Don’t take it from us, but from Ynon Kreiz, CEO of the Endemol group, the largest independent television production company in the world. “Everyone says that social television will be big. I think it’s not going to be big — it’s going to be huge,” he told attendees at the Digital Life Design (DLD) conference this week.
With billions of dollars already flowing through the TV ecosystem — and new televisions coming equipped with wireless internet connectivity — Kreiz said it’s only a matter of time before the social space explodes.
“We think that social media meets television is the next big thing,” he said. “The ability to create content that will enable people to interface with each other, to connect, to recommend, to share and experience over television, is going to change the landscape of the industry.”
In fact, Kreiz encouraged people to “get up, leave this room” and run to their garages to get to work designing the future of social TV. “Whoever figures it out, will be the next Steve Jobs of this generation,” he said.
Endemol seems to be putting its money where its mouth is, working on a development deal to incorporate Foursquare in a new yet-to-be-named TV show.