Finally found time to disconnect my IM, email, phone, etc and sit down at my new, self-proclaimed office to play catch up on some reading. I eased into the afternoon by reading David Mercer’s new report looking at the Cisco Consumer strategy (Report Title: Cisco’s Consumer Strategy: Will the Network Transform the Digital Home?), which includes some discussion of the Cisco Eos™ platform. Net: If you’re still wondering about Cisco’s Consumer strategy, David provides a good, thoughtful overview and doesn’t hold back on the opportunities/challenges we face in executing the strategy. I have to give David proper credit for accurately “reading the tea leaves” on how Eos fits into the broader strategy and how it’s both interesting as a stand-alone business, and a potential accelerator to other parts of Cisco. That said, there are a couple points in David’s analysis that I wanted to clarify since they are core to understanding where Eos is heading: 1) Eos’s relationship to the Cisco device strategy: David notes:

“the benefits of Eos are unlikely to be realised until an installed base of millions or tens of millions of end user devices has been established.”

He’s spot on about Eos needing critical mass before its true value can be realized, but we (the Eos team) are focused on a different type of mass than devices. The install base we’re focused on users/audience members and the interactions data they create around their favorite entertainment content. As a network-based platform for delivering a social entertainment experience, Eos is device neutral (albeit heavily reliant today on the PC as the primary access point). In the future, Eos functionality/hooks may be integrated into various Cisco devices to extend the value to both the entertainment experience and device, but Eos is not dependent on Cisco device or hardware strategy.2) The Purpose of Eos: enabling media companies to more economically deliver a social entertainment experience• On page 27, David notes:

“Eos’s emphasis on discovery and collaborative filtering raises the question of the potential for integration of social network applications into the system.”

Oops, our bad -- that’s exactly what we’re doing. Eos is a platform that integrates social networking, content management and analytics (Discovery) into a single web-based app that enables media companies to deliver a community-driven entertainment experience built around their brands and content. Rather than forcing consumers to consume their favorite content on one site, and then go to a social networking portal to interact with other fans, Eos enables media companies to deliver a blended experience right on their own site media companies’ site. Not only does this provide a more seamless audience experience, but it allows media companies to retain more interaction data around their audience and content. While not every consumer will go to the branded entertainment site, we now that die-hard fans tend to go to the branded sites. 3) Content Discovery and the role it plays:• In addition to the Discovery methods David calls out, we also believe that the human editor still has tremendous value in helping audiences find interesting, relevant content. David is correct that recommendations from “the machine” have limitations; which is why we’ve added simple tools for the subject matter experts running these communities to easily highlight and promote content they think will be of interest. There won’t be a single silver bullet for Discovery, so it’s better to provide a variety of options to our customers.• David points out that content isn’t always a perfect predictor of other content you should be interested in (the “television soaps” example on p. 25). I COMPLETELY agree. What we DO know is that the content you consume IS a SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER predictor of other content you should be interested in than other variables like: who your friends are. In that way, a Discovery algorithm built around data about how you interact with and around CONTENT, should provide more effective recommendations than the social networking v1.0 approach of making content predictions based on who your friends are.4) Long-form content and Eos: Several more good points from David. One clarification: the Eos system CAN handle long-form content, but we believe there are already more economical/efficient mechanisms for the delivery of long-form content, typically in much (higher) quality (eg satellite, cable, even specialized video services like Hulu). Eos was designed to complement and supplement those long-form channels by giving audiences a platform to consume and interact with bite-sized amounts of content. Yes, the clip-mania David highlights is probably the result of the previous technical limitations online, but those limitations have also established new audience behaviors and expectations for online content, leading to the snacking phenomenon. Yes, there will probably be an application of a social entertainment experience for long-form content (it might even be Eos), we just believe the nearer-term opportunity for media companies is built around short-form -- because it avoids some of the remaining technological issues AND it’s content that media companies typically aren’t monetizing effectively today.5) Cisco Eos and medianet -- Two different concepts• Eos and medianet were announced at relatively the same time, so many people have commingled the two concepts. For example, David notes:

“It would be natural to focus on the device elements in Cisco’s consumer strategy, but in many ways these may turn out to be less significant than the other, less publicised element: the Eos approach to media networking, or medianets as Cisco calls them.”

Actually, medianet is Cisco’s architecture concept for a media-optimized network -- one that is content aware and able to efficiently/effectively move all those heavy video files around. Eos is a separate network application/service, and just like Cisco’s device strategy, Eos and medianet should complement each other, but not be dependent on each other.Ultimately, David hits the nail on the head with his conclusion that “Cisco’s business success cannot be divorced from the company’s vision of network-enabled home devices which deliver personalised, intelligent content to make media consumers feel they are in control of technology, not the other way round.” With that, it’s time for me to turn back on my IM, email and phone.