Today I had the opportunity to meet and speak with Tracy Swedlow, one of the hosts of the annual Spring/Summer TV of Tomorrow West Coast conference in San Francisco. This conference draws people from around the world who are incredibly passionate about creating and distributing multiplatform interactive TV experiences.
We spend a lot of time here at Comcast thinking about our customers' entertainment experiences now — and what they could be like in the future. The recent launch of our X1 platform is just one example of our ongoing and evolving effort to constantly bring new innovation to our customers.
We look at many factors that are helping redefine the entertainment experience as we once knew it. For example:
- TV is inherently social — and technology enables "virtual" social.
- TV is very personal.
- People are mobile — TV should follow.
- There are a lot of other devices that support video as well.
- TV can be an interactive experience.
On the topic of interactivity, today I shared with the TVOT attendees that we've agreed to work with PayPal to explore commerce and payments on various platforms. This will let us work together and look at ways to expand how people can interact with their TV services in ways that offer them more choice and the ability to personalize their experiences. And we view providing our viewers with single screen and co-viewing T-commerce experiences to be a natural extension of our advanced advertising products.
We've been developing strong partnerships with leading technology companies and brands to help develop more innovative and personalized experiences that add value for our customers. We're thrilled to include PayPal as one of our newest partners. While we're in the very early stages of our discussions, we'll be sure to provide updates along the way.