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The talk at the recent New TeeVeeLive conference I attended in San Francisco was about connected television, specifically Internet-connected and Internet-delivered video and data to the home TV screen.

Video is now the main driver of the Net. Choice and control--those "c's" again--reigned supreme in almost everyone's talk. See the highlights from this excellent conference.

By the way, Om Malik who runs GigaOM, and who ran the conference, did a terrific job. The sessions were 20 minutes each, which was great for those of us with short attention spans. There also were questions and answers from the very able reporters on the GigaOm staff, so we got the meat, and not the fluff or hype or pitch. Well done!

Here is some insight I gathered during the conference:

• Choice reigns, but fragmentation is pervasive.


• A stat I loved: It would take 200,000 years to watch the amount of video that crossed the Internet last month.


• Think of the concept of the smart TV. Like the cell phone, first all it did was make calls, now it's a PDA, GPS, computer, camera, and music player. Smart TVs will develop a lot like that.

I can't wait. That's why at CBS we are working with companies like Intel, Cisco, Samsung, Vizio, Sony, and more. We agree connected TV is going to play a big role in the evolution of the home screen.

Remember, it's not about what companies build, but how viewers at home watch. What the ultimate user experience is will determine what gets the most play. These are exciting issues, scary times.

For many years in the television marketing world the mantra about the future has been the three c's: choice, convenience, and control. Marketers believed consumers wanted more media choices, more convenience of viewing (remotes, VCR, DVR), and more control over their viewing.

Today, technology enables the balance of power to shift from the media provider to the consumer. It's now a world of infinite media choice, total convenience for consumers to view whatever they want whenever they want, and control so that no longer do they have to be in front of their TVs at 8 p.m. to see "Survivor" or they'll never see the episode again. Well, that's a big shift!

So where are the three c's now?

Choice. There may now be too many choices. After all, the more choices viewers have, the harder it is to decide. Navigation is key. (Look for my exciting navigation blog post coming soon! That's a promo.)

Convenience. Yes, TV viewing has become very convenient, but as simple as it is, to most consumers it's not simple enough.

Control. The consumer has complete control of the viewing experience, but even still, most viewing today is of live TV.

To those traditional three c's I have added four more c's (and if they were "c's-ons" I would be looking for the Frankie Valli connection here. Bear with me. I'm the marketing guy).

First is content. Above all, that is what everything revolves around. People don't watch technology. They watch content.

Then there's connectivity, and with connectivity comes convergence. They go hand in hand. People say they want multiplatform; they don't even know what that means, but bring it on. People are platform agnostic...or multifaith. They don't care about the delivery system. After all, people who get network TV over cable think CBS is cable because they get it on cable. It's transparent; they just want it quick, easy, and now!

Last, there is context. It's about how people live their lives and how they really watch and use media now. It's not all about the cool stuff we see here on CNET and Crave and at tech trade shows and in industry e-mails. That's for another day.

Confusing? (The eighth "C"?) You bet, and that probably means career security for media marketers. Stay tuned!