment services provider Cox Communications social correspondent at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and working very closely with the Cisco team promoting the personal TV experience. TV is everywhere at CES. And it’s right on par. Nielsen says that Americans are actually watching more TV than ever – about 34 hours per week, in fact.

Cox and Cisco have been working very closely this week with joint announcements on the personalized television experience. Working with Cisco, Cox evolved their video services platform to deliver more personalized video experiences, offering their customers more of what they enjoy. While Cox customers have been able to watch 90 channels of live, linear TV on an iPad for more than a year now, this new app – powered by Cisco’s Videoscape Unity software and technology – expands the service to iPhones and iPods, adding significant improvements in navigation. Learn more about the announcement here.

It’s hard to miss the focus on hardware at CES, specifically on size and sharpness. However, I think the real story about TV at CES is what’s happening on the backend. And what’s the big innovation? The personalization, synchronization and socialization of video, with personal on the forefront.

To keep the buzz around TV going I moderated a #CoxCiscoTV Twitter chat to talk more about the idea of #PersonalTV with Cox Communications and Cisco executives. Our Twitter lineup was made up of:

Len Barlik, EVP of Product Development, Cox Communications (@Cox_PR)

Martin De Beer, SVP of Video and Collaboration Group, Cisco, (@MartinDeBeer)

Nick Thexton, CTO, Service Provider Video Technology Group, Cisco, (@CiscoSPVideo)

Here are some photos of the event!

Cisco’s Marthin De Beer and Nick Thexton

Len Barlik, Cox Communications

Moderater Sarah Evans and the Cox Communications team

Chat participants focused on this growing trend in personal TV and how it impacts their TV and video viewing experiences. The questions included:

What do you see as the single biggest trend in cable TV right now?

What does #personalTV really mean? How is it the future of TV and video viewing?

Does an increase in DVR and On Demand programming mean no one watches TV anymore?

What else has changed in viewing behavior and technology?

How expensive are these new technologies and services?

We had a wide variety of responses to these questions. Just like TV viewer habits, everyone has a unique take on the future of personal TV. Here are a few of our favorite replies:

We also shared some fun polls to let participants tell us how they’re viewing TV and video right now. Even if you missed the chat, you can still submit your answer!

Even though CES is over we have another fun activity for you! Cisco is announcing the #PersonalTV Instagram photo contest where they are asking everyone and anyone to post photos of where you watch or would watch your TV recordings. Be sure to tag your photos with the #PersonalTV hashtag on Instagram and the photo with the most “likes” will receive an Olloclip for their Iphone! Graphic below includes all of the guidelines. Looking forward to seeing your photos!

Want to chat more about #PersonalTV? Visit www.cisco.com/go/videoscape or www.cox.com or tweet them at @CiscoSPVideo and @CoxComm!