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 AirPlay is one of the more interesting young players in the "mobile gaming" space, specifically because of its definition of just what "mobile gaming" is. AirPlay's technology allows TV viewers to interact with live TV broadcasts in real-time, via their handset.
The company recently closed $14 million in series B funding, which indicates tremendous investor faith in the company, or at least in CEO Morgan Guenther. The former TiVo CEO spoke with us recently about the company's roadmap, whether an AirPlay sale would ever be considered, and what major challenges still lie ahead, among other subjects.
GamesOnDeck: First off, for those unfamiliar with AirPlay, can you give me a little background on yourself, and what AirPlay is all about, at its most basic level?
Morgan Guenther: Sure. As for me, my last paying job was as President of TiVo where we also ran a “television meets new technology” business. After TiVo I spent some time on the beach, joined a few boards and kept my eyes open for new opportunities in the consumer media arena – with the caveat being that the opportunity needed to be massive, the technology groundbreaking and it had to be fun! AirPlay met all three criteria. The company takes the power of television to aggregate audience and matches it up with the social networking capabilities of wireless to create a “don’t just watch TV, play TV” experience. If there’s TV programming that resonates with you – football, basketball or other sports, reality programming, game or award shows, presidential debates, etc. -- we can create a real time, multiplayer game around it for you and your friends.
GOD: The Series B funding, and the telecom companies behind it, certainly shows a lot of faith in AirPlay's business model. Can you share your timeline or roadmap to profitability? Is there a specific time when you believe that corner can be turned?
MG: AirPlay is an entirely new entertainment experience. As such, the first step is to educate the consumer – what is AirPlay, how do I play, why is it fun? That’s what we’re trying to achieve today with our football launch on Sprint. From there we move to different genres of content delivered across multiple carrier networks and that’s where we begin to see the leverage in the business model -- recurring revenues from game fees, advertising and prizing paired with operating leverage from a broadcast or multicast infrastructure. In terms of roadmap to profitability, we think of it more in terms of market penetration then specific timelines. In the US alone, if you assume an addressable market of 110m television households and 200m wireless handsets, we get to profitability at well below 1% penetration. That’s what I meant earlier about this being a massive opportunity.
GOD: In more general timeline terms, it seems obvious that football is where AirPlay's current focus is, and where the value of the service really shows itself. You've mentioned other sports, award broadcasts, and game shows as being other potential uses for AirPlay, but are there a concrete plans for expansion? Can you share what AirPlay will broadcast next, and when?
MG: We certainly see mass market sports like football, basketball and baseball as foundational content for AirPlay. So you’ll see us doing deals and delivering games in all of those categories over the next year as well as branching out into more cutting edge sports such as ultimate fighting, wrestling or x-games. But AirPlay isn’t just about sports. In August we delivered a live game synchronized with the nationwide Emmy’s broadcast, where players could compete against a national audience and a celebrity contestant (Jeff Probst from Survivor) in predicting award winners real time, as each envelope was opened. That application was a tremendous success and provides a blueprint for the Oscars, MTV awards, live concerts and similar events. For the '07 television season, we expect to be delivering games in multiple areas, including sports, award shows as well as offerings in the reality and game show spaces.
Next: AirPlay Live Football
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