Jeff Simmermon
Director, Digital Communications
Time Warner Cable
 
When is an ice cream sandwich more than an ice cream sandwich? When you’re a TWC subscriber with an ICS-equipped Android device who can now watch live television on your tablet. Simmermon leads the MSO’s drive to stream digital content to devices for greater access, including the TWC TV iPad app and Android upgrade in April for select Android users. He also helps ensure those devices are getting a robust content mix, like the just-bowed addition of local sports channels for customers in New York, Dallas and Charlotte, N.C.
 
What’s your favorite digital toy and why?It’s more of an add-on to a digital toy: set of removable lenses for my iPhone camera. I really get into using it like today’s Polaroid. I’m not an Instagram/Hipstamatic guy, but I really get into taking photos with those lenses and tricking them out in a whole bunch of different apps. The point is to make a
photo look unique, one that nobody else could have taken.
 
The biggest challenge with TV Everywhere/authentication is: Getting people to understand that it’s never going to be all things to all people. Some content will be easy to access, some will be hard. There’s more to it than just running it to a device.
 
Without social media, the world would be just a little bit…  more productive and varied. Social media has given me a career, but I think it also contributes to a polarized hive-mind mentality. None of the world’s greatest thinkers and creators ever cared what the rest of the world thought of every tiny idea they had in real-time. And if I had back all the time I’ve spent chasing tweets, "likes," and Internet comments I’d have a finished novel by now.
 
What’s on your wish list for the iPhone 5?  The ability to disable the Wi-Fi on it like the Freedom app for Mac. I need my phone for emergencies, but need an "airplane mode" for texts/tweets/emails so that I can focus a little more on the world around me sometimes.

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