DANIEL SIEBERG: Hi there, I'm Daniel Sieberg in
the Google TV booth.
And I am en-Thuuz-iastically talking
with Brandon and Jordan.
Brandon, tell us who you are and what Thuuz is all about.
BRANDON FIELDS: All right.
I'm a software engineer with Thuuz.
And Thuuz is a sports application.
And it's all about finding an exciting game to watch because
in today's TV land there's just tons of games to watch at
any particular time.
So we try to make it easy for a user to find the most
exciting games.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Cool.
So Jordan, you're going to help us out by kind of driving
the action here.
JORDAN TOOR: I can do that.
DANIEL SIEBERG: So give us sort of a run through Brandon
of what we're seeing as Jordan's controlling things.
JORDAN TOOR: Sure.
So Thuuz is enabling discovery of exciting games.
This is our home screen for the Google TV app.
It's currently showing that my personalized sports-- there's
two live games going on right now.
So we're going to go ahead and jump into here.
This is personalized to my favorite sports and my
favorite teams.
You can see here in the middle we have two live games going
on right now, the Dodgers and the Giants.
You can see earlier today, games off to the left with
more exciting games ranked to the top.
DANIEL SIEBERG: What do those numbers reference to?
BRANDON FIELDS: Those are excitement ratings that we
come up with based on an algorithm that computes
several factors based on pace of the game, novelty of the
plays, rivalry of the teams, big come
backs, things like that.
Hundreds of factors go into making a number
between 0 and 100.
100 being the best game ever.
So I mean if you could imagine the Giants perfect game a week
or two ago, that was 100 on our Thuuz scale.
So here we have the Giants game.
Let's just go ahead and go into here and
see what we've got.
This is 3-0 Dodgers.
This is our excitement graph throughout the different
innings of the game.
We try to propagate where you can actually watch the game.
So we're working closely with Dish Network.
So we can actually tune into this game right now, or we can
actually choose to record this game to our DVR.
DANIEL SIEBERG: So for rights purposes, we don't want to get
in trouble.
So we're not showing any of that stuff, but of course you
could have the game on while you're doing all this stuff
and see it at the same time.
BRANDON FIELDS: Correct.
Correct.
And we try to make it really easy, just one click, switch
to the channel.
We also give you summary and stats and online resources
where you can actually catch highlights, condensed video,
things like that.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Now I see the Friends tab up at the top.
What's that all about?
BRANDON FIELDS: So we recently added some social features.
So instead of commenting on a game or sharing a game, we
call it Thuuzing a game.
So Google's a verb.
We're trying to make Thuuz a verb.
DANIEL SIEBERG: So you get a certain number of Thuuzes.
BRANDON FIELDS: Yeah, so here we got a couple people that
have Thuuzed this particular game already today.
And that's basically what Friends is all about, going
out and finding your friends so you could follow them, and
you guys can have conversations
about exciting games.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Cool.
JORDAN TOOR: Hop over to DVR here?
BRANDON FIELDS: Yeah, let's actually hop over to the DVR.
So one exciting feature we worked on really hard
specifically for Google I/O is integrating with the Dish box.
So what we're doing here is we're making automated rules
based on your personal preferences, maybe it's your
favorite team, maybe it's a favorite sports
league that you like.
But we'll automatically go out and record the game to your
DVR for you, the app will.
All you have to do is set up a rule.
So you can see here, we're really into Euro
soccer right now.
So we have a rule set up to record all the European games.
We're really Giants fans, so we've set a high priority that
we're going to go ahead and record every
single Giants game.
Or you can use our algorithm to say, hey, when some other
game I might not know about gets really exciting, go ahead
and record it to my DVR for me.
DANIEL SIEBERG: It's very cool.
So it's almost thinking for you in a sense.
It's taking all the hassle out of figuring out which games
are on, which ones might I like, all that stuff.
It's happening at the same time.
BRANDON FIELDS: Yeah.
So it's all about discovering games that maybe you might not
have known about.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Just real quick, any sort of advice for
developers out there looking at Google TV as a platform,
things you've learned, lessons you want to pass along?
BRANDON FIELDS: For sure.
I mean there's definitely the mindset of a 10-foot UI.
It's a bigger screen.
Your users are going to be sitting further away from it.
So you gotta leverage the layouts to handle that.
There's integration with the tuners with whatever your
cable box is, a TiVo, a Dish, a DIRECTV.
Being able to change the channel right then and there
is a pretty cool.
Integrating with DVR to automatically
record things is--
DANIEL SIEBERG: Well this is awesome stuff.
I'm a big hockey fan so I'm excited for when, of course,
NHL gets back in action.
But guys, thank you so much.
Brandon and Jordan we appreciate this
little tour of Thuuz.
BRANDON FIELDS: Thank you so much.
DANIEL SIEBERG: All right thanks guys.
We're going to move on here.
You know, I am a huge poker fan.
And I hear that there's an awesome Zynga poker game.
And here we are with Zynga to talk about it.
What a coincidence.
And I'm joined by Jen and Andrew.
So Jen, tell me what Zynga Poker is all about.
And I notice you've got multiple devices here as well.
JEN HERMAN: Yep.
So Zynga Poker is Zynga's first game.
It was created back in 2007.
It was first created on the PC.
And we've since launched the game on mobile
across multiple platforms.
So we started on Android mobile phones and then moved
to tablets.
And most recently we've moved to Google TV.
So it's pretty exciting for us to support all of these great
Android devices.
And with Google TV one of the things that we can do is we
can play in a five- or nine-person
tournament at a table.
And Andrew is going to give you a demo of how that works.
So let's check that out.
DANIEL SIEBERG: OK.
Andrew go for it card shark.
ANDREW LEONIDAS: Well, I'm on the main game table right now,
and in a moment you're going to see how we've been able to
optimize our layout for the various Android devices and
platforms that are currently on offer.
Right now we're looking at the Google TV version, which we've
developed for the TV DPI density, which coincidentally
is exceptionally close to the new
seven-inch Nexus 7 densities.
DANIEL SIEBERG: It looks gorgeous, yeah.
ANDREW LEONIDAS: So it's a direct port
of our Nexus 7 version.
I can log in with my Zynga Poker account.
All my chips are there across platforms.
All my friends are there.
I'm losing pretty badly right now.
Most of my stack's already gone.
DANIEL SIEBERG: It's hard to talk and play at the same time
and hold a microphone.
ANDREW LEONIDAS: Yeah, I made a bit of a rookie error whilst
I was navigating the microphone.
DANIEL SIEBERG: That's all right.
So you folded with those pair of aces.
That's all right.
So Jen, you've got a Nexus 7 in your hand right?
JEN HERMAN: Yeah.
So just to talk about this a little bit.
One of the things that as we build our games for the
Android platform we use a multi APK so that we can
support all of these different formats with a single SKU.
And, as you know, we could distribute our same game for
the tablet and for the phone and for Google TV within
Google Play.
So it's great as a publisher to be able to
do that in one place.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Can you show us the experience on here too?
JEN HERMAN: Yeah.
So what we're going to do--
I've got the tablet here.
And one of the things that we've done-- what's really
important for Zynga as a company is that playing Zynga
games is a social experience.
So you want to be able to play with your friends and your
family no matter where they are.
But what's really cool on the Android phone and tablet now,
we've been able to integrate beam technology so that you
can play with whoever's nearby.
So we're going to show you how to do that right now.
Andrew is going to bust out his Galaxy
phone, and we are gonna--
ANDREW LEONIDAS: All right, let's take a look.
DANIEL SIEBERG: So can you hold these up to the camera
just a bit so we can see what the experience is like?
ANDREW LEONIDAS: So if I'm joined to a table, or if I'm
simply watching a game, and I have a friend nearby who also
has a beam-enabled device, I can--
if all goes correctly--
place the rear of my device against hers--
JEN HERMAN: And then I touched a beam.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Just touched a beam there
on the screen, yeah.
JEN HERMAN: And my game's starting up.
DANIEL SIEBERG: So now you're joining the same game that
Andrew's in, right?
JEN HERMAN: Yep.
ANDREW LEONIDAS: And now we're joined.
JEN HERMAN: And I can spectate or I can play.
So I was just chose to spectate while I
watch Andrew over here.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Who's a better player here?
I have to--
ANDREW LEONIDAS: I think Jen has a bigger stack
than me right now.
But I'm going to take this one.
DANIEL SIEBERG: All right, well anything else you guys
wanted to mention while you're in [INAUDIBLE]?
JEN HERMAN: We wanted to show you a little bit on this new
Nexus 7 tablet.
So some of the things that we've done that we think are
great on the device are we've really tried to implement
fragments and really take advantage
of the tablet device.
It's such a beautiful screen, and we love it.
So a couple other things--
so where we would normally have multiple screens that you
would go to, we've actually implemented fragments here so
that you can see in a drop down some of the other screens
that you would have to jump around and navigate.
So we think that really being able to take advantage of the
high-density screen and the mobility of this form factor
is really going to be great for game
players and poker players.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Very cool.
Well, I can't wait to check it out.
I've got to get my hands on one of these
Nexus 7's at some point.
JEN HERMAN: Yeah, we want to see you at a table soon.
Get some chips from you.
DANIEL SIEBERG: And I'll take some chips from Andrew.
All right, Jen and Andrew from Zynga.
Thank you guys, we appreciate it.
All right, I'm going to head off to the next one.
We'll see you guys later.
JEN HERMAN: Bye bye.
DANIEL SIEBERG: All right.
On our third stop of this trifecta at Google TV, we're
joined by Ken from iHeart Radio Now iHeart Radio, as a
lot of folks will know, has been around for a while.
But as an app for Google TV it's only been about a month.
How--
or is it-- different than what people are used to and walk me
through some of the different features.
KEN COLTON: All right.
So first of all it's really exciting to get to work in a
brand new platform like Google TV.
And we have so much screen real estate to take advantage
of to really display our content in new
and interesting ways.
So you still have access to all of our great radio
stations in custom radio.
And we're just going to display it in a really visual
and interesting way.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Right, I see more pictures here.
Of course, just as you say, you have more real estate to
display all that stuff.
Now walk me through some of the buttons that we can see on
the left there and how people can interact with
it using the remote.
KEN COLTON: All right.
We divided everything into Find, Create, and Search.
And Find lets you go and find live stations near you or live
stations by genre.
Create lets you create your own custom radio stations by
just typing in an artist or a song, and it will choose other
songs that are like that song and continue to play that.
Search, you can search for anything.
It will find all the content in our library for you.
DANIEL SIEBERG: And how many lives stations are out there
these days?
KEN COLTON: So we have over 1,000 live stations.
And we have custom stations that can be made from over
400,000 artists or over 10 million songs.
DANIEL SIEBERG: OK.
Cool.
Well, give us a demonstration of what it's like to listen to
a song here on Google TV.
KEN COLTON: All right.
So I can just go over to my Now Playing
section and hit Play.
And I'll play that guy.
And it'll just start playing songs.
And you have this gorgeous album art display.
And it will show you what radio station you're listening
to and just great to leave up on the TV.
DANIEL SIEBERG: All right, so we're only going to play about
10 or 15 seconds, just for rights purposes.
But of course, if you were at home on the comfort of your
couch you could listen to whatever you want to or during
a party or however you want to display it.
Tell me a little bit about that development process for
Google TV, what it was like.
You're on the development team yourself?
KEN COLTON: Yes.
DANIEL SIEBERG: And I know it happened in a fairly short
amount of time.
KEN COLTON: Yes.
So we decided to build this as an HTML5 web application, and
it wound up in the Google TV spotlight that showcases web
applications that are optimized for Google TV.
And by choosing HTML5 as our technology, we were able to
build this application with a team of only three people is
just one month and really come up with the best user
experience by iterating quickly.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Any advice for other development teams out
there looking at Google TV, whether they have an existing
app already or they're looking to maximize it for this
experience?
I know earlier we talked about real estate and just thinking
about that versus maybe a smaller screen.
KEN COLTON: Yeah, you definitely want to customize
your app for the TV experience.
And if you really focus on that and don't be afraid to
push the envelope, you can come up with a
really awesome app.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Were you guys testing it out
on a TV this size?
I mean, is this the ideal place for you to test out
something like this?
KEN COLTON: Well, we started designing for a TV this size.
But one of the challenges of building interface is making
sure that it works for smaller TVs.
So we designed an interface that's easy to use at a large
size like this and looks great.
But it's also just as functional on a smaller size.
DANIEL SIEBERG: And in terms of sharing your choices or
something, that sort of social element to it, how is that
part of this Google TV app?
KEN COLTON: The social is deeply
integrated into iHeart Radio.
We have the ability to share what you're listening to to
Facebook and invite other people to try custom stations
that you created.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Very cool.
Can you tell me what's coming down the pike with this,
anything you're looking at as a road map to the future?
DANIEL SIEBERG: Well, we're looking to just really build
out this Now Playing screen by showing information about
artists from Twitter or any other real-time information
that we have just to make this Now Playing experience as
awesome as possible.
As well as just rolling out new stations and new features
that are available on our other platforms.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Very cool.
So take me back to that main screen if you can.
And that Me, what's that down there?
Is that a profile of your own preferences?
KEN COLTON: So this shows you all of the stations that
you've created and all of the songs that you've liked.
So I can go in and see the stations that I've created and
very quickly jump back into those stations and start
playing them.
DANIEL SIEBERG: So it's like your own personal
history sort of thing.
KEN COLTON: Yeah.
And this persists across all of our platforms.
So you can start listening to station on your Android device
and then pick it up here and just go right back.
It'll be right at the top, and you can start playing again.
DANIEL SIEBERG: Oh, that's a great point.
So if you're an iHeart Radio user and you start listening
to something on the TV or you've created your
preferences, you can pick it up later on
another Android device.
KEN COLTON: Absolutely.
DANIEL SIEBERG: That's very cool.
Well Ken, thank you so much for this demonstration.
I feel like something should play us out.
What's your favorite song here?
What's your favorite artist?
KEN COLTON: Let's just play this.
DANIEL SIEBERG: All right, nice.
All right, Ken.
Thank you so much.
Enjoy the rest of Google I/O. All right, that going to do it
from here at Google TV.
But stay tuned, in a TV sense, for the rest of I/O live.