2013 is the year social TV takes off via CNN Money

Sports, in fact, leads all other categories in social TV interactions. Trendrr just released an analysis of social interactions across Twitter, Facebook (FB), Viggle and other platforms. Of all TV-show related interactions, sports led with 31%, followed by reality TV with 17%.

Will social TV and the second screen move beyond advertising in 2013? via Econsultancy

Expect to see broadcasters offering more opportunities for viewers to interact with and influence live programming via the second screen, and expect to see more collaboration between Twitter and broadcasters.  Media planners will start to cherry-pick TV spots for their social impact as much as for their reach.

9 predictions for social TV in 2013 via Lost Remote

Mobile will devour the desktop, and media companies are beginning to awaken to the vast implications of such a consumption shift…This will be a year in which media companies double and triple down on their mobile investments and frantically beef up their mobile development teams. It will be a year in which forward-thinking news organizations pivot to a “mobile first” approach.

Mobile Predictions for 2013 via Ad Age

The mobile-app economy is growing exponentially, with wireless-industry trade association CTIA predicting it will generate nearly $50 billion in revenue by 2016. This growth coincides with time spent on mobile devices, and in 2013, that number may approach time spent watching TV. Time spent on mobile applications increased 35% in 2012 — to 127 minutes a day from 94 minutes a day — while time spent watching TV remained flat at 168 minutes, according to mobile-data company Flurry. If these trends continue, mobile apps will eclipse TV in 2013, and adoption rates suggest they may.

Is TV’s Social Future in Widgets or Second Screens? via Digitalgist

Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are powerful forces that are only increasing in societal relevance. But, getting the average person to clamor for a combined social media and live TV experience on his 42″ flat screen is an Empire State Building sized hurdle to overcome. I think content providers have a much greater chance to succeed in this area than hardware manufacturers.

The “second screen”: finally ready for prime-time via Reuters

Television makers, networks and movie studios are embracing the tablet and developing original content and software to drive audience interaction and new advertising revenue after initially dismissing mobile devices as a distraction.

Programmers’ Second-Screen Love Affair Threatens TV Ad Effectiveness via MediaPost

as traditional TV networks spend money and use technology to “drive viewers” to programs, the old model says that is good for advertisers.  Unfortunately for advertisers…viewer ad avoidance is at an all-time high. Now, there is great excitement among TV networks that “second screen” activity may recapture some lost viewer attention. Once again, however, viewer attention to the program is talked about much more than viewer attention to advertising.

A Conversation with Mark Cuban about Kickstarter, the tech valuation bubble, social TV & managing his Shark Tank portfolio via NextMarket

Cuban expressed his skepticism about discrete second screen apps for social TV, which he proclaimed essentially “dead”. His reasoning was the passive, lean-back nature of watching a show, which means consumers only want to put forth so much effort. Perusing Twitter and Facebook on a mobile device while watching a show is about as much effort as a standard consumer is willing to do on the second screen.

How TV Apps Are Changing the Way We Watch TV via Cable TV

In addition to the brilliant shows we love, the characters and story lines we’re addicted to, technological developments have given TV an entirely new dimension. It’s called Social TV, and the effects are viral. Ynon Kreiz, CEO of the Endemol Group1, told a packed crowd at the Digital Life Design (DLD) conference in January 2011: “Everyone says that social television will be big. I think it’s not going to be big — it’s going to be huge.”

Social Media for TV Needs to be Designed Specifically for TV via Streaming Media

For many companies, social media is the de facto solution for driving user engagement and increasing brand awareness. The same can be said for TV content companies. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram—to name a few—seem to be everywhere, including on TVs. But to what extent does social media make sense for the TV experience?… relying solely on networks like Twitter to drive engagement is a strategy that should be approached cautiously. And porting social media apps to larger TV screens—when users cannot interact with the networks while watching TV —can safely be avoided. Companion apps, on the other hand, might make more sense.

5 Social TV Truths via Digiday

Social TV drives tune-in, including live tune-in…A recent TV Guide study showed that 17 percent of respondents started to watch a show because of a social impression, while 31 percent said they have continued to watch TV because of one.

As Sales Slip, TV Makers Strain for the Next Sensation via New York Times

“The hardware is no longer what’s driving the future,” said James L. McQuivey, an analyst for Forrester Research. “The hardware is kind of boring.”… For example, dozens of tablets are on the market, but Apple and Amazon lead the pack because of the impressive apps and digital content available for their devices, he said…“The television has always been the center of the entertainment of the home,” Mr. Stinziano said. “Now it will be the center of a connected home.”

Will Social TV mix with PR & Marketing? via Cision Blog

Since Twitter is allegedly reaching out to TV execs to see how the platform can integrate with the TV experience, you no longer can focus on providing appropriate content for solely a TV audience; you now have to consider how you can help TV staff integrate the experience. If you help them, the chances are they will be more likely to help you. Don’t just pitch an expert; offer the TV audience a 30-minute Q&A slot with your expert on Twitter and create a unique hashtag for the event, as well.

Better than Nielsen: Twitter breaks down TV behavior by demographics, device, and genre via The Verge

Twitter has released a twenty-page booklet for advertisers on trends in television viewing and Twitter use in the UK. The Twitter TV Book (registration required) is rich with data gathered by Twitter as well as its analytics and advertising partners…of the more than 10 million active UK Twitter users, 60 percent use Twitter while watching television, and a full 40 percent of Twitter traffic during peak time is about television.

You Don’t Have to Chuck Your DVR in the Bin If You Are Addicted to the Social TV via Huffington Post

However, ARKTAN, a Silicon Valley technology upstart, which has pioneered the social streaming technology, which enables the Social TV, has seen the writings on the wall and has come up with innovative solutions which allow social streaming to integrate with the DVR technology, which they call Social DVR. If you are excited and want to know when this technology will be available to you, the website of Univision, is powered by both Social Streams and Social DVR, is live from October 2012.

TV LIVES ON

Old Media’s Stalwarts Persevered in 2012 via NY Times

Eventually we may be right — the sky will fall and the business will collapse — but for the time being, the sky over traditional media is blue and it’s raining green… Viacom, which has had serious ratings trouble with MTV and Nickelodeon, still managed to be up 16.1 percent on the year. We keep hearing how traditional networks are getting clobbered, but Viacom’s sibling, CBS, was up a whopping 40.2 percent… And the worries about insurgent threats from tech-oriented players like Netflix, Amazon and Apple turned out to be overstated. Those digital enterprises were supposed to be trouncing media companies; not only is that not happening, but they are writing checks to buy content. New players have opened windows to sell content without cannibalizing the retransmission and affiliate fees that have turned into a gold mine for media companies.

How the TV Business Got Rich Off the Thing That Was Going to the Kill It: The Internet via The Atlantic

content companies (who own the shows and the channels) and cable companies (who own the infrastructure that transports the shows and channels to your TV box) — had a smashing year in 2012. Many of them outperformed the newer and nimbler companies, such as Apple, Netflix, and Google, that are supposedly destined to displace them. They owe much of their success to the very thing that was supposed to kill them — the Internet… To understand why the Internet hasn’t destroyed cable, ask yourself: Where do you get your Internet? It’s probably from the same people selling you TV… While cable has made Internet a second business, content companies have treated the Internet as a second window. Even as they demand more money from cable operators for the right to carry their channels to households, media companies have also made a killing selling their shows to companies like Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, and Apple… Les Moonves, CEO of CBS and a mega-goliath in his own right, is correct: Everything that was supposed to be bad for the TV business has turned out to be good for the TV business.

Last Year’s Tax Rate May Not Survive in 2013, but Your Cable Service Probably Will via All Things D

In spite of a soft economy, with about 14.5 million unemployed Americans and 8.2 million under-employed, people are still holding onto paid television, and actually consuming more video than ever before. Netflix has crossed over 30 million subscribers in the U.S., Hulu is approaching three million, but only 2.65 million people in the country “cut the cord” from traditional paid TV service…Americans are still spending about 33 hours a week watching traditional TV (that’s 4.5 hours a day!), compared to 27 minutes a week of streaming video…an App that replaces broadcast television is like saying Yelp should replace Taco Bell.

CES

CMOs Flock to Consumer Electronics Show to ‘Get a Feel for the Pace of Change’ via Ad Age

The Las Vegas gathering a must-make stop for marketing chiefs who want to get their hands on the devices that are quickly changing the lives of consumers.

Five Trends Marketers Need to Watch at CES via Ad Age

If the TVs are in one corner and mobile devices in another, as has been the case in years past, it will completely go against how consumers are interacting with devices and media. Look for savvier product manufacturers to show how devices really fit into people’s lives.

CES: Second-Screen Apps Central to Multiplatform Efforts via Broadcasting & Cable

Executives from a number of major programmers and studios stressed the growing importance of second-screen applications and experiences for their multiplatform strategies during various Digital Hollywood sessions at CES… “I would say the biggest shift in the last two years is that the [second-screen] experience used to be layered on to the program as an aftereffect,” said David Anderson, senior VP and head of digital at Shine America. “But now when we go into a network pitching a show, we go in there with components that might be a creative fit…We view them as part of show.”… “The big challenge for us is how do we pay for it?” said Beth Clearfield, senior VP of digital and media and business development at BBC Worldwide… Early on, a number of companies had developed second-screen apps for individual shows, but a number of executives said that they expected those efforts to be increasingly done on a network level.

Smart TV at CES: Delivering What Consumers Don’t Want? via Ad Age

Market experts disagree, saying manufacturers’ moves to co-opt mobile device activity are out of sync with consumer behavior. Many add little value, they say, and will prove an ill-fated attempt to redirect attention back to the “first screen.”… it’s not clear that viewers want their wall-mounted TVs to do the same things their handheld devices do… “People don’t have that kind of interactive relationship with their TV,” said Greg Stuart, global CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association, an industry trade group. “The TV on the wall is a family device. It’s a multi-user device. If I want to share something, its going to be with a personal device, and that’s going to be my tablet or my mobile.”

Apple’s iTV Will Be The Big Elephant In The Room At CES This Year [CES 2013 Preview] via Cult of Mac

Everyone is scared of what will happen if Apple launches an iTV because it will give them a virtual monopoly on all consumer screens (smartphones, laptops, tablets, and televisions). So naturally we’re going to see a lot of Smart TVs as everyone attempts to predict what Apple’s going to do, and then try to get there first…We expect to see a lot of new TVs at CES that come with better UIs and advanced content integration. No one has perfected Internet video streaming to a TV set just yet, but everyone is going to try at CES. Some will use Google TV to bring better features to their flatscreen, while others will home-brew their own solution.

2013 social TV predictions from the experts at CES via CNET

The consensus was that social applications and experiences don’t work on the actual television set, despite their prevalence on smart TVs. Secondly, all of the panelists believe that social TV is still in its infancy, or rather its “first or second inning,” as Wolf said.

SHOWS & NETWORKS

5 TV Shows Using the Power of the 2nd Screen for Social Engagement via Convince and Convert

Twitter is the medium of choice because its fast paced environment lends itself better to television. The main advantage of Twitter for television, specifically, is that it allows television producers and advertisers to get instantaneous feedback about their programming.

Living the ‘Downton Abbey’ Life — One Salmon Tea Sandwich at a Time via Ad Age

The show’s massive following in the States has spurred a bevy of promotions and product tie-ins that tap into fans’ desires to experience the period fashion and sprawling estate. Here’s a sampling of categories:

CBS to Offer Second-Screen Features for Super Bowl XLVII Stream via Broadcasting & Cable

For CBS’ live stream of Super Bowl XLVII, the network will be offering a variety of additional second-screen features, including alternative camera angles, a live stream of the Pepsi Super Bowl XLVII Halftime Show featuring Beyoncé and immediate access to the Super Bowl commercials as they are broadcast on CBS.

‘CBS Connect’ Second-Screen iPad App Launches For All CBS Programming via TV by the Numbers

CBS television programming is getting even more social with today’s launch of the CBS Connect app for Apple’s iPad. The app offers the same rich social features as CBS.com’s CBS Connect social hub, which aggregates Twitter and Facebook conversations across CBS daytime, primetime and late night shows, allowing fans to chat live with other viewers and CBS stars. The CBS Connect app also brings fans synced second-screen experiences for some of CBS Television’s leading dramas including, CSI: CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION, Hawaii Five-0, and NCIS: LOS ANGELES, with more shows to be added.

‘Hawaii Five-0′ plot to be determined by Twitter vote via The Verge

The plot of an upcoming episode of the popular police procedural Hawaii Five-0 will be determined by a vote on Twitter and the CBS website, according to an announcement from the broadcaster.

BECK ANNOUNCES INNOVATIVE SECOND SCREEN TECHNOLOGY THAT WILL ALLOW VIEWERS TO ‘EXPERIMENT WITH THE SHOW ITSELF’ via The Blaze

As Glenn Beck put it in his announcement of the new tech on his show Tuesday evening, viewers will be able to watch the show normally on one screen and on another can “experiment with the show itself.” “This isn’t just where you can pick from the shots, pick from the cameras,” Beck said. “I want you to be more than the cameraman.” “It will allow you to watch the show as if you were in the studio.”

NBC Comedy ’1600 Penn’ Launches Social Media Cupcake Contest via Mashable

People who pick up a free cupcake can enter to win the year’s supply of cupcakes by posting a photo of their cupcake on Instagram or Twitter using hashtag #1600Cupcakes… “For those who don’t live near a Sprinkles bakery we created a virtual cupcake so everyone could enjoy and share with their friends and have the chance to win Sprinkles cupcakes for a year,” Sharon Allen, senior vice president of marketing strategy, tells Mashable.

Bravo launches its first connected TV app across several platforms to complement its programming via The Next Web

US cable TV network Bravo today announced that it is launching its first connected TV app. It will be available across several platforms, including Samsung Smart TV and Blu-ray Players, Yahoo Widgets and Google TV. According to Bravo, it was designed as a complement to Bravo programming, and will let fans explore content related to their favorite shows.

Syfy Lures Dodge With Defiance via Adweek

NBCUniversal has invested some $100 million in the hybrid game/TV series, and Dodge has become a major part of the plan, with the company’s resurrection of the Dart as the linchpin in the client integration…Syfy network president Dave Howe called the venture “true transmedia.” It’s not a video game with a TV series spinoff or a TV series with a tie-in game…And Dodge is glad to be in on the ground floor even though a big chunk of its investment won’t be measurable in Nielsen GRPs. “We’ll monitor the ratings and social engagement, all the typical measures, but primarily we want to impact a youthful, interactive audience,”

Second Screen Boosts USA Network Viewing via Net News Check

The show’s viewership increased 10% and 99% of the show’s fan base on Facebook said they tuned in to watch the premiere live or the next day. Additionally, 5% of the people who played the murder mystery on their desktop or tablet had never been exposed to the show before, but decided to start watching… Now everyone from content owners to technologists to TV service providers are trying to leverage and monetize the trend. There are challenges, however. For starters, there isn’t a universal second screen application that viewers can download on their smartphone or tablet.

HBO Inks Exclusive, 10-Year Deal With Universal To Keep Content Out Of Netflix’s Hands via Tech Crunch

HBO today has won a battle in the over-the-top content wars. The pay-TV giant has inked a deal with Universal Pictures that extends Universal Pictures’ and Focus Features’ films appearing on HBO’s TV, online and mobile platforms in the U.S. for the next decade… The deal shows just how closely HBO is competing with Netflix these days, in particular with a multi-screen strategy.

HBO’s GIRLS Gets It with Promos as Genius as @LenaDunham via 360i Blog

Besides killin’ it on Tumblr with What Should We Call Girls (a What Should We Call Me spin-off), and in social in almost every which way (Twitter, Instagram, the list goes on…), three of their recent digital promotions blew me away, and I wanted to dive a little deeper into what it was about them that got me (as a fan of both digital and the show) beyond excited… One common thread with all three promotions is that they tie digital to the real world.

How the new ‘Arrested Development’ on Netflix will confront a unique social TV challenge via Lost Remote

In May, Netflix will release all 14 episodes at once, instead of one at a time. Some fans will binge through all 14 in a day or two. Others will spread them out over several weeks and savor each episode. If you think times zones were a challenge for social TV spoilers, Arrested Development could be a nightmare.

An inside look at how Starlight Runner develops social TV storytelling via Lost Remote

So transmedia development, production and implementation techniques are helping to invigorate the broadcast model by keeping broadcast relevant in a world where communication has become pervasive, a world where we are no longer dependent on a handful of TV channels to amuse us. Story can now almost literally flow around us, immersing us, and connecting with us whether or not we are in front of a television.

Official Oscar App Adds Android, Facebook Ballots via Mashable

Before the Oscars, users can check the app to find out the latest Oscar news, watch interviews with insiders and access Oscar trivia. Users can also browse past winners, past red carpet fashions and famous Oscar video clips. On Feb. 24 — Oscar Sunday — the app turns into a second screen companion with the Oscar.com Backstage Pass. The Backstage Pass will let users access over a dozen live cameras placed throughout the Red Carpet and inside the Dolby Theatre. Fans can also access the press room and see interviews with stars after they win.

Twitter taps stars to take fans backstage at the Golden Globes via The Verge

Never fear, the second screen is here, with Twitter bringing a bevy of stars onboard to “officially” tweet all the behind the scenes goodness from the Golden Globes. Names like Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@officialJLD) and David Spade (@davidspade) will be tweeting from the red carpet, the banquet hall, the kitchen, maybe even the bathroom.

Paramount Star Trek app enables second-screen experiences during Super Bowl via Mobile Marketer

The latest “Star Trek” movie is getting its own mobile application months before the film will be released, complete with features such as location-based services, special offers and a second-screen viewing experience during the upcoming Super Bowl game.

RESEARCH

Connected TVs Reach One in Four Homes via eMarketer

Usage of connected TVs in US households was up by more than 25% last year, eMarketer estimates, and will continue to be taken up by Americans at double-digit rates through at least 2016. By the end of this year, eMarketer expects 35.1 million US households will have at least one television connected to the internet, and at least one person in the household using the internet through that TV set on a monthly basis.

2012 takeaways: sports and SpongeBob dominated social TV [infographic] via Lost Remote

NBC paid nearly $1.2 billion for the rights to cover the 2012 London Olympics. While that sum seems exorbitant, Trendrr‘s Second Annual Year End Stats Report proves that it was worth every penny. According to the report, NBC was the most engaging network in 2012. Minus all sports and special-programming, though, Fox would have taken the title.

Exploring the Consumer Media Universe via Nielsen Wire

According to Nielsen’s new U.S. Consumer Usage Report 2012, nearly 120 million people within television homes own four or more TV sets, and 16 percent of television homes own a tablet. Smartphone owners officially make up the majority of mobile subscribers, as 56 percent owned a smartphone as of Q3 2012. Additionally, the number of social media users continues to increase across all platforms as consumers use social networking as a vehicle to navigate the ever-expanding media universe.

Facebook friends fan interest in TV shows, study finds via LA Times

A new study reveals that social-network conversations about a television show can increase viewership. “How Chatter Matters in TV Viewing,” Nielsen research conducted for the cable industry association CTAM, shows a powerful connection between Facebook posts and TV viewing. About 49% of women surveyed (and 43% of men) said they began watching a show because their Facebook friends were taking about it on the social network. Twitter conversations prompted more men (16%) to start tuning in than women (14%).

Consumers Want Content on Their Smart TV, Not Social Networking via Best Techie

new research coming out of NPD has found that consumers want more access to online video services like HBO Go and other content, instead of “smart” features like social networking access on their TVs.

No One Uses Smart TV Internet Because It Sucks via Wired

We didn’t need a report to tell us this, but NPD provided one just the same. The report finds fewer than 15 percent of smart-TV owners are listening to music, surfing the internet or shopping on their TVs… But the bottom line is that smart TVs typically have baffling interfaces that make the act of simply finding and watching your favorite stuff more difficult, not less.

PANASONIC

Panasonic goes big with social TV, green innovations via ZDNet

In its core TV business, though, Tsuga pointed out that consumers today want more than just beautiful displays for their TVs. They are also looking out for easy access to content, a simple, intuitive UI, and the ability to connect to friends and social media contacts, he said. To meet these demands, Panasonic developed a TV UI that relies on facial recognition tech to pull up the user’s home page, and this would include the person’s favorite content such as pictures and movies and his online social circle, the president revealed.

Panasonic Lets You Edit Photos on TV with Touch Pen via Mashable

Panasonic today showed off a new vision of the second screen, introducing new ways your phone or tablet can interact with what you’re watching on TV… Last year Panasonic released Swipe and Share, a way to relay content from smartphone to TV and back; now it’s launching version 2.0 of that software. Whereas before you could send content like a photo to your TV via a smartphone or tablet app, now you can interact with that content via the TV… anasonic’s 2013 smart TVs will also integrate YouTube’s new second-screen experience, which lets you queue up YouTube videos for watching on TV as well as control the playback, all from your phone.

SAMSUNG

Samsung, Panasonic take on social TV at CES via The Washington Post

But the latest talk from the Consumer Electronics Show promises to push social TV way beyond apps, building social media into program plotlines, ad sales and even TV interfaces… Samsung’s latest line of smart TVs, for instance, places social media on par with live TV and video on demand… Panasonic CEO Kazuhiro Tsugo also announced a new “social media user interface” at his company’s preview press conference

Samsung to Distribute Univision App With Connected TVs via Adweek

Univision is rolling out its TV Everywhere service, UVideos, as an app on smart TVs and connected devices (e.g., Internet-enabled Blu-ray players) manufactured by electronics giant Samsung. The company has similar existing agreements with Xbox and Kindle. UVideos is also available on compatible iOS and Android devices… Hispanics in the United States are disproportionately inclined to use smartphones, tablets and other connected devices, and every Spanish-language network is pushing its digital bells and whistles first.

DISH

Dish Explorer is a second-screen solution for satellite subscribers, we go hands-on (video) via Engadget

This application serves as a “second screen” — it’s most useful when you’re in front of the TV, and essentially replaces your standard remote control with a social media-enabled content-rich touchscreen experience. That means full Twitter and Facebook integration, with sidebars to outline what your friends or contacts are watching at that very moment, so you don’t end up feeling left out when your office’s favorite show is discussed at the water cooler the next day.

Dish’s new second-screen app looks good, which should worry its competition via GigaOM

there are two things that stand out with Dish’s app, and they have a lot to do with what Dish brings to the table in the second screen space: First, Dish doesn’t have to rely on automated content recognition to find out what’s on TV, simply because Dish already knows what you’re watching… Secondly, Dish is making some good use of third-party providers for some of the media and social smarts used in the app.

Dish Mulls Letting Advertisers Bid on Shows in Real Time via Ad Age

By collecting real-time data through set-top boxes, Dish may eventually develop a new way for the industry to sell advertisements, Warren Schlichting, Dish’s senior VP of media sales and analytics, said in an interview… Giving advertisers live data on what customers are watching at any moment could let Dish auction off commercials and have them inserted seconds before they air. The results would provide more specific and accurate audience information in an era when more people are skipping commercials, Mr. Schlichting said. Dish might also be able to charge higher rates for shows that prove surprisingly popular.

COX

Cox Goes All-In With Second-Screen App Strategy via MediaPost

Cox Communications announced in Las Vegas a major upcoming upgrade to its smartphone and tablet app that will include live TV streaming, personal content recommendations based on individual viewer profiles and extensive remote control capabilities… Up to eight users in a household can get personalized content recommendations based on their own viewing history and stated preferences. Cox says it is the only app from a multichannel service provider to leverage user profiles and history for personalized content discovery.

INTEL

Why Intel’s New IPTV Service Will Do What Google, Apple, and Microsoft Can’t via Forbes

For the past year or so, Intel has also quietly been working on a top-secret set-top box that could not only be better than what Apple, Google, and even Microsoft offer today, but also kill the cable industry as we know it. This set-top box, said by industry insiders to be available to a limited beta of customers in March, will offer cable channels delivered “over the top” to televisions anywhere there is an Internet connection regardless of provider. (Microsoft Mediaroom, for example, requires AT&T’s service, and Xbox has limited offerings for Comcast and FiOS customers). For the first time, consumers will be able to subscribe to content per channel, unlike bundled cable services, and you may also be able to subscribe per show as well… Intel has made it clear to Hollywood they are serious about this product and dedicated to its longevity. Intel is also prepared to invest heavily in making it a success. In contrast, Apple, Google, and Microsoft have always viewed Hollywood as something of a hobby.

CONNECTV

ConnecTV, Station Groups Promote Cross-Platform Ad Network via MediaPost

ConnecTV, one of the companies looking to facilitate second-screen opportunities, has an arrangement allowing station groups to sell what amounts to interactive advertising in local markets…ConnecTV is billing the service as a TV advertising network. It will sell ads, along with nine large station groups, including Belo, Hearst and Gannett, covering 250 network affiliates. ConnecTV was founded in 2010 with funding from station owners.

ROKU

CES: Roku In Streaming Pact With Time Warner Cable via Forbes

we’re getting closer to the day that people can watch whatever they want, anywhere they want, on any device they want. It hasn’t happened yet, of course. But the day is getting nearer…Q4 was the best quarter in Roku’s history, he says; within the next few weeks they will surpass 5 million boxes sold; in 2012, Roku customers streamed a billion hours of video…At CES, Roku is announcing several moves to bring the service further into the mainstream – and to make the Roku a more attractive alternative to the conventional cable/satellite set-top box…This will be the first time TWC TV is available for streaming on a consumer device connected to a television…The Roku chief  concedes that the market in which he operates is getting increasingly competitive – but he sees that as a positive sign. “The big picture is that TV is moving to the Internet,” he says in an interview. “All TV eventually is going to over the Internet.” Today, he notes, most of that comes through gaming consoles.

AEREO

Aereo’s $38 Million Helps Fund Expansion and Social TV Efforts via Bloomberg

Despite protests from media companies, Internet television provider Aereo is expanding into more cities with new products, fueled by a $38 million financing round… Aereo, which has only offered service in its home base of New York, said today that it will use some of the capital to bring its unique model to 22 more cities.

YOUTUBE

Inside YouTube’s Plan to Dominate Your TV via Mashable

But that’s an attitude YouTube is desparate to change — and TV makers are eager to help them out. A number of sets launching at CES 2013 this week in Las Vegas — including sets from Bang & Olufsen, LG, Panasonic and Sony — offer the video service’s recently launched “send to TV” feature…But that’s an attitude YouTube is desparate to change — and TV makers are eager to help them out. A number of sets launching at CES 2013 this week in Las Vegas — including sets from Bang & Olufsen, LG, Panasonic and Sony — offer the video service’s recently launched “send to TV” feature.

NETFLIX

Netflix: You Can’t Always Get What You Want via Superhype

If the ultimate measure of a brand is what you do, not what you say, then Netflix is underperforming seriously. The company brags that “Netflix members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on nearly any Internet-connected screen” and that members have can “instantly watch unlimited movies and TV shows streaming over the Internet.”  But in reality, members have access to a very limited streaming inventory a problem exacerbated by the newly announced HBO/Universal Pictures agreement that will box out Netflix for the next decade. And recent high-profile service outages have made a mockery of the promise of “anytime, anywhere” viewing

SECOND SCREENS

App makers highlight TV’s utter failure to help you find anything good to watch via The Verge

“It takes the average person eight minutes to find something to watch when they sit down,” says BuddyTV CEO Andy Liu. “You end up watching Karate Kid 3 — with commercials — and in SD. It’s what we call ‘sub-optimal.’” NextGuide and BuddyTV aim to help you find something to watch in less than twenty seconds, which is quite possible, since the apps bring in customized content from services you’re subscribed to like cable, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, and Netflix… The goal is to tear down the boundaries between TV and other kinds of video entertainment, since after all, when you sit down in front of the TV you’re really just looking to be entertained.

While Waiting For $60M In New Funding, Viggle And GetGlue Are Looking To Extend Their Merger Deadline via Tech Crunch

Those of you waiting for the tie-up of second-screen apps GetGlue and Viggle — Giggle? — to close will have to wait just a little bit longer. The merger of the companies, which was announced in November, has yet to close thanks to expected additional financing for Viggle which hasn’t come through.

Zeebox is set to let cordcutters join its social TV party thanks to a deal with Gracenote via The Next Web

Social TV app Zeebox received a lot of attention last year as it rolled out across the US, Australia and Ireland, and yet until now it’s only been useful if you’re watching a show at the time it’s being transmitted. A new deal with media data company Gracenote may change that, as it’s set to equip the app with the ability to automatically detect the show you’re watching. This opens Zeebox up for use by ‘cordcutters’ and others who watch timeshifted TV.

Second-screen TV app Zeebox tops one million US downloads in three months via The Next Web

Social television app Zeebox has been downloaded more than one million times in the United States over the last three months, adding some weight to its claim of being the market leader in delivering additional content to a second screen.

11 Big Tech Trends You’ll See in 2013 via Mashable

In other words, the Second Screen has arrived, but the revolution awaits us. In 2013, brands, media companies and marketers are going to get far more aggressive and inventive when it comes to second-screen engagement…Meanwhile, a legion of second-screen engagement enablers like Shazam, Zeebox (both of which were on my panel), Viggle and GetGlue are lining up to help you connect big-screen consumption with small-screen activities.

Twelve Predictions for 2013 via Real Story Group

Much like video never killed the radio star, the internet hasn’t killed television – in fact it’s made TV another avenue for social media interaction. Interactive television will continue to proliferate, and MAM vendors will race to supply broadcasters and media distributors with multi-screen applications, content / program discovery apps, companion apps to particular shows, everywhere/anywhere sports access, and ways to see what your friends are watching via social network presence applications.

Who will win the war for eyeballs between TV and social media via Simon Mainwaring

Many people are wondering who will win the advertising war between TV and social media. It seems like TV is as popular as ever and yet so many people have their eyes glued to their Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts? Which has more impact on sales and customer engagement ? Where should you put your advertising dollars? The truth is that neither will win as they are very quickly merging to create what is called Social TV. So here are 3 keys ways that every small business owner can take advantage of Social TV to build their business: 1. Use product placement to allow customers to buy your products inside a program, webisode or branded content. 2. Leverage the cost efficiencies of digital content to make your own online program that features your products and services. 3. Create a social shopping experience that lets customers share what they bought with their own friends, family and colleagues.

Social TV Trends: How Consumers, Content Providers, Social Media and Technology Are Reshaping Marketing via SCHAWK

The big cable companies are finally providing open interfaces that allow users and third-party companies to interact with each other and the programming. This is a huge step toward the growth of social TV. Technology like Apple TV is hastening the time when we can control our entire TV experience through our internet devices.

3 Reasons to Embrace Video Marketing in 2013 via The Pulse Network

With smartphones now in the hands of more than half of US mobile subscribers, it’s easier than ever to capture, share and consume rich media content. Yet advertising effectiveness and consumer demand are just a starting point when it comes to examining why brands – especially B2B organizations looking to reach prospects at the top of the funnel – need to embrace video content.

DVR Use One Factor in Networks’ Low Ratings via The New York Times

The numbers tell the tale. With seven days of delayed viewing factored in, ABC is down 7 percent in the audience preferred by most advertisers, viewers between the ages of 18 and 49; CBS is down 18 percent; and Fox Broadcasting is down an eye-popping 26 percent. NBC is the only network bucking the trend, with its audience up 23 percent in that category…“We are definitely in a transition period,” said Paul Lee, president of ABC’s entertainment group, citing the heavy shift toward reliance on DVRs and video on demand to create personalized viewing schedules…The network programmers agree that they need to find shows that somehow stir instant interest, as well as ways to market those shows across the different platforms viewers use. “You’re suddenly playing three-dimensional scheduling of shows,” Mr. Lee said. “You have to match it with three-dimensional marketing.”

Digital Media Visionary Jon Miller’s ‘Doomsday Scenario’ For TV Advertising via Business Insider

Ross Levinsohn, investor and former CEO at Yahoo, also weighed in, speculating whether media producers would one day have Google or Yahoo manage their advertising options across all platforms and develop relationships with advertisers rather than the fragmented system that exists today.

Could TV Spoilers Improve The Viewing Experience For A Social Media-Driven Audience? via Scott Feinberg

TIME’s James Poniewozik explains it best: “Hearing a spoiler takes away the one-time-only discovery of a twist or an ending, and when that happens to you without your consent, it feels like a violation.” Yet, spoilers actually make me want to watch a show more than ever. If it’s a shocking twist, it’s almost too impossible to imagine — I have to see it to believe it.

Social TV usage up, new currencies emerging via Videonet

Trendrr CEO Ghuneim also sees the old (size) and new (engagement) as complementary: “We’ve always felt that social engagement can help you value media and can map toward traditional currencies, but we also know that there are additional currencies created for all aspects of studios, television networks and production with real-time social data.”

Why Social TV Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better via Media Camp

this brave new frontier known as “social TV” will likely experience a fair amount of turmoil before it becomes more ubiquitous and firing on all cylinders…One underlying question here is how the new mobile viewership is measured, and whether or not this measured activity is leading to tune-in on that living room big screen. If this causation can be proven, then the amount of investment put into this can be dramatically increased…so far, calls to “show me the money” in mobile and social have resulted in meager results, especially when compared to the linear revenue TV networks see today. Online video monetization is certainly on the rise, but it will have to get much bigger to be material to most TV networks. With the lower revenue, businesses will be challenged to find the funds to help along this industry, and growth could be stalled in 2013.

Social TV: People Are Talking — How Marketers Should Listen via Knowledge @ Wharton

it’s surprising just how much people are responding to TV, but also to TV triggers specifically. It suggests, at least right now — things can change over time as users and viewers become used to seeing these TV triggers — that the TV triggers actually do lead to more engagement, whether it be something that’s happening in a TV commercial during the Super Bowl or The Voice putting these hashtags in specific tweets on the screen

RESEARCH

Watching TV? Don’t Forget Your Smartphone, Tablet via Nielsen Blog

While smartphone penetration in the U.S. is over 50 percent, tablet penetration is on the fast track as well. Within a two-year period, almost one fifth of U.S. homes have become tablet owners…Thirty-six percent of people age 35-54 years old and 44 percent of people 55-64 years old use their tablets while watching TV in order to dive deeper into programming. Nearly a third of tablet users age 25-64 check sports scores while watching games too. In fact, a majority of owners use apps while watching TV across the board.

STUDY SHOWS GROWTH IN SECOND SCREEN USERS via Associated Press

The Nielsen company said that one in three people using Twitter in June sent messages at some point about the content of television shows, an increase of 27 percent from only five months earlier. And that was before the Olympics, which was probably the first big event to illustrate the extent of second screen usage. “Twitter has become the second screen experience for television,” said Deirdre Bannon, vice president of social media at Nielsen.

Nielsen’s state of social 2012 report: more social, more mobile, more minutes, more TV, and more ads via Venture Beat

Both in the U.S and globally, people are accessing the web more frequently and for longer periods, using smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and smart TVs. We’re still using PCs as well, but personal computer usage of social media is just about the only category that’s down: 4 percent fewer Americans connected to the Internet via a PC in 2012, while 82 percent more connected via the mobile web and 85 percent more connected via a mobile app.

Second-screen TV usage on the rise via Variety

Femmes, who have been known to grab the remote and drive viewership for most broadcast series, are reaching for smartphones more than males. Over 40% of female smartphone users watch TV while using their smartphones, as opposed to 35% of males.

REPORT: FOUR IN TEN USE “SOCIAL TV” APPS DURING TELEVISION VIEWING via App Market TV

the widespread diffusion of broadband Internet services combined with rapid innovation in mobile technology has led to a convergence between what were previously distinct experiences: watching TV versus using a “computing” device. “As TDG predicted when the iPad was first introduced, in short order dual-device behavior would emerge, and that is precisely what is now taking place.”

The Whole Story – Social Media and TV via Media Post

When we look at congruent use of TV and social media (when both are used in the same 30-minute period) we again see a similar pattern where peak combined usage matches prime time for TV and social media individually.  This is consistent with other USA TouchPoints analyses, where we have seen as much as 30% of total social media use occurs congruently with TV viewing

OTT and social TV causing “seismic shift” in viewing habits via CSI Magazine

Consumers in the US and UK are increasingly turning to broadband content and social networks to complement their existing viewing habits, according to a new survey by Accenture…Accenture’s Pulse of Media Consumer Survey found that almost half of consumers are viewing over-the-top video through a broadband connection on their TVs (50% in the US and 48% in the UK) in addition to the content they traditionally watch via cable or satellite. Consumers are also viewing content on mobile devices, creating video playlists, posting videos on social media, and learning about new TV programs and video offerings through social networks.

1 in 3 Online Consumers Want to Interact With TV Shows Via a Second Screen via Marketing Charts

Verizon has released new data from its “Borderless Lifestyle Survey,” exploring consumer attitudes to an always-connected lifestyle. Of the many findings, attitudes towards real-time interaction with TV shows prove particularly interesting, as emerging technologies provide another potential activity for so-called “second screeners.” Specifically, 35% of respondents indicated an interest in real-time games and challenges with shows via a second screen, and 32% expressed an interest in the ability to control or influence a TV show’s plot via a mobile phone or tablet. Beyond TV programs, more than one-quarter also said they’d be interested in real-time interaction with TV commercials from a mobile device.

SHOWS & NETWORKS

Viacom’s Philippe Dauman talks future of social TV, as Comedy Central touts gains via Lost Remote

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman …“We have observed that our viewers, when they are watching their TV, they are very often looking at second screen, accordingly we have been programming to that second screen,” Daumsn said in a statement. “It opens up new interactions with some of our advertisers, and we are already doing that, and it also opens up new opportunities with creative talent.”

King of TV for Now, CBS Girds for Digital Battle via The Wall Street Journal

“You have the debate of whether or not [CBS’s] core business of broadcast TV is going to be relevant in the future,” said Todd Juenger, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. “But the biggest deal is that Les is running out of growth levers to pull. People give him a lot of credit, but you wonder, what the hell is he going to come up with next?”… Seated in front of a television lighted up with the network’s schedule, he observed that viewership was fragmenting by video on demand, streaming and digital video recorders…But Mr. Moonves sees the bright side. “It’s early and interesting,” he said. “With more video on demand and DVR and live television going down, you have to be patient.”

Love ‘Homeland’? Make sure you follow @SergeantBrody via Lost Remote

Fake Twitter accounts have become a defining component of social TV. They have become the short-form fan fiction that allows us to live with our favorite characters in between episodes and after a season ends. My own introduction to social TV years ago came after learning about Mad Men’s @PeggyOlson’s success. Networks have attempted to leverage faux accounts and have also been criticized for not leveraging faux accounts enough.

never.no used by MTV Media to harvest Instagram photos for live Big Brother broadcast via Never.no Blog

MTV MEDIA is one of the first broadcasters in the world to integrate Instagram in a real-time television broadcast…At the start of the show Big Brother displayed a call to action, providing viewers with a specific hashtag (#BBSuomi) and details about how to tag their photos on Instagram to potentially have them included in the broadcast.

ADS

Ford And Jimmy Fallon Turn To Twitter For Help Writing Lincoln Super Bowl Ad via TechCrunch

The automaker has hired Jimmy Fallon to write Lincoln’s first-ever Super Bowl ad, which will be based on tweets. Neither Bloomberg nor the #SteerTheScript website offers many details about how Fallon plans to turn a bunch of tweets into a 60-second TV commercial — the website says, “The writing process will begin with a tweet from Jimmy and then after that it’s up to you, and Jimmy, where the story goes.”

TWITTER

See Trends for 100 more cities via Twitter Blog

Today, we’re bringing Trends to 100 more cities around the world including Istanbul, Frankfurt, Guadalajara and Incheon. With this update, we now surface the ‘most breaking’ news in more than 200 locations.

NETFLIX

How Netflix wants to change television forever via GigaOM

Sarandos also made it clear that he doesn’t just want to steal away big blockbusters from the likes of HBO and Starz. Throughout the conversation, he explained that Netflix aims much higher: it wants to change television forever. Asked about how TV will look like in five years, Sarandos replied: “It’s gonna look nothing like we’re seeing today.” Ratings don’t matter. Come February, Netflix is going to launch two original TV shows, and chances are that millions will tune in to watch the new season of Arrested Development alone.  But don’t expect Netflix to brag about it. Sarandos made it clear that he won’t release any numbers, no matter how good they are. “It’s a really irrelevant number,” for a subscription TV service, he argued, because it doesn’t have to sell large simultaneous audiences to advertisers.

SONY

All Sony connected TVs to get Ensequence tech in 2013 to serve up contextual content via Engadget

Not getting your fill of connected TV action with contextual content and ads appearing alongside your soaps? Your hunger could be satisfied by picking up a Sony-made television in 2013, as Hirai and Co. have inked a multi-year deal with the folks at Ensequence to bake software for such experiences into all of their connected TVs starting next year. Ensequence leverages the automatic content recognition tech inside Sony’s sets and provides a platform for content producers and advertisers to sling up everything from relevant coupons to trivia games on displays.

APPLE

Apple CEO Tim Cook: ‘Intense Interest’ in Improving TV via ABC News

In an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams Tim Cook has spoken a little bit more about the company’s TV plans — or at least implied that there are plans. “When I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years,” Cook told Williams. “It’s an area of intense interest. I can’t say more than that.

INTERNATIONAL

Nielsen Study Notices Growth In Social TV via NPR

BANNON: Yeah. So this is definitely a global phenomenon. As you mentioned, you see it in the Middle East and Africa and we see it across Latin America, Asia and Europe as well. I think some of the reason that you see it in emerging regions especially is that mobile is emerging faster in developing regions. So I think you see that increase there.

Social & multi-screen TV Case Study: The X Factor Italy via MIP Blog

In recent months, Sky Italia launched a series of online extensions to further the audiences’ engagement and to extend The X Factor across multiple screens – web, TV, mobile – before, during and after airtimes…During the “Web Factor”, the hosts of the web format interact live with the participants backstage just moments before the live broadcast to anticipate the upcoming episode. During the “Xtra Factor”, they go on stage seconds after the show ends to collect first impressions from the judges…this also illustrate more broadly that online extensions of international formats such as The X Factor, have now become an inherent part of the TV programme

UK social TV trends revealed via Broadband TV News

18.7% of online traffic in the UK is now through devices other than PCs. This, according to Greg Dale, EVP International, comScore, puts the country in second place globally after Singapore.

Tsunami of social TV apps coming via SNL Blog

At the Digital TV Summit in London, Nicolas Bry, senior vice president of the innovation and marketing group at France Telecom Group’s Orange, kicked things off by telling the audience the role his company will have in this sea change. “While social TV might be about interacting, it is also about listening,” he said. “Listening to the social conversation.” Social TV is also about creating a social buzz, Bry said, and marketing and advertising companies can play an important role in creating such a buzz.

OPINION: Shhhh, I’m watching, voting, tweeting, and liking with my TV via Campaign

according to the most recent Nielsen Australian Online Consumer Report, approximately 60 per cent of Australians are multi-tasking with their computer, tablet and smartphone(s) whilst watching TV, and an increasing amount are using such devices to engage in social-media discussions and look up and download related content, products and services. Second-screen usage spikes during prime-time viewing hours.

Social TV network makes Asian debut via C21 Media

Asia-Pacific pay-TV channel distributor Multi Channels Asia has launched youth-skewing US network Havoc 247 across the region through a number of carriage deals…Havoc 247 uses live social media feeds from Facebook and Twitter to engage with its core demographic of 18-34 year-olds and claims to be the “first linear social TV channel to launch in the region.”

Social TV Is Getting Down to Business via Ad Age

“No one wants to see a pop-up in the middle of their program they love saying ‘Buy this!’” he said. “The primary screen is not the way to drive the commerce.” Second-screen marketing represents “a way to augment the experience without impacting the experience.” American Express is dabbling in the space to see if it can associate itself with consumers making purchases based on what they see in their favorite TV programs, having signed deals in the last few weeks with both News Corp.’s Fox and Comcast’s NBC Universal…Advertisers “are looking for more interaction” when they do deals that tie them to specific programs, said Jean Rossi, president of News Corp.

American Express Interactive Channel Is Set to Reach 50 Million Homes via New York Times

American Express is taking another step toward the new world of television that is always on, making a deal with BrightLine for a yearlong campaign centered on an interactive branded channel…The branded channel is providing viewers content that includes video clips, offers, games and information about American Express cards and promotions like Small Business Saturday…American Express is among a growing number of giant marketers exploring the ins and outs of interactive television, which appeals to them because ads can be directed at an audience and the results — or lack thereof — measured.

Why the ‘Live Web’ is the new TV via Venture Beat

Is the Live Web bigger than TV?  Absolutely.  First off, the continued progression of TV Everywhere, whereby authenticated subscribers to cable or satellite services have access to their cable video content on most connected devices, is going to result in TV becoming a virtual subset of the Live Web.  This will happen within the next two years…Understanding the Live Web would allows publishers to create digital prime time for their content, create an outlet for content that can’t find a place in their traditional programming wheel, and create a direct and recurring connection with their users instead of leaving the discovery of their content to search.

Somebody Needs To Tell Notre Dame That There’s No ROI On Twitter! via Barry Cunningham

And then it popped up. Right there on Twitter, for all of us wannabe leprechaun’s to see. Someone, maybe Notre Dame, maybe a vendor, but someone with their wits about them somehow owned the top of Twitter and featured Notre Dame gear…While Kirk Herbstreit and Brent Musberger were readying their post-game analysis, somebody was already on it preparing to take millions of dollars of orders. That is the power of #socialtv. That is the power of real-time marketing. That is realizing a serious ROI on Twitter…People are spending tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on commercials and completely missing the boat on how a simple social media campaign executed in real-time can reap some serious benefits. Both in actual cash and affinity.

Introducing My Revolutionary Social-Media Startup, SocialSocializing via Ad Age [SATIRE]

Well, my killer team and I are hard at work tweaking the interface, and we don’t want to reveal too much quite yet, but basically SocialSocializing, as we’ve named our product, will re-revolutionize the social-media revolution in a revolutionary new fashion that re-engages consumer engagement engagingly. And we’re dong it by getting back to basics.

My next big thing via Fabrizio Capobianco

The iPad mini is the perfect companion to your TV. It is the remote control of the future. At $329, Apple is going to sell a boatloads of them this Christmas…88% of iPad owners use it in front of the TV. People in the US spend almost five hours a day watching TV (ouch It is still our favorite pastime, by far. All of a sudden, it is possible to talk with your friends, who are watching TV at the same time. It is called Social TV.

Just Like Social TV, Big Data Is Coming To The Movies [Infographic] via Forbes

In some ways, the impact Social Media could have might be more important to movie audiences than TV. Because while a TV show that starts off with slow ratings is still going to hit every possible TV screen until its completely pulled, a movie with slow box office will usually shrink its footprint, meaning the chances of finding a slow-growing movie gem is harder. Positive social sentiment from early screenings — rather than relying on critics and first-week box office — could embolden theaters and distributors to give a movie time to grow. Or vice versa.

How Social Media Impacts TV and Film Ratings via Mashable

But how can social help? Madati told Mashable reporter Zoe Fox that social is critical for content producers to tap into the power of friends and the influence they have on each other. Think about when you want to see a new TV show or movie — do you ask friends first if they’ve seen it and liked it? Madati said social amplifies the opportunity there for content producers and entertainment brands. Social networks like Facebook can connect people to share their thoughts on a new piece of entertainment.

Smart TVs may be taking off, but they’re still not smart enough via ZDNet

However, the current Smart TV market doesn’t look very smart, according to Informa Telecoms & Media’s latest Smart TV forecasts. It seems a large proportion of Smart TVs are used as dumb TVs, and they go out of date too quickly to act as “digital hubs”…Google launched Google TV two years ago in conjunction with Sony and Logitech, but it flopped. However, the system is based on Google Android, Google Chrome, and the Google Play store, so the company is likely to persist even in the face of market indifference. In the long term, Smart TV is likely to provide the opportunity for Google to sell more of its search advertising, apps and content, and it’s the TV manufacturers who are carrying most of the financial risk.

The YouTube Industry Has A Transparency Problem via Read Write

To non-insiders, YouTube networks can be one or all of the following: an ad sales team, a promotional marketing service, a production studio, a talent management agency, and/or a laison between YouTube partners and the notoriously hard-to-get-ahold-of YouTube reps. Think of a third-party YouTube network as a type of Web video business incubator with millions in funding (depending on the network) and all the right (presumably) connections to make you a big Web star. In return for all these wonderful things, the YouTube network takes a cut of your profits. Sometimes that cut can be more than half of what you earn.

Talking to Your Television via MIT Technology Review

But no one really likes to have a keyboard on their sofa, and search is about entering words. And it’s irritating to type out a word letter by letter using a remote control or, as I have to do with my Xbox, game controller (though voice and gesture control are options for Kinect-emabled Xboxes). Which is where voice search comes in. Want a certain channel? Just say the word–literally. The precious, boring minutes I’ve wasted flipping channels in search of AMC? No more. You can also do weirdly specific searches with Google TV’s new incarnation: “movies with Jeff Bridges,” say, turns up just that. Asking a question about how to body paint yourself will turn up a YouTube instructional video…

RESEARCH

Trends for 2013: What Fragmentation Means for ‘Critical Mass’ via eMarketer

For example, more consumers watch TV, and indeed, by eMarketer’s calculations, watch more of it, but those larger audiences are dispersed across multiple screens, or stream TV content to their PCs and smart devices. With rare exception, the mass audience accustomed to appointment viewing is long gone.

CEA Researcher: Growth In Tablet Market Could Make TVs the Second Screen via Hollywood Reporter

Is the tablet ready to move from being the second screen to the primary screen? It might be, according to the Consumer Electronics Asssociation’s senior researcher, who noted that tablets and smartphones were the top selling electronic devices this holiday weekend.

TV and Video Have Come Out of the Box, Accenture Survey Finds via Accenture

Consumers in the U.S. and U.K. are changing the way they view TV and video content by increasingly taking control of how, when, and where they view it, according to a new survey released today by Accenture (NYSE: ACN). About half (49 percent) of consumers surveyed in Accenture’s Pulse of Media Consumer Survey are viewing over-the-top (OTT) video through a broadband connection on their TVs (50 percent in the U.S. and 48 percent in the U.K.) in addition to the content they traditionally watch via cable or satellite…“We are seeing a seismic shift in consumer viewing habits,” said Robin Murdoch, a managing director in Accenture’s Media & Entertainment industry group. “The connected consumer is now comfortable viewing TV shows and video on a variety of screens, as well as sharing opinions of that content via social channels or recommendation engines.”… Younger consumers are also more likely to discover new content through social networks as opposed to learning about it through commercials or programming guides.

SHOW & NETWORKS

Bravo’s ‘Play Live’ Lets Viewers Interact With Favorite Shows and Ads via Mashable

Bravo on Monday night will debut Play Live, a social TV experience that allows viewers to respond to on-air polls and see real-time results at the bottom of their televisions…Play Live will be accessible — starting during the Nov. 26 episode of talk show Watch What Happens Live at 11 p.m. ET — on mobile phones, tablets and desktops as well as through the Bravo Now app.

Bravo pulls back curtain on ‘Play Live’ interactive product via Lost Remote

The service is also meant to serve as a revenue driver, as advertisers can serve up polls or questions that may tie into a product, or offer a coupon as the relevant product or service is featured on TV.

With ‘Defiance,’ Comcast’s Syfy Bets $100M On Convergence Of TV And Videogames via Forbes

That’s because “Defiance” isn’t just a TV show. It’s also a massively multiplayer online videogame developed through a joint venture with San Francisco-based Trion Worlds. With their long product cycles and multiple revenue streams, MMOs, as they’re called, can be fantastically lucrative… What works as a game doesn’t necessarily work as a show and vice versa, making true cross-platform hits rare. “You generally have a licensee and a licensor, and whoever the licensee is has to make a lot of compromises,” says Nick Beliaeff, Trion’s senior vice president of development…“we realized that we really did need to create something from scratch together — to cocreate something that was designed to live on both of these platforms, as opposed to retrofitting something.”… As TVs, computers and game consoles increasingly adopt one another’s features, with everyone from Apple to Google to Microsoft striving to make the “one screen to rule them all,” the idea of a story that can be experienced both passively and interactively comes to look less novel than native.

Will Community fans save the show with ‘CommuniCon’? via Lost Remote

“I started tweeting about Community right after the third season hiatus was announced, and pretty quickly started interacting with other fans, and eventually with the cast and writers, all of whom I followed,” she told Lost Remote. “Tumblr came a bit later- basically, I use it for the same reasons a lot of fans do: to connect with each other, and the people that work on our favorite show,” she added. “Over time, as I became more active in the various fan campaigns, I also used the sites to spread the word about things like fan polls, gifts for the cast and writers, and plans for getting trending topics during Community episodes.”

Making TV relevant for the social generation, meet Troika via Lost Remote

Troika, a brand consultancy and creative agency has been working with The CW since it’s inception in 2006 to help keep this demo entertained through strategic branding. This TV season they’ve launched a major rebrand for The CW, which they describe as “branding in the cracks,” more specifically, “finding new areas and platforms for the brand to be expressed.”

TWITTER

Sailing on the social TV river via C21 Media

Confirmation came earlier this month that former News Corp president and chief operating officer Peter Chernin has joined the board of Twitter…What he brings to Twitter is undoubtedly what the tech company so desperately craves – ever closer relations with the worlds of traditional media and advertising – but this isn’t something new…Chernin’s more recent addition is merely the latest step on Twitter’s path towards becoming something that TV has itself long aspired to be: a fully interactive broadcast platform with which the audience can be as engaged or as passive as they wish.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo: Users Can Download Their Entire Archive By Year-End; Now Sees 1B Tweets Every 2.5 Days via TechCrunch

“It took three years, two months and one day for the first billion tweets to be sent. From the time the company started in 2006 to mid-2009 three years, two months and one day for the first billion tweets to be sent. It has a nice rhythm that it was three, two, one. It probably wasn’t exactly one day, but we like to say that; so it’s three, two, one,” he said. “We now send a billion tweets every two and a half days. So the volume, the noise level has increased dramatically.”

How Twitter Is Taking Over Live TV via Buzzfeed

If you watched NBC’s The Voice last week, the closing song was “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” — not because the producers thought it was the best way to end the broadcast, but because Twitter diehards like ♥Michelle♥ wanted it…For all the commentary about DVR killing live TV, Twitter has inadvertently made live TV relevant again.

Dick Costolo says Twitter is a reinvention of the town square — but with TV via GigaOM

But apart from those headline numbers, and some history about Costolo’s experiences at the University of Michigan, much of the hour-long talk (which is embedded below) was devoted to how the Twitter CEO believes that the service has reshaped and disrupted media. Ever since the invention of the printing press, he said, we have had what amounts to broadcast media of one kind or another: it is one-way, and while it achieves broad distribution, it loses some of the benefits of the original town square or what the Greeks called the “Agora,” where townspeople shared the news of the day…In a nutshell, that’s what the Twitter CEO says his network provides now: a way of injecting the real-time, multi-directional and unfiltered nature of the town square back into the media. And the best part, Costolo says, is that while most new technologies are disruptive to traditional forms of media — in the sense that they disintermediate them — Twitter is actually complementary to mainstream sources of media such as television.

Twitter is “world’s biggest sofa” for TV viewers via Digital TV Europe

“We are no longer alone when watching the TV. We have the opportunity to connect with people all over the world watching the same programme at the same time,” Biddle said. During peak times 40% of all tweets are about TV shows, he added, with sports, and football in particular, driving TV Tweets. According to Biddle, 71% of people who saw a social media impression about a TV programme went on to watch it, while 31% continued to watch a TV show because of its social media impression. In this sense, Twitter could act as a TV guide, said Bidden, describing TV hashtags as “the ultimate bat signal”.

APPS & SERVICES

Viggle-GetGlue Deal Pushes Social TV Forward via 360i

The announcement marks the marriage of two social TV titans – GetGlue, which has previously focused on sharing and discovery, and Viggle, known for its audio recognition technology and ability to extend the rewards experience beyond just programming. Together, GetGlue and Viggle now boast 5 million users. The merger is a clear power-move for both brands, which stand to benefit from the combined technologies and talent of each platform. This is good news for marketers, who now may be able to consolidate their social TV efforts and potentially reach more diverse and robust network of users.

What the Viggle-GetGlue acquisition means for the battle over the second screen via Lost Remote

With the addition of Zeebox in the U.S. market — and its partnership with Comcast — the race to scale has taken on new significance. Not to mention, Twitter is showing a concerted interest in growing its second screen features, and Yahoo-IntoNow-ABCNews is always a combination to watch. The Viggle-GetGlue acquisition certainly puts them in a strong position, especially when you consider the likelihood that Viggle’s reward system will roll out on GetGlue.

GetGlue and Viggle Deal Is Great for Social TV (Opinion) via Social TV Daily

To me it shows the beginning of a consolidation of great technologies, services and talent that will enable the engagement, scale and reach that marketers need to budget for Social TV spend…..in fact this deal will enable the two companies to reach almost 5 million registered users, a number that is sure to grow very fast. In addition the combination of discovery and loyalty make the new company a powerhouse that will provide a great platform for users and solutions for advertisers…..and don’t forget the data. The realtime analysis of user data will help to build more quickly, even better applications and solutions moving forward.

Exclusive: Peel partners with Samsung to take its social TV guide app international via GigaOM

Peel is rolling out its social programming guide in 21 European and Asian countries this week,  allowing users of select Samsung Android tablets to find TV shows they want and change the channel with the device’s integrated IR blaster. Samsung is preloading the Peel app onto its Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Note 10.1 tablets, with plans to roll out TV guides in more than 50 countries by early 2013. The Mountain View-based startup hopes that the partnership with Samsung will lead to millions of additional users over the holiday season…Ellis told me that he doesn’t see that much overlap between apps like GetGlue and Peel, in part because of Peel’s strong focus on remote control capabilities. In the end, changing the channel matters more to users than checking into a show, he said. “The core proposition of social TV is secondary to the user,” he said, adding: “For us, control is a key part of the experience.”

GAMING

Nintendo Confronts a Changed Video Game World via NY Times

Changing tastes and technology have called into question the economics of traditional game consoles, whether from Nintendo or Microsoft, maker of the Xbox. Nintendo recently posted the first loss in its era as a video games company, a prospect that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. And while game consoles aren’t going away, analysts are skeptical that the business will regain its former stature soon. All of which makes Nintendo’s next move, and what is happening here, so crucial…THE Wii U is a recognition that the living room is no longer the province of a single screen. More people, particularly the young, now watch TV with a smartphone or tablet in hand, the better to tweet a touchdown or update their Facebook status during a commercial. The Wii U looks like a mash-up of an iPad and a traditional console, with a touch screen embedded in the middle…Starting in December, people will also be able to use the GamePad as a remote control to set recordings and change channels on their cable and satellite TV services.

INTERNATIONAL

Why the social TV industry should pay attention to Israel’s Keshet Media Group via Lost Remote

TV networks in the US should not only be looking at this large and impressive entertainment company to see what the hottest new programming will be. The social TV executives within Keshet have proven how important it is to have an app and startup work well with the network’s brand and content. They’ve also proven how successful they can be when keeping developers and creative in-house. Instagram will be one of the biggest social TV platforms of the next year and Keshet has shown how using photos creatively can also be a great opportunity to partner with major press.

Study: Social TV and telecoms customer service light up Facebook via Marketing Mag

Television shows were the most talked about branded entities on Facebook in October indicating that social TV efforts have taken hold on the social network. Collectively the top 20 TV show pages for programs aired on Australian screens commanded around 8.5 million fans, more than 4 million ahead of nearest rival – the snackfoods industry.

The Battle For Data From Social TV via Marketing Land

Tens of millions of Americans were still glued to their TV screens (not to mention the countless other millions around the globe); but, at the same time, many millions were furiously tweeting and picking up news from the social platform. And whilst this is great news for Twitter, it highlights growing issues for traditional broadcasters and brands.

‘Social Television’ will become the norm via Cream

Networks that understand the value of real-time interaction are using the social graph to gauge effectiveness of their marketing dollars and understand audience behavior and interests…TV personalities are leveraging social to generate compelling user generated content…Advertisers have also leveraged commercials to drive viewers to their social presence for awareness and promotional activities – often to publish user-generated content or participate in social experiences…To maintain high levels of engagement when primetime television seasons conclude, networks are developing new ways to retain fan relationships through extensions of television.

Social TV has big future, says TV3 via Rapid TV News

In an interview with Rapid TV News Spain, Alex Marquina Doménec, commercial director of New Business and Digital Media at TV3, said he believes that Social TV will cause a change in media consumption habits…The world of television is in the process of transformation, as happened a few years ago with the music industry and the press, but the main difference is the volume of business in the world TV advertising market, close to a 40% share of global investment.

Over the top: the new war for TV is just beginning via The Verge

How is it that you can get a dazzling new smartphone every year with an ever-growing list of features, a better display, and faster networking, but the experience of watching television in your living room remains almost exactly the same as it was five years ago? Why are TV and cable box interfaces so slow and ugly, and why are we still dealing with gigantic ugly cable box remotes festooned with colored buttons? The answer is simple: the only killer app for TV is TV itself. Granted an almost exclusive monopoly over the most valuable content in the living room, cable and satellite companies have developed their products in a competitive vacuum, insulated from the pace and intensity of innovation that has transformed every other part of the tech industry. Smartphones and tablets might have evolved into the apex predators of the technology jungle, but the cable DVR is the mutant fish at the bottom of the ocean that breathes sulfur instead of oxygen.

SHOWS & NETWORKS

TV networks see record breaking traffic to websites during election night via Lost Romote 

Just about a year ago, Lost Remote’s Cory Bergman pointed out that TV sites should turn into second screens. A year later, TV networks have taken this advice and are now seeing record breaking results to their main dot coms.

National Geographic Channel Partners with IntoNow to Provide Exclusive Content for Doomsday Preppers and Rocket City Rednecks via Nat Geo TV Blog

Can’t get enough Doomsday Preppers?  Feening for even more preps?  Can’t wait to break down the latest episode with your friends? Now, thanks to our just announced partnership with IntoNow from Yahoo!, all that and more is at your fingertips.

HISTORY continues #ThankAVet campaign in honor of Veteran’s Day via Lost Remote

HISTORY is continuing their social TV campaign for social good in honor of Veteran’s Day. They will be “donating $1 to America’s VetDogs (up to $10,000) for every #thankavet tweet sent in honor of Veterans Day.”

How Current TV Connected Online and Broadcast with Its Social Dashboard via PBS

The Politically Direct Social Dashboard, seen above, allows users to participate in and influence online and on-air coverage. Users can tag or react to tweets, or dive into particular issues that matter to them. The online experience displays volume and velocity of tweet sentiment from the entire, filtered Twitter firehouse through “bubbles” that expand and contract. Users can join in by signing in through Current.com or their own social network, providing the added benefit of social tie-in with outside social media.

Scripps, Turner in multiscreen content ventures via Fierce Online Video

Scripps Network Interactive and Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) are moving full-stream-ahead into pushing their content across multiple screens to multiple devices…The Clearleap technology captures live telecasts from Scripps’ Knoxville, Tenn., broadcast center, processes network programs for viewing in multiple formats and watermarks commercial ad spots to capture ratings data generated during the 75-hour window after shows are first telecast, the companies said.

Viacom CEO: MTV Is ‘Not Broken’ via Hollywood Reporter

And the company emphasized that it won’t let changing TV viewing habits affect its business without changing its strategies.

NBC’s Vivian Schiller: social media has made live TV essential again via The Verge

So of course they’re watching broadcast television, but they’re on cable, and they’re on their cell phones, and they’re on their Xboxes and Twitter and Facebook. It’s critical that we think holistically about the way we reach the audience… I think Twitter is a very symbiotic relationship. Of course they benefit — it’s their platform — but we benefit tremendously from Twitter. I don’t begrudge them their success. I’m grateful for their success because it’s helping drive our success. We’re burnishing our brand as a high-quality news provider, we’re sending traffic to our website, we’re sending viewers to television. We’re giving people an opportunity to talk and that breeds loyalty. If Twitter makes a lot of money, more power to them. We will too, with their help.

ADS

A NEW, NEUROSCIENCE-BASED STUDY SAYS BEYONCÉ IS YOUR AD’S BEST FRIEND via Co.Create

Music videos rank above online TV and traditional TV when it comes to viewers remembering and connecting with the ads accompanying the programming, and that’s because people feel a more intense emotional connection to music videos. At least according to Vevo’s Music Video vs. TV Neuroscience Research Study, conducted in partnership with Universal McCann… Music videos scored higher than online TV and traditional TV in terms of emotional intensity. Online TV actually scored the highest on engagement. But music videos were ranked highest when it came to memory encoding–that’s the storing and recalling of information in the brain–of the ads played alongside them

A Simple Way to Get TV Viewers to Stop Skipping the Ads via Time

It seems that there’s an unforeseen side effect when viewers watch TV while also using so-called “second screens” (i.e. smart phone, tablet or laptop): They’re less likely to fast-forward through commercials and more likely to respond to audio-centric ads. To be sure, the findings should be taken with a grain of salt, not only because the study (“Deconstructing the Multi-Screener”) is one of the first to examine TV viewing habits in this way but also because it was conducted by Latitude Research with/for Bravo Media… One takeaway, then, for advertisers and the networks who want to please them, is to get viewers to take TV-watching multi-tasking to the next level. The more screens in front of viewers, the less likely they are to change channels or fast-forward. Bravo is especially mindful of this, offering an array of interactive second-screen opportunities for many of their properties.

The Evolution of Social TV via Business 2 Community 

The merging of social media and television means a constant real-time feed of information, predictions, reactions, and, of course – ruined plotlines. For those consumers who record shows for later viewing, this can halt the use of social media for a period of time in order to avoid reading play-by-plays before watching the actual show… Luxury fashion retailer Neiman Marcus is leading the way in this profitable marketing opportunity. In partnership with Target, they created an entire campaign around the TV drama Revenge. The exclusive Target Neiman Marcus collection sponsored the Nov. 11 “midseason finale” episode… Target and Neiman Marcus strategically inserted themselves into a television show that attracts their target customer. This will increase general product awareness along with social visibility. The campaign included the hashtag #GiftofRevenge on Tweets from all of the brand and company Twitter handles. A digital video is also available online.

TWITTER

Twitter adds to TV team, hires Broadcasting and Cable editor to lead media operations via Lost Remote

Broadcasting and Cable Editor-in-Chief Ben Grossman announced today he has joined Twitter’s media team as the Head of Global Operations…This is Twitter’s latest move to deepen its investment in TV, which is largely a relationship-driven industry. Grossman has worked at Broadcasting & Cable since 2005, and his digital rolodex is packed full of contacts from years of reporting and speaking.

Should Live Tweeting Be Protected Like Broadcast Rights? via Mashable

Social media has irreversibly altered the media landscape, and the power relationship between big content brands, individual reporters and fans. But the major money makers — ad-rich TV and radio, in particular — will always, or at least for the foreseeable future, remain in the control of the powerful. So it’s best for them to lay off the micromanaging, and accept some bit of change.

FACEBOOK

Mark Cuban: Facebook Is Driving Away Brands – Starting With Mine via Read Write

Cuban and other corporate Facebook members are howling because new rules on the social network make it harder for brands to reach people without spending big money on sponsored posts…In addition to Myspace, Twitter and Tumblr are both ready, willing and able to support brand activation without holding followers hostage for additional revenue. And in the ironic department, Instagram has the same friction-free reach to followers that Twitter and Tumblr have but Facebook doesn’t.

Facebook Rolling Out Pages-Only Feed via Adweek

Facebook’s created a new version of News Feed just for you or any brand. Amid the marketer outcry over their page posts reaching fewer News Feeds, Facebook said today that is has begun rolling out a “Pages Only” News Feed that will only contain content from the pages a user has liked.

APPS & SERVICES

Never.No launches multiscreen social TV ad platform via Lost Remote

this a step forward by bringing any interaction that can take place on the 2nd screen, right back into the big screen. So users can use their (tablet/mobile/) and respond to an Interactive Ad format (polling/voting/gaming) and have those responses/results get displayed on the big screen during the Ad, or during the programming. This means truly interactive Ad formats across all screens and all screens working cohesively in a two way dialogue.

Fizziology helps TV networks determine how much people like a TV show via Lost Remote

There’s a new social TV analytics company on the loose. Fizziology “uses human sentiment analysis – real people reading social media chatter from real people – to let networks know which new fall TV shows are driving the most positive and negative buzz online.”

Dijit’s Jeremy Toeman talks NextGuide and Social TV via Forbes

Dijit released an updated version of it’s NextGuide today, with a raft of new features such as tighter integration with Facebook data, bookmarking and  a number of search improvements.

Advanced Advertising: Zeebox Aims to Build One Second Screen App to Rule Them All via MultiChannel News

“Most advertisers want simplicity. The same is going to apply to the second screen as well,” he said. “What makes Zeebox attractive is it’s the same ad units across multiple shows.” Zeebox can also synchronize advertising content on the main screen — your television set — with the second screen to target creative that way, instead of advertisers spending large amounts of money and investment to have multiple types of creative for multiple audience segments on linear TV. It also keeps those TV ads clean of EBIF content that can be distracting… Zeebox is also seeing an average engagement length of 30 minutes, meaning users aren’t just using the app for discovery, but watching their show with it, which Forbes said “points toward a very compelling monetization story.”

Sidecastr update allows synched conversations with Facebook friends even when you can’t watch together via Lost Remote

Sidecastr’s new release brings to light one of the most important issues facing social TV – time shifting. It’s still impossible to go on social if you’re behind on one of your favorite, buzz worthy shows. Sidecastr is trying to solve this on their platform by  having “conversations with friends captured against the timeline of a show, even when you can’t all watch at the same time”.

NIELSEN

The Cross-Platform Report: A New Connected Community via Nielsen Wire 

According to the latest Nielsen Cross-Platform Report, Americans spent more than 34 hours per week in front of a TV set in Q2, 2012, where they watched traditional TV, DVDs and played games.  Most of the content from these activities was delivered to the TV set in a traditional manner– over broadcast, cable, satellite or telco connection– and a growing amount was delivered by Internet connection.  Americans also added another five hours in front of the computer screen using the Internet, or watching video content, and an increasing amount of time using smartphones this quarter. Tablets and smartphones are proving to be new, novel and potentially necessary utilities, aiding Americans in connecting with the people and content they desire.  These devices enable a new trans-generational community of connected consumers that crosses age, gender, race and ethnic lines to truly participate in the multitasking that used to be reserved for the young, or tech savvy elite.

What Nielsen’s acquisition of SocialGuide means for the social TV industry via Lost Remote

“The burning question on everyone’s mind is if there is a consistent correlation between social media buzz versus tune-in,” Proulx says.

Nielsen’s NM Incite Acquires SocialGuide To Measure The Impact Of Social TV via TechCrunch 

In the press release announcing the acquisition, Nielsen says social TV is becoming an increasingly important, with 50 percent of North American viewers interacting with social media while watching TV.

Is SocialGuide Enough to Give Nielsen a Leg Up? via Adweek

The question is, will the deal usher in a new era of receptivity and attention to digital media by the measurement giant, or is this just Nielsen ticking the “social media” box and moving on?…”The skyrocketing adoption and use of social media among consumers is transforming TV-watching into a more immediate and shared experience,” Steve Hasker, Nielsen’s president of global media products and advertiser solutions

Nielsen buys SocialGuide to help advertisers understand link between Twitter and TV ratings via VentureBeat 

“The opportunity in social TV is too big to ignore, and there is a need for standard metrics and research to uncover the effect of social TV on programming and advertising strategies,” NM Incite CEO Andrew Somosi said.

Social TV Metrics: Old World Meets New via Magic Ruby 

Ad rates are set based on this ratings model, despite the commonplace acknowledgment that the model is not only imperfect at measuring what it intends to measure (television sets on, tuned to a program), but may not even be measuring what’s important. For in this 500+ channel watching, DVR-hopping, multiviewing, second screening world that we live in, where 65% of advertising is ignored, is it really the gross numbers of television sets on that matters?

GOOGLE

Make It So: Google TV Revamp Adds Voice Navigation via Fast Compay 

Google hopes to change its fortunes today with the launch of the third version of Google TV. The software upgrade introduces voice commands, an improved user interface, and better smartphone and tablet integration. (Clearly the company’s engineers have learned something from watching all that TV.) But most significantly, in spite of the company’s success on PC devices–YouTube receives more than 800 million monthly visitors, who watch roughly four billion hours of video–with the latest release of Google TV, it’s clear the company has realized it can’t simply port that same experience over to the big screen… In the TV world, however, few people search for content–they surf for it. The shift from search to discovery is an important move for Google TV, but the larger indication here is that Google is learning it can’t keep treating the TV like a PC.

YouTube Preps Big New Round of Content Investments via Ad Age

Google’s video giant will provide a second round of funding to 30% to 40% of its original partners and will start notifying those getting more investment in the next few weeks… A year later, YouTube has a better feel for what worked, namely programming that appeals to a young demographic in genres like humor, music, cars and sports. What didn’t work? A celebrity name attached wasn’t enough… While channels failed for a lot of reasons, the ones that are succeeding have one common characteristic: they make building the audience as big a priority as creating content… The bigger challenge for YouTube is to get people watching longer, which allows YouTube to compete for TV ad budgets. Overall time spent per viewer on YouTube has grown nearly 60% in the past year from just under three hours a month in September 2011 to four hours, according to Nielsen.

With new channel investments, YouTube becomes even more like TV via GigaOM

Some of these shows have been runaway hits, while others have tanked. But the overall success rate is very much like on TV, according to data recently published by Screenrant. The TV blog did the math on the number of new network shows canceled after just one season, and discovered that on average, only 35 percent of shows make it to a second season.

Changing Channels: YouTube Will Pull the Plug on at Least 60 Percent of Its Programming Deals via All Things D 

What determines who makes the cut? Jamie Byrne, YouTube’s director of content strategy, says the site is most concerned about engagement — primarily the total “watch time” a channel has generated — and cost — how efficient programmers have been with their programming budget… Byrne and his boss Robert Kyncl are also not paying much attention to the channels’ financial performance — a tacit acknowledgement that advertising for the channels remains a work in progress.

How YouTube Channel Owners Are Building Audiences [INFOGRAPHIC] via Mashable 

“YouTube creators upload three or fewer videos a week, but are still spending a serious amount of time cross-pollinating their content across social channels,” a FanBridge spokesperson said. “Anyone looking at advertising on YouTube or brand marketers thinking about sponsoring a YouTube network would also be interested to see what to look for when comparing possible channels to get involved with.”

MICROSOFT

First Mover: Nancy Tellem Microsoft’s new entertainment chief sees the console as more than just for games via Adweek 

After the number of years I’ve been in traditional media, this really allows me to explore the next iteration of television. We’re dealing with a console that has 70 million connected boxes globally. Xbox is really something in the living room that nobody else has. People assume that Xbox is really focused on gamers, when you have all the different social aspects of Xbox Live.

Simon Staffans: The audience is your channel via MIP Blog

Are you looking for an audience for your content? Or are you perhaps looking to expand the audience of your TV channel? Or are you trying to reach a new demographic, a new audience? You are more than welcome to try achieving those things in the traditional ways, but one thing you have to take into account is a whole new channel that has opened up for everyone – the audience itself…The art lies in creating not only for the people you want to reach, but the people you want them to reach. Namely catering for “friends of friends”, in social media parlance. This is where transmedia storytelling principles can come effectively into play.

Building your brand with content marketing via The Gaurdian

Marketers traditionally think of media strategy in terms of three distinct channels: paid, owned, and earned media. But the lines between these are becoming less defined as earned media becomes increasingly important: that is, media that can’t be bought or controlled by a company itself, generated independently by consumers and third parties – anything from social media to word-of-mouth. And the value of earned media will continue to rise with consumers increasingly looking to non-traditional media outlets for content, seeking out what they’re interested in, rather than passively receiving whatever comes their way from media companies… Coupled with the power of social media, marketers can use video to more closely integrate their strategies for paid, owned and earned media to increase impact and ROI

The Problem With Measuring Digital Influence via TechCrunch

One of the reasons that brands don’t understand digital influence is because they don’t seem to realize that no one actually has any measured “data” on influence (i.e. explicit data that says precisely who actually influenced who, when, where, how, etc.). All influence scores are computed from users’ social activity data based on some models and algorithms of how influence works. However, anyone can create these models and algorithms. So who is right? How can we be sure your influence score is correct? In other words, how can we validate the models that vendors use to predict people’s influence?

vrm: social tv? forget the 2nd screen apps, it’s all about generic data via MetaBroadcast

I just checked on my Twitter and Facebook friends in Zeebox. 3% of the 772 people I follow on Twitter and 6% of my 170 Facebook friends are using the app. Of these, 100% are either working in media, or closely connected to the Zeebox team. More than 80% have previously, or are currently working on 2nd screen projects for a broadcaster. In short, this is still a very niche audience…The reality is that most of this involvement is just unconnected browsing and people communicating about their lives in general, which may or may not be connected to the flickering box in the corner…Twitter is sometimes perceived as a niche medium, but we’re now seeing increased uptake, especially among a younger audience. The realtime nature of Twitter is a major plus for broadcast, which is still a predominantly live experience…”Friction free” logging of TV activity has not taken off as in the music industry, but Facebook contains a rich set of likes and posts around TV shows. We find that most users have between 200 and 2,000 TV likes in their social graph.

The Future of Social TV Metrics via Social Times

The industry is leaning toward having a gross engagement point next to a gross ratings point. But whether this will be a simple number that’s easily digestible or a deeper analysis remains to be seen. In the Q&A portion of the panel, Silverman said some useful metrics include the number of uniques, what the share was, and how they’re trending from one week to the next.

Yahoo! and Samsung Partner to Deliver Interactive TV via Yodel Anecdotal

Everyone loves watching TV, and today Yahoo! is making the experience even better for many TV owners in the U.S. We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve expanded our partnership with Samsung to make it so that anyone who purchases or already has a 2012 Samsung SmartTV will be able to engage more with their favorite shows and commercials.

Is Google’s TV strategy a winner? via Futurescape

The Internet giant has a longstanding strategy to extend its domain from PCs to other devices, particularly mobiles and also TV sets. For television, this would bring both its search service and YouTube’s content to smart TVs and thereby grow new revenue streams from the main screen in consumers’ homes. Television sets powered by the Google Android operating system give the company a new distribution channel, in addition to mobile, for premium content from its Google Play apps and entertainment store (formerly Android Market)… By early May this year, YouTube was wooing advertisers to sign up for the channels, promising that it will spend $200m in marketing the channels to would-be viewers…However, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has also emphasised that YouTube does not intend to replace conventional television. Rather, it will be another means of distribution for it: YouTube is considering adding subscription services for premium content.

WHY THE TWEET IS THE DE FACTO CURRENCY OF SOCIAL TV via Second Sync

TV related discussion exists on all social networks but in terms of real-time public conversation, not check ins, ‘likes’ or downloads, Twitter dominates and the tweet has become the de-facto currency of social TV.

Election night proves symbiotic relationship between social media and TV via Lost Remote

According to Twitter, there was a clear correlation between the television calls and activity on the service. When the networks called the election for President Obama at 11:19 PM, 327,452 tweets were sent per minute, including this one from the President, already the most-retweeted post of all time.

SHOWS & NETWORKS

NBC Universal and American Express Try to Bring Dawn of ‘Television Commerce’ via Ad Age

The idea of buying something you see in a TV show by pressing a button on your remote or smartphone has long been the stuff of futurist gabbing or science fiction. Now NBC Universal and American Express are the latest to try to turn the idea into reality…Under the new program, Zeebox will also give users information about how they can purchase show-related items such as couture and kitchenware…American Express card members can receive $35 back when they use an eligible American Express Card, synced with their Facebook or Twitter accounts, to purchase one of the products…American Express isn’t expecting millions of dollars in transactions to take place this time around, Mr. Paskalis said, but rather wants consumers to see the company enabling new ways of purchasing goods and interacting with programming.

NBC Lets Viewers Buy Items They See on TV Via Their Mobile Device via Mashable

NBC is heralding the click-to-buy arrangement as the first of its kind. However, it is not quite the realization of TV execs’ decade-long dream that would let viewers buy a sweater they saw on TV and then click to buy it. Instead, the app directs viewers to a website for curated items that are “inspired by” the shows and don’t necessarily appear on the shows. Though the deal is a baby step for click-to-buy commerce, NBC is putting some weight behind it, including 30-second vignettes starting Wednesday night — one of which stars Fabio — that instruct viewers about how to download Zeebox.

Fox bid to block ad-skipping TV recorder Autohop fails via BBC

Fox said it would appeal against the ruling. It says Autohop is “destroying the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television ecosystem”. But Dish called the decision not to grant a preliminary injunction a “victory for common sense”. Its Hopper digital video recorder can record and store prime-time content from the four major networks for up to eight days. And the Autohop feature lets viewers skip advertisements completely – rather than fast-forwarding through them – at the press of a button.

It pays to visit History’s new website, literally via Lost Remote

There is also a surprising twist: visitors can pawn their own items through the site via PawnGo.com. In other words, viewers of Pawn Stars can actually get paid to pawn their own relics through the show’s site.

Al Jazeera aims to integrate social media into its operations via GulfNews

Al Jazeera’s main priority is “customers” and “we are studying options to make revenues. We are also looking at advertisement and this may be a better option,” he said…“Our next phase of growth will be through social media. We will become more social with our users. This way we can know what the users’ likes and dislikes.”

How NBC is using Instagram to report the 2012 election via GigaOM

The election is days away and NBC News is marking the occasion with Electiongrams, a site of political images posted to popular photo-sharing service Instagram. NBC is using geo-tags to display the images on a state by state basis, and will post photos uploaded with terms like #obama2012, #romney or #vote… Electionsgrams, however, means that NBC and others can easily tap into photo-based reporting on an unprecedented scale. The flood of photos on the site provides a cheap and near-frictionless way for NBC to add color to its coverage and keep up with real time events.

Fox News and Twitter team up to report on election night via Lost Remote

Lee is the youngest anchor in cable news and personally uses social to understand what their viewers are thinking. She discusses how important it has been to the network to team up exclusively with Twitter. This election night will be a telling moment to uncover if all of the buzz and chatter can actually be made sense of. Is Twitter reporting the news or is the news reporting on Twitter? For this election it seems the answers is both for sure.

RESEARCH

When Ranking TV Apps, Consumers Say Useful is More Important Than Fun via Marketing Pilgrim

TVGuide commissioned a study on TV websites and mobile apps and they discovered an interesting fact: 86% of the 1,000 people surveyed said the “useful” was their top priority. Now, that might seem like a no-brainer, but we’re talking TV here and “entertaining” didn’t even land in the top three… From this list we see that people aren’t interested in new and different. They’re happy with the same old routine as long as it gets the job done. And with only 60% putting their faith in a brand name, that leaves the door open for new folks to enter the market. What landed on the bottom? “A good way to connect with others” which only received 47% of the vote. Most TV apps have a social element but the majority of users don’t care.

Study: 63 percent of tablet owners multitask with TV via Lost Remote

The study concluded that 63% of tablet owners multitask in front of TV at least once a week, and 41% of total tablet time is spent in front of TV — the most popular multitasking activity… tablets enhance the TV experience (above): 34% said they’ve posted comments about a show they’re watching (presumably this includes social media), 25% visited a site or app related to the show, 21% looked up more info related to the show, 11% voted in a show contest, 11% used the tablet as a remote control, and 9% “live-chatted” along with the broadcast (unclear if that includes Twitter.) On the advertising front, 28% said they looked up more information related to a TV ad they watched, and 12% purchased a product during a show they were watching. And most people don’t mind ads in their apps:

APPS & SERVICES

The state of the social-TV second screen via GigaOM Pro

These findings give hope and inspiration to a new crop of upstarts looking to create a socially connected viewing-guide app for the second screen. While many of the early social-TV apps like those from GetGlue were about checking in, 2012 has witnessed a landgrab around the social EPG, with a number of entrants trying to gain traction through socially integrated discovery apps that mix linear, over-the-top, and live content. Yap.TV, Zeebox, Dijit, and others have jumped in, and older players like GetGlue have also refocused their attention on a discovery guide.

Ireland’s first Shazam-enabled ads to air tonight via IP&TV News

Swedish auto maker Volvo has commissioned the first Shazam-enabled TV ad for the Irish market, which will enable viewers to tag the commercial using their smartphone or tablet and receive an integrated brand experience that includes promotional links and integrated social sharing.

Barclaycard creates magical toyshop to push payment technology via Marketing magazine

Viewers can interact by using the Shazam app to tag the ad as it airs. This will allow them to enter a competition to win prizes. Barclaycard will give £5 to Great Ormond Street Hospital for each prize won.

From activity feeds to show pages, GetGlue beefs up community features on its website via Lost Remote

… today GetGlue released a new set of features to beef up the community aspects of the experience. To start things off, GetGlue has launched activity feeds, aggregating what your friends are watching, reviewing, liking and commenting on. It’s also created show pages, using the same activity feed approach, but expanding the pool to anyone who’s checking in and commenting on the show.

GetGlue sticks with social TV via C21 Media

“Nielsen in the US is 25,000 households,” he says of TV’s establishing ratings measurement firm…“On a bad day GetGlue has 500,000 check-ins. I can tell you a lot more about long tail of TV from my user base. There’s an audience around True Blood that checks in every Sunday, at least 25,000 people to every episode within a few minutes of it starting.” He believes GetGlue can grow to “10 or 20 million users in the coming year.”

Social TV Smackdown: Competition Between GetGlue and Twitter Heat Up via VideoMind

But GetGlue’s saying that it sees more social TV activity than Twitter. According to the company, its social platform was home to more activity than Twitter for 14 of 15 scripted TV debuts in September…While GetGlue contends that it’s the online platform for TV discussions, Twitter’s not sitting back. In fact, it says 95 percent of public chatter about television takes place on the microblogging platform.

Miso launches Quips, the best way to talk about TV! via Miso Blog

How does Quips work? Quips lets you find a great scene from a TV show, caption it with your thoughts, and share it instantly with friends on Facebook, Twitter, or on your Quips feed! You can follow your friends and interact with them through Quips. The best part – it doesn’t matter how, when, or where you watch TV. Quips just works.

Social TV Startup Miso Pivots Again, Launches Quips App To Let Users Share Their Favorite TV Moments via TechCrunch

As startups go, social TV startup Miso has pivoted more than most: The company started out as just another TV check-in app, then launched a product to let users create and browse guides to all their TV episodes. Now it’s pivoting again, with the launch of a new product — a mobile app called Quips that enables TV viewers to share individual moments from their favorite TV shows with friends.

Orange: recommendation a key challenge for second screen via Digital TV Europe

Last year Orange launched TV Check, an app that offers additional content and games such as quizzes around TV shows, and the ability to chat and comment on shows via Twitter and Facebook. The app automatically recognises programmes that users are watching. Slupowski told attendees at the OTTtv Word Summit this morning that the app would soon offer an advanced recommendation feature

never.no Unveils “Sync” to Allow Multiscreen Interactive Advertising for Social TV via never.no blog

Sync makes it possible to sync an ad on the TV with what appears on the second-screen device. Specifically, timed elements in the broadcast trigger the ad on the second screen, where viewers can interact with it through polling, games, and other such activities. Sync then pulls the results of that interaction back onto the first screen and integrates them into the programming or ad spot in real time, creating one perfectly orchestrated brand experience that hits all consumer touch points. These advertisements last longer and generate unprecedented ad engagement levels that result in far greater ROI for a brand.

NowThisNews debuts its iOS app, aims to reinvent news for mobile-social generation via Lost Remote

Just in time for election day, NowThisNews rolled out its iPhone and iPad app featuring short, shareable mobile videos aimed at the Buzzfeed-friendly crowd.

TOK.TV LAUNCHES TOK BASEBALL, THE FIRST VOICE ENABLED SECOND SCREEN TV COMPANION FREE APP via App Market TV

TOK.tv, a San Francisco based Social TV company, today announced the launch of TOK Baseball, the first free iPad app that allows up to four people to TALK, voice not text, while watching their favorite game on TV. The experience is enriched by real time statistics and information about the game, an area where TV is notoriously weak.

Viewers using Peel app predict Obama will top election via Lost Remote

Peel said it reported 1.5 million interactions during the debates — 4,200 per minute — with Obama scoring 2.4 cheers for each boo and Romney coming out even. The app also polled viewers on their intended votes, divided down by state, and Obama came away with 285 electoral votes (with three undecided states) for the win.

Sidecastr’s iPad app displays tweets related to TV shows — even if you’re not watching live via Boston.com

An iPad app from a Weston startup, Sidecastr, wants to make it easy for you to peruse snarky, insightful, and funny tweets about your favorite TV shows — even if you’re not watching the broadcasts live… Sidecastr captures the tweets about a particular TV show as it is being broadcast, and filters them in two ways. The first is trying to eliminate redundant tweets, spammy tweets, or tweets that aren’t really of interest to most viewers: “Drinking a beer and watching ‘Modern Family,’” for instance. The second filter involves a human curator — Brand refers to them as “Social DJs” — who flags and categorizes the best tweets. A catty comment about a starlet’s dress on an awards show would be categorized under “Fashion,” for instance.

INTERNATIONAL

‘Social TV network’ Videomore expanding as JV like Hulu via paidContent

A “social TV network” owned by one Russian broadcaster is transforming in to a joint venture so that, like Hulu in the States, it can serve up shows from multiple channels… The formation gives Videomore a greater shot at becoming a more definitive TV portal. Both linear TV and broadband internet audiences are growing attractively in Russia. Videomore claimed an average nine million monthly uniques for the first nine months of 2012. However, NMG’s Channel One, Russia’s leading broadcast channel, is a notable absentee from the additions — whilst NMG owns a majority of Ren TV and Channel 5, it has only a minority stake in Channel One.

FankyTV: “Social TV can play an important role in what LatAm viewers will watch” via IP&TV News

I think that LatAm is just starting to head in this direction. It is still struggling with the TV Everywhere concept, over-the-top (OTT) services and hybrid services – don’t forget that LatAm still has a huge amount of users on free-to-air content even though the expectation for pay-TV in coming years is steadily growing… Cord-cutting issue is not a real issue in LatAm yet – and I doubt it will ever be if OTT is the opponent. But the social-economic situation plus the growth of free-to-air digital TV will certainly be an issue to pay attention to for cable operators. They need to engage users with their services, and the companion screen is a great opportunity for doing just that.

Virgin launches streaming internet TV service via BBC News

Virgin Media has launched an internet TV service that streams programmes to computers, tablets and smartphones. The TV Anywhere service is available to UK customers but they will need to rent a Tivo set-top box from the company to use the smartphone and tablet apps. It signals a challenge to BSkyB’s rapidly growing Sky Go service.

Also recommended: Scott Feinberg’s musings on social media’s influence on programming.

For the rest of this week’s tops stories…

GENERAL NEWS

Social TV at heart of new TV viewing ecosystem: report via Kidscreen

Social TV underpins a new TV ecosystem that has grown around creating, marketing and promoting second-screen activities. That’s according to the latest report from Evolumedia Group and the Canada Media Fund entitled The Second Screen and Television: Overview and growth perspectives…Twitter is the king of social TV, according to the report – and the majority of conversation around a show happens during its initial airing, with anticipatory tweets 15 to 30 minutes before airing, and reaction tweets 15 to 30 minutes after. Rights holders, the report states, should dedicate specific content to this microblogging platform to increase brand loyalty.

Why Social Media Has Saved TV Ads via Forbes

However, in the world of social media, where talking about what is happening in the now is social currency, time shifting is a losing proposition. No one is tweeting about something monumental that happened during Breaking Bad, three days later. There is no value in that, and in fact it’s goofy. The conversation has moved on…So while time shifting is a very big deal for TV advertisers because, of course, people skip ads, we shouldn’t panic about the almighty fast forward button. There is nothing more valuable than LIVE today, live shows, first run shows and the ads that run along with them. The two-screen commentary that goes with that that can amplify the ads to greater heights than any traditional TV ad could ever achieve…TV ads have been declared dead incessantly. It’s a tired argument. TV ads are more relevant now than ever if they fit into the social dialogue that is happening every second.

SOCIAL MEDIA’S INFLUENCE ON TV PROGRAMMING: GOOD OR BAD? via ScottFeinberg

NBC recently ordered a pilot based on 24-year-old Emma Koenig‘s Tumblr account entitled, “Fuck! I’m in My Twenties,” which already spawned a book. The site features drawn images filled with sarcasm and insight about quarter-life crises. The show will follow a young woman in her twenties as she navigates her way in New York City. Sound familiar, fans of HBO’s Girls? This announcement comes just two days after CBS ordered a comedy based on another Tumblr, and the source of inspiration for it comes from yet another twenty-something woman…It seems the quick, short-attention span of a social media account doesn’t translate into a 30-minute episode, let alone an entire season. Based on the success, or lack thereof, of $#*! My Dad Says, the niches Tumblr and Twitter accounts fill online become trite on the tube.

Social Audience – Part 2: Using Metrics via Canada Media Fund

Many content creators wrongly think gathering connections, as many as possible, is the way to social media success. Sending your message to lots of people might seem to create leverage. But these are unengaged users, so do they have much value?

The Winners and Losers of the New Television Landscape via Time

Even in the so-called digital age, TV remains must-see. The average viewer in the United States watches about 4.5 hours of live TV per day, according to Nielsen. But it seems rarer and rarer that many of us are watching the same thing at the same time. The proliferation of cable channels has led to heavy fragmentation of audiences across niche markets…Some old TV staples are leveraging our interconnected, digital world for even bigger ratings (and ad dollars), while others are in danger of going extinct.

WATCH: 60 Seconds of Social Media via Huffington Post

But while Nielsen is sometimes criticized for basing its industry-standard TV ratings on roughly .02 percent of the U.S. population, social chatter also represents only a portion of the viewing audience.

Social TV: The Time is Now via Forbes

If the internet was considered a wave, mobile is a tsunami. And now’s the time, as marketers, to jump in and start to shape where mobile goes next – especially with Social TV.

The Problem With On-Screen Live Voting via Social TV Switch

With social, voting takes another dimension and with it the risks have increased, new methods were introduced like Facebook apps voting, Twitter hashtags, email subjects, website polls, and the old SMS voting. all sources can be combined into one pool that gives the results from all the sources. Some would see this as the best way to get the best engagement and the be closer to the greater public opinion, that is true, but what are the new risks

Here comes the future, please don’t adjust your set via The Sydney Morning Herald

Young people, and more and more of the rest of us, are commenting on the television content in real time on social networks, sharing thoughts or accessing information often related to what is being broadcast on TV. This has enormous implications for advertising; more than $3 billion a year is spent on TV advertisements, yet fewer people are taking notice of them…McCubbin believes the convergence will alter television screens beyond recognition, and the idea of having a main screen and a second one in your lap will be superseded. He argues that free-to-air television is becoming irrelevant…McCubbin believes there are plenty of opportunities to capitalise on the new order. The key is to create communities, rather than seeking to inform consumers about goods and services.

So Where Are We Really at with Advertising on the Second Screen? via VAN

The three companies who have stood out, certainly in advertising terms, are Zeebox, DG/Mediamind and Shazam. There are of course others like Twitter and Facebook, but thus far they haven’t created advertising services that are clearly positioned as services designed to sync with TV services and add value to TV advertising (no word from the Big G in this space yet either, although Google TV’s developer page does have a section for second screen app development).

MIPCOM Social TV Boot Camp: Lessons learned via MIPCOM Blog

“People say that producers are the best people to organise or offer a social experience because they know the content. So they are the best people to produce social content for the audience,”

RESEARCH

Social TV and second-screen viewing: the stats in 2012 via The Guardian

Somewhere between 75% and 85% of TV viewers use other devices while watching, although a lot of these people are doing unrelated tasks – it’s startling how many surveys come up with around 60% for the percentage of people who are emailing, which is a telling (and somewhat dispiriting) comment on modern working habits. Of these multi-screeners, how many are actually using their second device to look for something relating to the show they’re watching? Somewhere between 37% and 52%, while between 27% and 44% are browsing for products spotted in a show or ad, depending which survey you believe.

Social TV subtly works into TV business models via Rapid TV News

Social TV is getting to be an increasingly more social activity especially in the United States where 38% of US adult broadband users currently participate in “social TV” activity at least a couple times per year, according to new The Diffusion Group (TDG)…The research identified two primary segments of social TV Users: Talkers, those that only talk or chat about the program they are viewing via instant messaging or social networks; and Engagers, those who not only talk but use so-called synching apps to interact directly with the TV show. Talkers are disproportionately female with an average age of 37, while Engagers, are primarily male with an average age of 34.

4 in 5 smartphone/tablet owners use them while watching TV via Advanced Television

Eighty per cent of smartphone owners use their device while watching television, according to the latest eCustomerServiceIndex results from eDigitalResearch and IMRG. The survey also found that a similar number (81 per cent) of tablet owners use their device in the same way, as do around three quarters (73 per cent) of laptop users…Retail websites were amongst the most popular sites to visit and browse, as were social media sites and search engines.

[Study] Multi-Screening, Attention and Engagement via The Second Scream

New research from Thinkbox investigates the relationship between multi-screening, attention and engagement providing an in-depth look at the interplay between internet-connected devices and TV viewing in UK households

The Truth About Cats and Dogs: Smartphone vs Tablet Usage Differences via Flurry Blog

Taking a snapshot in September 2012 from Flurry Analytics, that totaled more than 6 billion application sessions across approximately 500 million smart devices, Flurry provides a comprehensive comparison between smartphone and tablets, spanning age, gender, time of day usage, category usage and engagement metrics.  For age and gender comparisons, Flurry leverages a panel of more than 30 million consumers who have opted-in to share demographic data…tablets have a greater spike of usage during the prime-time television window, from 7 pm to 10 pm whereas smartphone usage is more evenly distributed throughout the day.  This would indicate that tablets are more often used alongside, or instead of television viewing than smartphones.

Study: Both Genders Big Tablet Users, Mobile Expands Connected TV via Media Post

…tablet users skew older, more female, more affluent and are spend more time with media and entertainment apps. The findings are based on more than 6 billion app sessions across more than 500 million “smart” devices. For age and gender comparisons, Flurry relies on a panel of more than 30 million people that have opted in to share demographic data.

REPORT: THIRTY PER CENT OF GEN Y AUDIENCE BAILING ON “TRADITIONAL” LINEAR TV IN KEY PRIMETIME HOUR via App Market TV

GfK’s research shows that Generation Y (ages 13 to 32) is 30% less likely to be watching a TV network or channel “live” in the crucial first hour of primetime (8 to 9PM ET/PT, 7 to 8PM CT/MT) than they were four years ago.

Seevibes reveals trends in social TV via Seevibes Blog

The typical profile of people discussing TV on social media is very similar to the ideal consumer: women aged 15 to 49 years, influential and involved. This active audience is the best thing that has ever happened to TV advertising. With the distraction of a second screen, people no longer want to zap advertising (73%) and they remember more brands (45%).

SHOWS & NETWORKS

How Social TV Fuels American Horror Story? via Viralblog

To pull horror fans through the Asylum funnel, FX created a smart content strategy to ignite the buzz. A partnership with Entertainment Weekly was established and a mix of Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter was used to release and seed the exclusive video clips and trailers.

Univision to Start Its First Digital Network via NY Times

Figures from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project show that almost half of Hispanics in the United States own a smartphone, while 20 percent own a tablet device. On Monday, Univision will officially start its first digital network, UVideos, which will offer more than 1,500 hours of long-form programming and about 200 short clips a day free to users.

Univision Launches UVideos As The Bilingual Digital Network for Hispanic America via Arktan

UVideos partnered with Arktan to power the site’s social experiences, including some highly innovative, industry-first features. One such feature is the site’s time-syncing feature. This feature supports the DVR capability for live and on-demand video playbacks of Univision shows. When viewers watch videos of the shows after live programming, they are able to see all the social and on-site comments played back to them as they occurred during the original live programming of the shows. This means that friends can experience shows together, even if they’re not watching them at the same time.

Anderson Cooper’s Live Talk Show Will End After This Season via Mashable

Anderson Cooper’s daytime talk show, Anderson Live, which ditched the pre-taped format this season and added a barrage of social media elements, will cease production after season two ends in summer 2013.

SPORTS

Why is Social TV So Sporty? via Living On the Second Screen

Where there’s been a lot of startup activity (and associated venture $) has been in mobile and tablet apps to complement sports viewing.  The apps are all taking different approaches: sharing, stats, conversation, gamification, chat – and all permutations thereof!  Some of the more interesting ones include PrePlay Sports, Tok Baseball, RumbleTV, SportsYapper, SportsCaster, LiveFanChat, and SportsStream

Social TV App Exclusively For Sports Fans Raises $2 Million; Seeks To Cure Watching Sports Alone via Forbes

A United Kingdom-based company called fanatix has created a free iOS “social TV app” exclusively for sports fans, providing them a personalized stream of sports content – news updates, tweets, video clips, live scores and stats – and enabling easy sharing of that content to personalized groups, known within the app as “huddles,” which consist of group chats for sports fans.

APPS & SERVICES

An Updated View of which Second Screen Apps to Watch in 2012 via Thoughts on the Digital Video Space

I continue to believe there are really 5 major features sets that drive consumers to pick up a device as their second screen in an attempt to add value to their first screen experience: Finding something to watch (Discovery), determining where to watch it (Seamless content sourcing, often combined with Discovery), launching that content to your first screen (Simple), getting more information about the program, whether sport stats, actor bios, games, or commerce opportunities (Stimulating), and then sharing all of that and more with your friends (Social).

Stevie Partners with Microsoft to Bring Social TV to XBox’s 70 Million Users via Betakit

Today, Stevie, a platform that aggregates users’ social networks into a social video feed, announced its media partnership with Microsoft, which will see Stevie integrated directly into the Xbox gaming platform. The partnership will grant Stevie access to over 70 million Xbox users worldwide, significantly expanding the reach of the company, which launched its website last May at TechCrunch Disrupt.

Bringing your social graph to TV, meet Stevie via Lost Remote

The company, which “turns your Facebook and Twitter into a beautiful television experience,” launched at TechCrunch Disrupt is announcing a big partnership today to bring their service to more devices.

fanatix Launches In U.S. Fresh Off of Securing $1 million in Funding via PR Newswire

fanatix, U.K.’s leading social network dedicated entirely to sports, announced today the U.S. launch of its app after securing an additional $1 million in funding from angel investors. The free iOS app is drawing from its success overseas to deliver an all-encompassing social platform to American sports fans, having surpassed the 250,000 mark in downloads and increased its daily active user base from 500 to more than 35,000.

A new wrinkle in interactive TV via Los Angeles Times

Developed by Youtoo Technologies, it uses smartphones, tablets and laptop computers to enable viewers to record brief videos themselves in high definition and send these segments, with the press of a button, to a cable or broadcast network. The software filters the submissions for obscenity and nudity, then places the videos in a queue for a show’s producer to review. If selected, the viewer’s submission airs alongside the program.

Screaming Velocity adds social TV to recommendation engine via Rapid TV News

Screaming Velocity, which provides recommendation technologies for the online, video on demand (VOD) and linear TV markets, has taken the wraps off of version 2.0 of its machine learning-based recommendation engine…Its social TV component analyses and deciphers a user’s social graph, thus allowing for immediate user recommendations – even when no historical usage data exists for that individual.

Questioning Hulu’s Future via Carsey-Wolf Center

Hulu’s accomplishments have made it an easy target for networks and studios fearful of what digital distribution threatens to do to traditional business models

TiVo Getting Social in Fit of ‘Pique’? via Multichannel News

TiVo may soon branch out from its TV roots and into social media with Pique, a still-in-development website that promises to let users aggregate and share their favorite entertainment and news content from “one simple place.”

INTERNATIONAL

Dentsu-owned ratings agency to measure Twitter to rate TV shows in Japan via The Next Web

Initially, the company will measure related tweets relating to programs by looking at the number of tweets per minute and also the average over the previous 4 weeks…Asiajin explains that Video Research’s rating system – Shichouritsu — is used by Japan’s national TV networks who rely on it to help sell advertising spots. With that in mind, it will be interesting to see not only how it is embraced by users, but how broadcasters market and promote Twitter to their audiences.

DEMO Africa: Djoss.Tv brings live TV interaction to the phone via CIO East Africa

djoss.tv makes TV social by allowing real time discussions by web or sms during shows. TV channels get valuable feedback and statistics while viewers never have to watch their favorite shows alone again. Its about viewers coming together and sharing an opinion, sharing a conversation about something they are watching, transforming the traditional TV watching experience, into a social activity.

Tricky to divine the impact of social TV via Telecom Asia

At TV Connect in Turkey two weeks ago a number of TV operators and content providers talked about take-up of their social TV activities. But it’s far from clear to me what the actual value of the new currency of “followers” and “likes” is…Our biggest concern, however, is that some social TV strategies aren’t good enough. Consumers are already using Twitter and Facebook to comment on and interact around programs. Unless operators and content providers improve upon this experience, consumers will just ignore their services – or worse, be annoyed by them. We’ve seen a number of services that just get in the way of the core TV experience.

GENERAL NEWS

Zen and the art of disrupting TV via Venture Beat

Television has been the Holy Grail for innovators. Its near universality and the potential for billions in ad revenues have tempted many. There is renewed activity in the TV space. Twitter head Dick Costolo has talked about Twitter’s future being a second-screen experience. Boxee just announced a new set-top box that incorporates a cloud DVR. Amazon’s new Kindle Fires are designed for video… Here are eight companies that have changed TV the most, in order of the degree of impact… As Mark Cuban (an early pioneer in online video and founder of HDNet) said, “The future of TV is … TV.”… But that doesn’t mean we can’t improve parts of the experience. There’s plenty of room for improvement.

The Afterlife Of A TV Episode: It’s Complicated via NPR

…says media analyst James McQuivey. “Every one of these local markets is saying, ‘Well, those reruns aren’t worth anything to me if they’re suddenly all available on Netflix,’ ” he says. “And so the owner of the program says, ‘Hmm, how do we make sure Netflix maybe gets one season?’ ” Hulu gets half of a season of House, and Amazon and iTunes get the show on demand, but only at a certain price. And while broadcast syndication is important, cable reruns are even more important. “The biggest single source of revenue for the video business is cable,” McQuivey says. “That’s the biggest single source of revenue where they can point and say, ‘Those cable companies, they’re footing the bill.’ ” So when it comes to House, NBC Universal will do what it takes to keep cable networks happy, he says… I asked analyst James McQuivey when the studios will give us legal ways to watch House anywhere, anytime on any screen.”That’s at least five years away,” he says, “because the owners of House are going to do everything they can to prevent that.”

New iPad Mini means more screens in front of TVs via Lost Remote

In many ways, we can thank Apple for popularizing the second screen. To date, 100 million iPads have been sold in just over two years, accounting for 91% of all tablet web traffic… Despite the $329 price tag, the new iPad Mini will only increase tablet adoption. Meanwhile, the $199 Google Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD — both capable competitors — will continue to sell in the lower price category.

Social media collects the buzz around new TV series via USA Today

Activity replaces an old measure of audience interest: “It’s sort of the new water cooler, in the respect that people say, ‘Did you see that?,’” says Brian Hughes, senior VP at ad firm Magna Global Intelligence.

Do Multiscreen Experiences Fragment Attention, or Focus It? via Rebecca Lieb

Do all these screens, and all this activity, fragment attention? Sure. But there are growing indications that multiscreen experiences fragment attention within the context of the debate or program in question. Early research indicates this multiscreen experience is additive rather than reductive (as a digital video executive put it to me yesterday).  More screens and more channels intensify rather than diminish attention and concentration on the program in question.

Social Advertising Formats – Social TV Monetization Part 3 via never.no Blog

By the very nature of socialization, advertising spots on television can very easily shift between paid and earned media in the ‘paid-earned-owned’ equation. Ad spots can also become “multiscreen” placements quite simply without much further work on behalf of content creators/providers. This is the reason we see so many simple hashtags appearing on ad spots and the increase in social analytics coming into play for TV spots across the board.

Smart TV and multi-screen advertising whitepaper reveals possibilities of increased viewer engagement with advertisers via Lost Remote

The major concern among many advertisers and brands is assessing the true scale and reach of Smart TVs. While shipments are increasing, accurate figures as to how many people connect and engage on these devices remain limited…Whatever the case, as Dietrich von Behren, VP of Digital Media & Investments at A&E Television Networks, puts it, ‘there’s tremendous opportunity ahead and early-adopters are going to have an advantage.’

RESEARCH

Four in Ten Use “Social TV” Apps During Television Viewing via TDG Research

Aside from changing the essence of one’s “personal TV experience,” Greeson notes that social TV is subtly working its way into long-standing business models, in particular those relating to advertising, subscription services, and on-demand applications. “The real-time interaction of consumers with the TV program itself, not to mention other viewers, provides broadcasters with the opportunity to identify and market to finely filtered consumer segments with highly curated offerings.”

The New Era of Social TV via EContent Magazine

But the main reason Social TV took off in 2012 the widespread penetration of smartphone technology. Nielsen now estimates that smartphone adoption in the U.S. has reached over half of the mobile phone population. Moreover, according to research from app developer Flurry, the U.S. population is far from being alone in its mass adoption of these devices… The good news is that, far from being a distraction for consumers, social media usage in tandem with TV viewing actually makes consumers more attentive to the program they’re watching. A recent study by the Time Warner Research Council showed that connecting with friends on social networks via mobile devices or PC while watching TV actually increases engagement with the TV show. Other research from the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement has shown that the three screens actually work together in synergy to augment consumer engagement with brands and social media is the link driving that synergy.

NETWORKS, SHOWS & BRANDS

CBS, Yahoo Announce omg! INSIDER Syndicated Newsmagazine via TV Talk World

CBS Television Distribution and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) today announced a deal that combines the broadcasting power of THE INSIDER with the online reach of Yahoo!. As part of the deal, CTD’s syndicated entertainment newsmagazine THE INSIDER will be renamed omg! Insider in January 2013 to create a multiplatform entertainment news series… omg! Insider will be a true web and on-air collaboration that aims to reinvent how consumers access entertainment news across screens.

A Second Screen You Can’t Not Watch: Bravo’s “Play Live” Adds Polls, Games to All Its Shows via All Things D

Starting next month, with the new season of its “Watch What Happens Live” gabfest, Bravo will start overlaying its new programing with its homegrown* “Play Live” technology. What that means: Viewers will see polls, contests and other interactive games and graphics that pop up on-screen throughout the show. They’ll be able to participate in real time, via a Web broswer, and on-screen results will change, based on viewers’ input.

“So You Think You Can Dance” by asking the audience to clap via never.no Blog

Nelonen Media involves viewers of the hit show “So You Think You Can Dance” by enabling them to cheer for their favourite contestant by ‘clapping’ on the designated second screen site. The user can clap as many times as they can during “Dance for your life” -section for their favourite dancer. The Second Screen voting site (created by Wunderkraut) is sponsored by Samsung, and includes an entry form to win a weekly prize.

Reddit-Powered Travel Show Premieres on YouTube via Mashable

Zach Anner’s Reddit-powered cross-country road trip is complete, and finally premiering on YouTube…With help from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Anner and his friends traveled to six cities, suggested by the Reddit community: Montreal, Boston, Baltimore, Blacksburg, Va., Savannah, New Orleans, Denver and Vancouver. After selecting the itinerary, the team sought out local redditors to give their take on each city… The new series, which is hosted on YouTube, already has more than two million views and 25,000 subscribers. Anner will host a Reddit AMA on Tuesday at 11 a.m. EST to kick it off.

More ways to experience the #LynnDebate via Twitter Blog

While our daily Twitter Political Index scores measure the sentiment of Tweets, our enhanced dashboard, designed for web and mobile viewing, shows the topics that are driving the discussion. The dashboard is segmented to highlight the issues at the forefront of this election cycle (the economy, immigration, healthcare, and so on), as well as hot topics that are currently generating discussion (Benghazi, pay equality).

Intel rewards entertainment fans with mobile check-in sweepstakes via Mobile Marketer

Intel is giving entertainment buffs a chance to win prizes in exchange for interacting with content and watching their favorite television shows…One of the biggest problems with TV companion apps and check-in campaigns is that many do not give users a clear value for using them. However, tying a user’s check-in with virtual rewards and a sweepstakes gives users an incentive for using their mobile devices.

ONLINE & MOBILE VIDEO

Why TV Ads Are Out and Online Video Is the Future via Mashable

But what if there were more cost-efficient opportunities to gain the same mass reach and impact afforded by TV, without the massive price tag?… No one can doubt the mass reach that television enables, but the truth is the online channel is now beginning to offer that same level of audience reach, but with arguably better engagement. And almost always at a more affordable price point.

How YouTube wants to be like TV via The End of Television

YouTube recently introduced YouTube TV, a new version of their leanback version of the popular online video site specially designed for the big screen in the living room. The interface makes it easy to scroll through video’s and removes all the distraction that is present on the regular site such as ratings, comments, and banners. When you follow curated YouTube channels you can easily browse through the latest video and find recommended content… The most unique functionality as a results from the update is the ability to control the interface from your mobile device.

BII REPORT: The State of Mobile Video via Business Insider

Mobile video is quickly becoming a mass consumer phenomenon, much as digital photos were earlier in the smartphone adoption cycle… Mobile offers new opportunities for video viewing, as smartphones and tablets offer options in terms of both when and where content can be viewed.This plays perfectly into the increasing trend of consumers accessing more and more content on the go and on demand…  Over the last two years, the U.S. mobile video audience increased 77% to 36 million viewers. The second-fastest growing category, the audience for time-shifted TV, grew 54% to 146 million.

Netflix Says Amazon Is Gaining and HBO Is Coming via All Things D

But if things are tough for Netflix how, they’re only going to get tougher. The company used to have the Web home video market more or less to itself, and now it doesn’t. It’s facing competition from Amazon, Hulu and the cable companies, and is about to start fighting a joint venture between Redbox and Verizon… For the first time, Amazon appears to be making headway against Netflix with its digital offering… Netflix doesn’t believe HBO and Time Warner executives when they say they’re not going to sell a Web-only offering. They expect to compete directly with the pay channel, via an a la carte Web offering, in the U.S.

APPS & SERVICES

Twitter Has Become the New TV Guide — Now Can It Offer New TV Rating? via Ad Age

Mr. Graver, whose career highlights include writing for Letterman, creating “Best Week Ever” for VH1 and, most recently, leading programming and development at Travel Channel, has been at Twitter just shy of 120 days. At the event, held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles, he shared first impressions (“the company is incredibly well run”); how he realized Twitter is a technology, not a media, company; his goal for his job (for people to say “the hour I spend with TV and Twitter makes my life better”); and one of his big questions — whether the data Twitter generates can build a new TV rating.

Chirp Guide sets to create TV style structure for live tweeted events via Lost Remote

Chirp Guide recently launched an interesting new startup that’s actually taking best practices from TV programming and scheduling and bringing them to the confusing world of hashtags and live tweeted events… They’re “relying on the community to find, register and recommend live-tweeting that matters most to its users, Chirp Guide is the solution for making live-tweeters and tweeted events discoverable, sortable and searchable.”

Discovery App Looks to Own TV Experience via Ad Week

The war for control of the TV screen, specifically the battle over which company or companies will own the user interface—and by default, the relationship with the average viewer—has only just begun. Whether the ultimate winner is a cable company, a TV manufacturer, Apple, Amazon, Xbox, Hulu, Roku or somebody else, pretty much everyone agrees that TV is getting messy… A startup called Matcha thinks it has a pretty good shot. The company built an iPad app designed to serve as the ultimate TV companion. Through a growing slate of partnerships, Matcha allows users to sift through all the TV shows they might have at their disposal in one screen. It also offers a recommendation engine, social TV elements, and supplementary content from the likes of IMDB and RottenTomatoes.com… According to Piekarz, “in five to 10 years there will probably be no set-top boxes, and the DVR will die.” In its place, users will be able to call up whatever show they want from their cable or over-the-top providers’s massive databases.

Boxfish debuts innovative live TV guide on iPhone via Lost Remote

Boxfish has brought something new to the table: a TV guide app with real-time search and “live windows” to let you catch a glimpse of what’s airing in real-time. Or to hear the company explain it, “[Boxfish] transforms television from a passive entertainment medium into a truly dynamic source of real-time information.”… What’s even more interesting is Boxfish’s aspiration to extend its technology across platforms, from set top boxes to gaming consoles to third-party apps.

Invoke debuts biplane at Merging Media 2012 BiZ HuB via invoke

If you’ve followed our posts, you’ll know that apart from investing a lot of time and effort into designing digital solutions, we’re equally big on great storytelling. With the development of our second screen product, biplane, we’ve delved deeper into ways we can best serve some of today’s greatest storytellers in film and television.

TV Guide Embraces Social for Anytime, Not Just Real-Time, TV Discovery via Clickz

 ”Social is changing the business in ways we never anticipated,” said Christy Tanner, executive vice president and general manager at TVGuide.com and TV Guide Mobile. ”It’s also a weird time to be in TV because it’s changing so fast. We don’t really know what’s next,” she said.

GAMING

Xbox Live removes Facebook & Twitter apps you weren’t using via Venture Beat

Microsoft said it removed both the Facebook and Twitter apps in the latest update to the Xbox Live dashboard to streamline the media center’s overall functionality. The company didn’t mention when or if the social apps would reappear in the future.

How Playcast is changing gaming on TV via Lost Remote

Playcast “licenses streaming rights from all of the world’s major game publishers” and “ partners with cable, IP and ‘over-the-top’ TV network operators to deliver these games directly to subscriber’s home.” They’re currently licensing games from all the major publishers and are redefining the relationship between TV and gaming.

INTERNATIONAL

Channel 4 signs deal with social TV start up SecondSync via Channel 4

Channel 4 today announced it has engaged the services of Bristol and London-based Social TV analytics company, SecondSync, to enrich insights into the fast growing trend of TV audiences commenting on what they’re watching on TV, using social media channels.

the longest day: how beancounter.io is now powering RAI #socialtv via Davide Palmisano

tonight a first #socialtv experiment on rai.tv (the italian public broadcaster web channel) will take place. Android, iOS and traditional Web applications will act as second screens during a quite popular TV series.

For more news, including stories of Felix Baumgartner’s record breaking jump (8 million concurrent streams!) and an OpenSlate study finding the top 1,000 channels on YouTube already bring in $23,000 a month in revenue, please read on!

GENERAL NEWS

Why Social Media Needs TV and TV Needs Social via Ad Age

Consider television’s strengths: wide-reaching, immediate impact on sales proven through years of media-mix modeling and a universally accepted data provider… Now consider TV’s greatest weaknesses: earned media and long-term benefit. Tracking the results of broadcast marketing is like looking at a heart rate monitor; a brand makes a media investment, impressions shoot up (directly proportionate to the dollars spent), and sales increase. Then as soon as dollars are out of the market, conversation and subsequent conversion drop significantly… More and more brands are using social as a megaphone to bolster broadcast campaigns, driving earned media that boosts the heart rate while lowering the cost per impression… social can allow a brand to monitor and impact the conversation so that the heart rate never drops down…Adam Kmiec brought up social’s lack of data standardization: “Ask how many homes a commercial reached and you’ll get one number, from one source. Ask someone how many impressions a social campaign delivered and you might get four different answers. This creates skepticism.”

The battle for attention: TV vs. tablet via BtoB

In the TV-vs.-tablet battle, a big-screen TV holds many advantages over a handheld device: a larger picture and better sound quality. Even when you look away to read your tablet, you still hear what’s going on. TV audio can deliver the message alone.Yet, I noticed that during lulls in the debate, my Twitter feed got laugh-out-loud funny. When it did, I tuned into to my tablet completely, sharing funny Tweets with a loved one. .. More screens mean more competition for eyeballs—and divided attention. That’s why marketers and communicators have an even tougher job, to win attention for a message.

The Universal Problem With TV Everywhere via Ad Age

TV Everywhere has been touted as the savior of the cable industry; a tool that will ward off threats from the likes of Netflix. Yet, three years after Comcast and Time Warner unveiled the prototype for pay-TV subscribers to watch content via devices other than the traditional living-room screen, the idea is still cloaked in mystery… Verizon is promoting multiscreen services only to those who use Flex View (its VOD service) because Flex View users are more likely to take advantage of TV Everywhere…DirecTV contends that it is marketing TV Everywhere heavily to existing subscribers, but concedes its primary focus is on those products that are revenue drivers and exclusive to DirecTV… Dish Network has chosen not to invest in marketing its TV Everywhere service, focusing instead on brand campaigns and advertising the Hopper… It’s hard to quantify the value of TV Everywhere for multiple-system operators since there are no real incremental revenue opportunities when it comes to getting subscribers to use it.

Social TV will push ‘regular’ TV off the cliff via Successful Workplace

It is becoming much more intentional as advertisers, software and manufacturers realize the risks to the status quo and opportunities social TV brings for investment…Either way, television as we know it is in trouble, not from the loss of viewers, but from the distraction away from the conversation and advertisement that keeps the lights on. Once your attention is divided or the best information is coming from social media, you can turn off the volume, and thus the ads.

Online ‘Involvement’ Propels TV Show Ratings via Media Post

The company says “involvement” measures online discussion, the tone of the discussion (positive or negative), and the sources of that discussion. For example, those sources include news sites, social and Twitter.

Liveblog: The MIPCOM Wrap-Up via MIP Blog

Peter Cowley, CEO, Spirit Digital Media: Cowley pointed out that the problem is often the allocation of money. “Money in marketing is dealt with separately from money in story,” which is what leads to these fights about who should “own” social, digital and second-screen development…“Broadcasters are not set up in a way to harness” that duality, Cowley said. “I think the producers are closer to storytelling and broadcasters are closer to marketing, to moneymaking.”

How social TV is changing in Europe via Lost Remote

I saw nearly every major graphics company providing solutions to get social media content on-air or integrated into broadcast workflows. This is great to see. A year ago this was still a big problem for broadcasters…It seems this stems from the fact that the two anchor social networks (Facebook & Twitter) are not as prevalent in all regions as they are in the US, and if they are, they’re not always used in the same way. Any buzz that is measured, is often in such low qualities, it’s impossible to map it back to any meaningful impact on TV.

Social TV Data Is Not The New Nielsen: How It Might Be Better via Forbes

“I still don’t think producers, and broadcasters for that matter, are leveraging the data and the ability to monitor audiences early enough in the process,” says Rodger, a long-time TV producer who’s worked on TV-Internet confluence for more than a decade.

5 Lessons from the Second Second-Screen Debate via 360i

Promoting specific hashtags was a unique way for the networks to encourage branded conversations from followers that were watching the debate from their network. NBC used a similar approach in its promotion of the 2012 Olympic Games (#NBCOlympics), which allowed the network to stand out from the clutter.

Smart TV Growth For 2012 Pegged At 15%, But North Americans Still Slow To Adopt via TechCrunch

In the U.S. and Canadian markets, the issue is that most content is provided on a paid, on-demand basis, and tends to live on set-top boxes issued by cable companies, or by third-party hardware makers like Apple, TiVo and Roku. As a result, consumers are less eager to move to smart TVs, since they’ve got the services they need by other means, and the amount of content they can get via the open web easily and without hassle is limited compared to in other regions.

Twitter for People Who Don’t Like Twitter via Slate

That’s part of why Twitter, for all its notoriety, is used regularly by just 16 percent of the U.S. adult population, according to a recent Pew study. That modest figure belies the media’s frequent comparisons of Twitter to Facebook, which counts half of all American adults as active members. You can debate Facebook’s pros and cons, but its fundamental value proposition is universal: It promises to keep you connected to your friends and family. Twitter, in contrast, remains a niche service… But the average working person would rather relax in front of the TV with a beer most nights than engage in an online battle of wits and one-liners.

How To Get Television Advertising For Free (The $ Value In TV Hashtags) via Business 2 Community

I wasn’t buying airtime (:15 seconds of commercial space, for example), I was buying “sets of eyes and ears” – or I was buying the opportunity to get my client’s brand in front of people giving their attention to the TV show we purchased…Something I noticed about 18 months ago was the opportunity for businesses to generate value by using hashtags (#) on Twitter to participate in conversations around Television shows, and the extreme potential value for small businesses who wouldn’t have the cash budget to buy TV ads in that particular programming…V shows can sell more TV ad space when they have a more committed and engaged audience, which is why so many TV shows now add a Twitter hashtag to the screen to remind and encourage audiences to engage with the show and each other on Twitter, while the show is airing!

SHOWS & NETWORKS

‘Walking Dead’ Premiere Will Be Online For Dish Subscribers via Mashable

Dish Network subscribers, who no longer receive AMC shows after the two media companies battled over programming fees, will be able to watch Sunday’s season 3 premiere of The Walking Dead online.

Univision Launches “UVideos” Online On-Demand Video Network with Heavy Social Features via Doslives

The Social TV experience for Univision viewers is getting better with the launch of UVideos, an on-demand online video network that launches Monday…Uvideos strengthens the SocialTV experience by allowing users to comment on shows in real time or if you are watching on-demand, will synch the comments to when the show originally aired. Users can also login with Facebook or Twitter and comments will appear in those channels and link back to the UVideo network.

Frontline invests in interactive video for The Choice 2012 via Nieman Journalism Lab

Frontline’s online materials have always been a support to the main broadcast, but now they want to find more dynamic ways of using the video footage and transcripts. “This site creates a nontraditional form of storytelling,” said Andrew Golis, Frontline’s director of digital media. The transcript and video are meant to work either in concert or separately, with video cues tied to various parts of the written transcript… Like countless broadcast producers, Frontline wants to win with online video in a way that doesn’t lessen its television work or fragment the audience. They’re also enticed by the promise of tablets, a new output that can recapture some of the intimacy of TV while offering a new layer of engagement.

TWITTER

Dick Costolo says being the ‘second screen’ is the future of Twitter via GigaOM

CEO Dick Costolo made it pretty clear what he sees as the company’s future, and it is as a complementary “second screen” for existing media…What seems clear from Costolo’s discussion on Marketplace is that this kind of corporate partnership with existing media outlets, and likely television networks specifically, is where the company’s future lies — for better or worse.

Twitter Clear Early Leader To Control TV’s ‘Second Screen’ via MediaPost

What Twitter is doing now, I believe, is showing us that a real-time social Web service can add value to an important live news event being passionately followed by millions of citizen journalists and millions more readers, viewers, reviewers and analysts. It gives me hope yet for the development of the kind of powerful digital Fourth Estate that many folks thought the Internet could support… If anything, Twitter’s success in leading and controlling a big part of the early “second screen” market will encourage other similar development.

Twitter to become a TV channel via SFGate

Twitter is about to become a TV channel. Believe Entertainment Group, a New York company that put a LeBron James animated series on YouTube last year, announced plans Wednesday to launch “EpicEDM,” the first original content video show to be posted exclusively on Twitter… According to a news release, the show will premiere late this year on its own Twitter page, @EpicEDM. Believe Entertainment will still use Twitter’s promoted tweets products to advertise the show.

Why Twitter fails as a ‘second screen’ for debates via Digital Trends

The reality during the debates is that I cannot possibly keep ahead of the avalanche of tweets. It’s just too fast, as you can see from the video above. There are too many tweets to even read, let alone process and respond to. So many, in fact, that I find myself having to choose: Either watch the debate and ignore Twitter, or just turn off the debate entirely and focus on the constant drum beat of gut reactions tapping away on my feed.

@lindork: Twitter plays huge role in television viewing via Edmonton Sun

“Anyone that’s in film and TV right now who are not using social media, digital media or web-based stuff is literally a dinosaur.”

Social TV Conference: Meet Twitter’s New Head of TV via Ad Age

A veteran TV executive, producer and writer with MTV, VH1, NBC and the Travel Channel on his resume, among other networks, Fred Graver joined Twitter in June and characterized his job as developing the platform as a live-TV companion, a new TV Guide and a new TV rating mechanism at Ad Age’s Social Engagement/Social TV conference yesterday… “I don’t think it’s a Nielsen or a Twitter thing. Or, do you buy on Twitter or on digital or on television,” he said. “There’s a whole ecosystem being described here, and we’ve only begun to map out that frontier.”

YOUTUBE

Analyzing the Rise to the Red Bull Stratos Jump via Compete

A stunt like this is sure to generate a ton of traffic and enthusiasm for Red Bull. A shot taken of Felix moments after he landed in the deserts of New Mexico posted to Red Bull’s Facebook page have garnered over 500,000 likes, nearly 15,000 comments, and has been shared almost 70,000 times. That’s some pretty prolific branding.

What Eight Million Livestreams Really Means via All Things D

if you’re interested in the future of Web video, YouTube’s ability to serve up eight million livestreams at the same time is a really big deal… that number blows away YouTube’s previous peak of 500,000 concurrent streams, which it hit this summer during the Olympics, as well as last year during the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton… So it doesn’t take much imagination to envision YouTube doing this kind of stuff, at this scale, on a regular basis. Which would mean the Web finally has a chance to rival TV when it comes to serving up live events with huge audiences — one of TV’s last remaining advantages over the Internet… YouTube proved conclusively yesterday, it can now mount this stuff without breaking a sweat. Now it’s basically a plug-and-play option for any grown-up company that wants to do business with Google.

Baumgartner’s space jump a victory for science — and wonder via LA Times

We live in an age where technology has made a 23-mile space jump distinguishable from an attempt at suicide, and where an energy drink company makes aggressive ventures into space while the United States puts its shuttle program into a museum.

[Infographic] YouTube’s Top 1,000 Channels Reveal An Industry Taking Shape via ReadWriteWeb

YouTube is still the pesky younger sibling of television, which is the wicked uncle of Hollywood. But the social video site is slowly becoming a formidable medium in its own right, creating new business models and spheres of influence for – literally – a million rising stars…Some of the findings are mind-blowing, like the fact that over one million YouTubers run ads on their content. To put it another way, YouTube writes checks to more than one million people monthly. That’s more than the U.S. television industry employs… According to OpenSlate, the average revenue for the top 1,000 channels is $23,000 a month for an average annual payout of $276,000.

APPS

The startup that wants to conquer TV via CNN Money

Sillerman, who made his fortune in radio, got the idea while trying to boost American Idol viewership. (Until last year, his company CKX controlled the firm that makes the show.) The stakes were high: Every ratings point translated to $125 million in additional ad revenue, he says.

TOK Baseball App Brings Voice to the Second Screen via Mashable

TOK Baseball uses second-screen technology for what’s in some ways a more traditional experience. After downloading the free app, you can invite up to three friends to join you in TOK Baseball for a specific game. Once that happens, your iPad will display live-updating stats for whichever game you watch, while enabling you to talk to one another in actual verbal conversation.

ON THE DEATH OF TV

For Whom The Bell Tolls? It Tolls For TV… via Business Insider

What’s currently happening in TV is reminiscent of the first stage of the newspaper industry’s collapse: Viewing behavior is changing, but, for now, the TV industry continues to coin money

Catching Up, Not Cord Cutting, Drives Increase in Content Streaming: Study via Ad Age

Contrary to prognostications about TV dying a slow death as tweens and younger children become hypnotized by YouTube, a new study suggests that consumers’ devotion to TV programming remains strong — even though more of them are watching it online or on tablets.

Has Web TV Reached a Tipping Point? via Sparksheet

Viewership for high-budget web shows is growing, but awareness is low. Industry types have always said the key to legitimizing the web as an entertainment medium was a slate of programs that could capture mass awareness. I’m not sure monster hits can still happen in our age of surplus. I believe online networks have to work on developing shows that grab and hold people’s attention… Yahoo! has been marketing itself as the web network that goes big. It has two, 90-minute, post-apocalyptic dramas from producers Tom Hanks (Electric City) and Anthony Zuiker (Cybergeddon). Yet both of those sci-fi series, while shot with aplomb, have failed to excite critics.

OPINION: THE REPORTS OF SOCIAL TV’S DEATH HAVE BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED via App Market TV

Perhaps one of the reasons for the successful deals zeebox has put together has been the fact that Twitter is deeply integrated into the platform – as is Facebook. But my gut feeling is… the real attraction and USP are the zeetags… No one else is making that level of play – zeebox is now ingesting all of UK TV and the TV streams of their American partners in real time, using ACR and other technologies to strip metadata, then linking those tagged properties to Twitter, News, Wikipedia and creating new forms of tCommerce… Forget trying to recreate the interruptive business model of commercial television and port it to the second screen. It’s not going to work. Sorry, but we dealt with internet popups in the 90s on PCs and that’s a leap backwards into the dark.

A New Era in TV via All Things D

We have entered a new era in TV. My parents grew up in the 1950s and 1960s watching broadcast/network TV. I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s watching cable (and satellite) TV. My children and are growing up watching TV delivered “Over The Top” (OTT), or over IP-based networks, and they are doing so on a multitude of devices (TVs, tablets, smartphones, etc.)… All of these changes in video consumption habits and desires — combined with increased broadband penetration and mobile device usage — have led to several evolving dynamics in the pay-TV ecosystem. These include an increase in cord-cutting/cord-shaving (this term refers to a consumer’s decision to completely cancel or significantly reduce their pay-TV package), a dramatic increase in online/Internet TV viewing over the last few years (today, greater than 640 million hours per month) and the creation of a parallel video ecosystem consisting of emerging TV and digital media services platforms as well as OTT/Internet TV Networks… Companies such as DecaTV, Awesomeness TV, Machinima, Filmon and others are essentially growing up as Internet TV networks, channels and/or media companies — each, in large part, developing its own video content focused on specific interest themes and demographic targets.

1. Somrat Niyogi, founder of Miso, critiques the nascent social TV industry’s focus claiming, “We make it about the people in business, not a business for people” . Deriding the  overextended focus of companion viewing services, he suggests companies concentrate on one value proposition and deliver it well.
2. Chuck Parker, Chairman at Second Screen Society, offers a direct rebuttal. Parker turns to Apple as a prime example of how a company takes many diverse services (inherent in smart-phones) and condenses them into a singular, intuitive product.
3. Jeff Schroer, co-founder of iBubblr, weighs in: “Strong content and the first-screen experience are still king. What consumers want are better ways to enjoy what they love. It really is that simple.”
4. John Funge, cofounder and CEO of BrightContext talks about the “modern problem of “’real-time big data’”. He too calls for more differentiation and ‘ambition’ from second screen players.
5. MarketsandMarkets projects social TV growth from $151.14 billion this year, to $256.44 billion by 2017.
6. Nicholas Barr takes apart that projection line by line. 
   

There’s much more happening in the news this week. As always, keep reading for all the latest stories!

GENERAL NEWS

Marketing’s Next Five Years: How to Get From Here to There via Advertising Age

In measured-media terms, in 2016, the furthest year forecast by eMarketer, TV will still own the biggest piece of the marketing pie (36%), but just barely. Online advertising, at 31%, is sure to be hot on its heels. Further behind but growing fast will be mobile, whose share will have jumped from about 1% today to 5% as marketers chase a wholly mobile consumer reveling in constantly improving gadgets and services… The rise of mobile, coupled with an evolving, more web-like TV market will present a vastly different communications landscape.

Broadcast industry failing to cash in on second screen via Rapid TV News

Even though a very significant majority of UK TV viewers have tried dual screen technologies, broadcasters are failing to cash in on this new channel according to new research from Red Bee Media… more than half of respondents (52%) used a second screen to find out more about a TV programme and, showing the growing role that social media plays a role in helping viewers to decide when to watch a programme, a third of smart device owners admitted that they are more likely to watch a show live rather than on-demand if there is significant social buzz around that programme.

Social video preps for primetime via Variety

“Very” is at the leading edge of a growing mix of content and promotion that capitalize on social-video platforms. They enable multiple viewers to share screen time with a host they interact with in real time from their own home — or out and about via wireless devices…”The idea of interactive experiences around traditional media content is something I think is going to be a core part of media five years from now,” predicted Jeff Fluhr, CEO of Spreecast…And even though content companies have periodically experimented with these platforms over the years, social video may only finally be poised for breakthrough now because of other trends that weren’t in place five years ago: the phenomenal growth of social media like Facebook and Twitter and usage of webcams that suffered from pixilation, latency and other bugs related to less-than-pervasive broadband and wireless deployment.

NBC News Kills The Demographic, Personifies Its Viewers Instead via MediaPost

NBC News Digital this week will begin pitching a new audience targeting scheme based not on the classic age, sex and income descriptors that have been used as the currency of Madison Avenue for the past half century, but on the behaviors and “personas” of news consumers…The push away from demographics is not a new phenomenon in the media industry, or on Madison Avenue. Almost since they were first created in the 1960s, demographics have been cast as an archaic — and to some extent, not-so-representative — way of clustering audiences for advertisers and programmers alike.

Jack Dorsey and Twitter: Can you have a part-time product visionary? via GigaOM

Twitter now has product leads in charge of consumer features, advertising and international, but it doesn’t have anyone driving the broader vision related to the service except for Costolo — who doesn’t have a product background — and Dorsey in what appears to be a part-time role. Some see that as a bad thing for a startup that is trying to balance the conflicting needs of users and advertisers, something that sources close to Twitter say is causing dissent even within the company.

Making the Second Screen a Natural for TV Viewers — and Storytellers via Ad Age

Second-screen allows storytellers to parse out pieces of the story that normally wouldn’t make it onto the show…Five years from now we will look back and the second-screen technology that is currently in place will look crudely rudimentary. In the next one to two years there will be lots of experimentation and in five years we will have a solid grasp on what’s working, the same way we now know how to use social media that we didn’t when Facebook first started.

Showdown on the second screen via GigaOM

Most of that chatter still occurs on the same social networks we use for everything else, like Twitter and Facebook. But a growing percentage now happens via specialized social TV apps, like GetGlue, Shazam and ConnecTV, which combine chat with supplemental material, program guides and other content, and which can sync their content with the particular show being watched using audio recognition technology.

The Future of Social TV is a Multi Screen Experience [video] via Brian Solis

Connected viewers are not only driving the rise of Social TV, their activities are opening new windows for real-time multi-screen experiences that require design…each screen requires careful consideration and design to create a connected experience not just during the program, but also in between episodes.

Goodbye Couch Potato, Hello Second Screen Surfer via Real Player

Although we have had more control over when we watch TV with the introduction of the Digital Video Recorder (DVR) and plenty of shows now available to view online, social media and mobile technology are changing the way we watch shows. Interaction with our favorite shows or with what we see on television is making the passive couch potato a thing of the past.

SOCIAL TV PROS AND CONS

Breaking Through via Alan Wolk

Social chatter, regardless of the platform, is of little use to anyone. The real value is in the data that MVPDs will be able to collect from users who will have individual second screen accounts. That allows for a scenario where the entire family is watching the same show on the big screen while having individual experiences – uniquely tailored content and advertising – on the second screen. The data around who is watching what (and when) will provide better experiences for everyone from broadcasters to advertisers to viewers. It’s just a matter of who is going to take the lead in implementing a system that allows for those experiences.

Twitter Dominates Live TV Because Social TV Is Failing via TechCrunch

So here is the undeniable fact: Twitter currently dominates live TV because it enables these “come-in come-out” experiences that are light, delightful and informative. But ultimately, Twitter is also dominating because of the mistakes we are making in the social TV industry…It’s true that people are also on their laptops, smartphones or tablets while watching TV. But people are checking email, on Facebook, and doing other things. The other major problem is that second screen apps fail to answer the ultimate question: Why should a user open up YOUR app versus the other billion apps out there around TV?… As an industry, we’re trying to capitalize on a business proposition, not a consumer proposition.

Is Social TV failing? Is that the right question? via Thoughts on the Digital Video Space

But the real question here isn’t the complexity of use cases, it is the simplicity of experience delivery. Keep in mind that your Smartphone has hundreds of use cases and until the iPhone came along, the industry suffered from this problem for years. Long before Somrat’s argument, there were those who argued the device need to either be a GPS (TomTom), a phone (Nokia), a portable music player (Creative, Zune) or an email device (Blackberry). Apple finally built a UX that enabled you to easily manage those complex use cases in one device–and birthed the Smartphone market (or at least bore the first legitimate child).

Where Social TV Is Going Wrong — and How to Get It Right via Ad Age

It’s easy to see why social-media activity around TV is soaring. Shared experiences make our lives more meaningful. Consumers are always looking for simpler, richer, more meaningful ways to have these shared experiences, especially when it comes to TV, the most ubiquitous content distributor in history. And tablets and other connected devices are rapidly giving more consumers new ways to interact.

What real social TV will look like via Venture Beat

For all the legitimate buzz about social TV, one mystery remains: why hasn’t it come about? Why are most social TV experiences basically Twitter feeds? The answer has to do with a modern problem of “real-time big data”—which is to say, instantly consuming, routing, processing and broadcasting large volumes of data…as social TV becomes more integral to the business of television, social networks may represent more of a competitor than partner. The stakes are high as the market sorts out who will own these new direct relationships with the audience. Already, Twitter and Facebook have better insight into TV audiences than the programmers and distributors themselves. To unlock social TV’s full potential and preserve independence, app developers will need a new way to handle the torrential load of real-time data.

Turning social media into cash: 6 insights from the new tech titans via paidContent

What do LinkedIn, Twitter, Buzzfeed and Tumblr all have in common?  These companies all embed sponsors in their content stream rather than laying ads on top it. This provides a less disruptive user experience and better engagement for advertisers…Murphy’s perspective is a welcome counter-point to the notion that a social media audience is an end in itself. He says that brands are skeptical of hype about engagement and would prefer to hear how a given platform will help them close a sale.

Smart & Social the future of TV via A Guide to Software Sourcing

…isn’t keeping users engaged with the TV screen what the advertisers are paying broadcasters for, isn’t anticipated viewership what productions houses sell their wares for? So why is every one hell bent on disrupting that very experience that the money bods hold sacred?… Convergence is not just a buzz word people it has a definition  and by definition it means platform agnostic content and experience not distracting apps for apps sake. Take most second screen Apps.. why are they so busy and why do they work so hard to disrupt my experience of the 1st screen!… TV is already social people – what the industry thought leaders ought to be looking for is extending that sacred experience and not disrupting it!

Does Social Media Just Connect Those TV Viewers Not Content To Lean Back? via Media Post

Some associations between social media and TV are fleeting — or worse. They could exist just to solve “business” problems while not attending to real consumer needs.  Do we really need frequent flyer/incentive points for watching or talking about TV shows?…Overall, people are inherently lazy when it comes to TV. The lean-back entertainment activity is the easiest platform. And yet, apparently, not easy enough.

Must-Tweet TV: How The Pioneers Of Social Television Turn Viewers Into VIPs via Fast Company

It’s traditionally believed that word-of-mouth is the most influential form of marketing. Accordingly, TV viewers and consumers have an interest and trust in each other’s opinions. Consensus matters because it saves time and provides clarity. In the same way we look for book or music recommendations from friends, we can now turn to social media to hear about the next big thing or track what the majority considers the highest quality or best value or greatest experience…This strategy also proves valuable to advertisers who can make more informed decisions about when, where, and how they want to advertise on TV.

Report: Social TV Market To Be Worth $256.44BN By 2017; Europe Taking Largest Share Now via TechCrunch

“The future for the television is social through integration of social interaction on the television. Broadcasters are developing and enriching social TV integration; they are targeting the tune-in customer, engagement and their loyalty to boost the rating and they are also discovering the social TV challenge,” the report notes.

Global Social TV Market Worth $256.44 Billion by 2017 via Rock Hill Herald Online

According to a new market research report, “Social TV Market: Global Advancements Forecasts & Analysis (2012 - 2017)”, published by MarketsandMarkets (http://www.marketsandmarkets.com), the total Social TV market is expected to reach $256.44 billion by 2017 with a CAGR of 11.2%…Europe commanded the largest share of the Social TV market revenue in 2012 at $55.48 billion; and is expected to reach $77.74 billion by 2017, at a CAGR of 7.0% from 2012 to 2017.

Is the Social TV market really worth $151.14 billion? via The Second Scream

Earlier this year, analysts at IDATE claimed that the estimated value of the TV and video market was $294bn in 2011 possibly rising to $435bn by 2020. So, how could MarketsandMarkets possibly reach the conclusion that the nascent Social TV market is already worth more than half the value of the entire TV industry?

RESEARCH

What Difference Does Cable Make? via eMarketer

In August, consultants Altman Vilandrie found that US subscribers and nonsubscribers to cable TV were almost equally likely to use online video subscription services, at 49% and 48%, respectively. There was little difference in the selection of services they used, with Netflix coming out strongly on top for both groups.

How Tablets Affect TV Viewing via eMarketer

Altman Vilandrie found that younger tablet owners were most likely to use the devices to watch TV, with more than half of owners under 35 doing so at least weekly, vs. 19% of those 55 and older. In combination with The Diffusion Group’s research, this suggests that, if anything, traditional TV time may increase hand in hand with tablet usage and tablet TV viewing…

Second Screen: What’s the Trend in your Living Room? via SeeVibes

Computer, smartphone or tablet – which device is most popular for social TV? Seevibes studied the evolution of the devices used for social TV between December 2011 and June 2012. Tablets saw the biggest increase with their use nearly doubling over the six months. The second screen is now clearly dominated by mobile devices at the expense of the computer/browser, used by only 38% of social TV participants.

A third of smartphone owners tune in to live TV for social buzz via Econsultancy

This is because a new Red Bee Media survey of 2,000 smartphone owners found that one in three respondents said that they are more likely to watch a show live rather than on-demand if there is significant social buzz around that programme…Data included in our recent report, The Multi-Screen Marketer, shows that different types of programmes drive different online behaviours.

Social TV and the “Second Screen” Phenomenon via Lyris

Viewer engagement levels while watching with a friend or connecting with a friend over social media were 1.3 times higher than for people watching alone and not using social media.

Study: Insights on the Twitter audience via The Second Scream

Twitter has a young audience. It would seem that less than 6% of users are aged 46+. In fact, perhaps only around a quarter of them are over 25*… Most twitter users (81.1%) have less than 50 followers and a similar proportion follow less that 50 accounts themselves. More than half have very little influence scoring less than three on a scale of one to 10.

1 in 10 debate watchers were ‘dual-screeners,’ Pew says via NBCnews

The finding is from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which said Thursday that younger Americans, those 40 and under, were most likely to be “dual-screeners.”

Americans move to ‘dual screens’ to watch debates via Appy Geek

Most watched on television, but 11 percent of these viewers were “dual screeners,” the survey found. Another three percent say they followed the debate live exclusively online. Only about five percent of the overall debate watchers said they shared their own reactions to the debate online.

SHOWS & NETWORKS

An inside look at A&E’s social TV strategy for ‘Duck Dynasty’ via Lost Remote

A&E has become the latest network to leverage a Google+ Hangout with the entire cast. Select fans were chosen to “hang out” with the cast…The biggest reason Twitter has the most of the social-TV market among consumers is that it’s the easiest way to have meaningful shared experiences around TV…While the market continues to flood with game-like social-TV products, however, real innovations that improve the consumer experience can go unnoticed. The ability to filter “People I Know” from Twitter’s hashtag chaos, for example, greatly improved the co-viewing experience.

ESPN’s ‘Social Highlights’ Mash Ups Show Big Moments From Fans’ Lens [VIDEO] via Mashable

But, in the age of social media permeation and mobile video proliferation, this is no longer enough, according to UNITE, a new late-night show that airs on ESPNU. The social media-heavy show has introduced a regular installment called “social highlights,” which leverage just how much video modern fans shoot on their smartphones while at the game.

How CNN and SnappyTV created social TV producers for the debates via Lost Remote

In our preview of the first election we wrote about CNN allowing viewers to become live TV producers by giving viewers the opportunity to clip and share their favorite moments in real-time. SnappyTV is the social TV technology platform that has made this possible for both the first presidential debate and tonight’s veep debate.

An inside look at Epitome Pictures’ social TV strategy for ‘Degrassi’ via Lost Remote

We use Google+ for great hangouts with cast members, our Tumblr page to post photos and to join the community in creating gifs, memes and highlighting special moments from the series! We like to give the users a diverse social experience where they can connect with the brand in any social network and different types of content- fictional through storytelling and behind the scenes content too. Our cast is really great with social media, and many of them have verified twitter accounts, whosay pages, and official facebook fan pages. They’re very engaged and open to connecting with their fans and starting a dialogue.

TBS launches its Social Dugout app in time for the MLB playoffs and rewards you for watching via TNW

Cable network TBS thought about this and it’s launching a new app called TBS Social Dugout to enable fans to compete and win prizes as they cheer on their favorite team in the postseason…Other features with TBS Social Dugout includes it being, well, social. That means that you can share your comments, insights, and even your photos with the rest of the community as the game is happening.

Shazam and the MLB partner to deliver box scores, stats and more during postseason games via TNW

The company has announced that it is partnering with MLB Advanced Media to deliver box scores,  stats, highlights and more when people use the app during a Postseason game this fall…Sure, some of it is an ad for the MLB, but this is far more useful than those silly ‘use Shazam during an ad to get more ads’ deals they’ve been doing.

ADS

Mercedes-Benz and AMV launch #YOUDRIVE campaign via The Drum

Mercedes-Benz and their advertising agency AMV are planning an ambitious advertising event during this weekend’s broadcasts of The X Factor with viewers being invited to use Twitter to decide how a story should develop as it is shown across three commercial breaks on Saturday and Sunday.

Slim Jim Gives Snackers Something to Play For via NY Times

Among the young men to whom Slim Jim primarily is pitched, 71 percent either own or play video games… In the promotion between Slim Jim and Electronic Arts, which runs through April 2013, codes printed on snack wrappers can be redeemed for bonus content on one of three coming Electronic Arts game

APPS & PRODUCTS

TVSync’s Open Platform Weds Social TV & E-Commerce via ReadWriteWeb

The month-old TVSync will mesh content, e-commerce and social networks across four screens – desktop, tablet, smartphone, smartTV – all in real time. TVSync could provide instant polling on reality shows and news events and embed live social-media activity in the show feed, or even into the storyline. TVSync does all this through a white-label content-identification system that processes more than 2 million videos and 8,000 hours of audiovisual content per day, according to Yangbin Wang, CEO of Vobile…Marketers have been clamoring for TV-driven e-commerce since the early days of the Internet. Could TVSync make it happen?

Coincident.TV Is “CREATE”-ing Second Screen Transmedia Producers Out of Everyone [Beta Invites] via Techzulu

Coincident has created a platform that will allow storytellers and producers to create robust second screen stories on the fly that incorporate video, images and other web content. The implications of what types of new interactive experiences can be made utilizing this technology are phenomenal… Imagine watching your favorite television show along with your iPad and having time-synced engagement that draws you deeper into the plotline through touch-activated hotspots, storyline added bonus features, retail opportunities, games, promotions and outbound links to other relevant content. Cool, right?

The Power of ThinkAnalytics Recommendations Engine and Intelligent Navigation Now Comes to Microsoft® Mediaroom® Customers via ThinkAnalytics

ThinkAnalytics™, the company behind the world’s most widely deployed multiplatform TV Recommendations Engine, today announced that it has joined the Microsoft® Mediaroom® IPTV partner program. The ThinkAnalytics Recommendations Engine will enable Mediaroom customers to deliver robust recommendations and Intelligent Navigation across IPTV services to subscribers worldwide.

YOUTUBE

YouTube’s original channels go global via YouTube Blog

Given the success of these and the tens of millions of other amazing channels already out there, we still know there’s more great content to find, follow and fall in love with on YouTube. That’s why today, we’re excited to launch a new generation of original channels coming from France, Germany, the UK and the US.

YouTube to Serve Niche Tastes by Adding Channels via NY Times

Other online video platforms — including Amazon.com, Netflix and Hulu — are also trying to compete for viewers by creating original content… “There’s a giant pot of money that is controlled by the broadcast and cable television industries, and it’s because there’s comfort and scale and predictability,” said David Grant, president of PopSugar Studios and a former president of Fox TV Studios. “There’s a fair amount of ways to go — years — before the online video industry has enough scale to move those dollars over. But it is inevitable.”

YouTube brings original channels to France, Germany and the UK via TNW

According to Google, the top 25 channels average over a million views per week, and 800 million viewers watch a total of 4 billion hours of per month.

BBC, European media bring original content to YouTube via CBC News

Ben McOwen Wilson, who manages YouTube’s northern European partnerships… said the goal was to let content producers come up with something they couldn’t deliver on TV.

YouTube Channel Spawns New TV Show: Recipe Rehab via Mashable

Everyday Health’s online video series Recipe Rehab has transformed into a Saturday morning televised competition show on ABC. It’s the first series from a YouTube original channel to make it to broadcast TV.

Bigger than Television via MobileMarketing

YouTube head of content Robert Kyncl told an audience, smartphone in hand: “This is the first screen. So when you talk about second screen, you are talking about the television.

TV is now the “second screen”, says YouTube boss via RadioTimes

The boss of the Google-owned company, which this week launched 60 new online channels containing content from BBC Worldwide, All3Media and ITN among others, revealed his beliefs about the future of home entertainment at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit…Kyncl warned TV producers of the changes ahead for the industry, saying: “Audiences are changing – if you want to keep up you have to programme on YouTube.”

Living in a post first screen/second screen world via MediaTel

Starcom MediaVest’s head of thought leadership, Steve Smith, argues we are now living in a ‘post first screen/second screen’ world… Kyncl argued that people would discover content on their mobiles and then swipe that content to the television, making the television the ‘second screen’. This is semantics. Instead, how will people actually perceive their television screens? In actual fact, people ‘swiping’ content to ‘dumb’ televisions isn’t anything new. People do very similar things when they watch DVDs, stream video from their games devices or use boxes such as YouView or Apple TV… The frequency of people discovering content on their mobiles will increase and with YouTube providing more long form content, people will want to view that content on their televisions and then use their mobiles for a variety of activities, from accessing complementary content and communicating about it, through to enquiry, exploration, online shopping and communicating about unrelated things.

INTERNATIONAL

France Telecom’s Viaccess hooks up second screen via Broadcast Engineering

France Telecom’s Viaccess-Orca launched a service package for second screen integration and engagement with a focus on enhanced metadata at IBC2012.Called DEEP (Data Enrichment and Engagement Platform), the package enables pay TV operators to link PCs, tablets, smart phones, games consoles and other IP devices in the home more tightly to the service, and stimulate further activity around the content.

Social TV’s Global Expansion via Arktan

Since its beginning few years ago, Social TV has been a predominantly American phenomenon. The first second-screen social experiences were built by American TV networks for American viewers. This is starting to change. It’s exciting to witness Social TV starting to take root in other global markets as well. Those markets are now going through the same early phases of Social TV adoption experienced by the U.S. Social TV industry pioneers.

For these and other great stories, please keep reading!

GENERAL NEWS

Omri Marcus: Audiences are no longer just viewers; they’re Witnesses via MIPBlog

TV has stopped treating its consumers as “viewers” and has started treating them as “witnesses” and at times, active witnesses. Unlike a mere viewer, a ”witness” has a certain part to play in the event, sometimes even an active crucial role. Witnessing in itself has value, and the act of witnessing gives the witness an opportunity, even an obligation, to pass it on to their surroundings.

Advertising – Let’s Get Real (Time) via iMedia Connection

So why is our advertising stuck in the 20th Century? Why are our ads not as dynamic and up to date as the information we are constantly consuming through our unlimited data plans, broadband connections, and digital touchscreens? Some may shrug their shoulders thinking the technology is not there to facilitate such dynamic and fresh ads. I say hogwash. Only your imagination is limited… we’ve seen the advent of DCO, or Dynamic Creative Optimisation. This technology platform enables ad agencies and marketers to dynamically control (and optimise based on performance metrics) designated elements of their ad creative – whether it be copy, graphics, video, or even background colours… The technology is there, the partners are here, and now it’s up to more agencies and advertisers to move beyond dipping their toes in the water and dive in.

Prime Time Check-Ins Explode With Season Premieres via Media Post

GetGlue, disclosed comparative figures around this season’s premieres for the Fall network lineup. Growth has been well into the triple digits across most of the major shows.

IBC 2012 from the show floor, Part 1 via Videonet

To make TV social, Never.no first harvest what they call “fragmented media” from email, SMS, Facebook, Twitter, CRM systems and images with their tool called ADS (Auto Dialog System). Interactivity around real-time TV streams can then be managed by the TV operator from within a dedicated UI.

Engagement Vs Re-Engagement in Social TV Advertising And Monetization. Part 2. via Business 2 Community

Our second screen has the ability to directly involve the viewer with what they are watching. Choose your own adventure type formats, where direct audience participation influences what is being watched in real time. Again, polls, votes, questions, games and viewer choice formats mean that our viewers must be present to take part. They must be paying attention to our 2nd screen assets to participate and paying attention to our first screen to see the results of their participation. Their attention in other words must be in a constant closed loop with our content and to do that, they need continued calls to action to keep involved…We need to create Television experiences…. If you want to take part in the full experience, you have to be involved in the full experience… So, in order to engage, re-engage and drive new revenue, we must drive new experiences.

Synchronized Second-Screen technologies panorama via Video & Dev Breakthroughs

To make the connected devices aware of the content, all of these apps use either automatic content recognition (ACR) via fingerprinting or content tagging via audio watermarking, using the tablet’s microphone as the audio capture source. There are some other techniques, more or less identified, that can also be used, we’ll see it later on. Before going into a walkthrough of the available implementations, let’s examine the two main techniques they use

Second Screen Experiences and Why They Work via Social Media Club

Brands have an opportunity to reach their target audience when they are most engaged with viewing and apps. Brands have the ability to optimize their ads with call to actions, partner with shows, sports games, and live events.

Is a Tablet the Only TV You Need? via WSJ

Watching shows and movies on a tablet feels closer to what television viewing should be like in the 21st century than what 21st-century TVs actually deliver. Yes, there are “smart” televisions that come with Wi-Fi and video-streaming services like Netflix and Hulu Plus baked in, but they feel sluggish compared to tablets. Devices that help bridge the gap between Internet-based content and your living room’s television, like Apple TV and the Xbox 360, are pretty excellent, but once you’ve become accustomed to the speed and intimacy of using something like an iPad to watch your shows and films, it’s hard to deal with tech that’s not as responsive.

Romancing the Second Screen via MediaPost 

Conan’s initiative, and similar ones by other networks, are a harbinger of where much of TV viewing is headed among the younger set. “Second-screen experiences” are starting to boom as the reach of iPads and other tablets widens… TV viewing has long been considered a chance to relax on the couch, but with so many people now unable to watch without a device in hand, a tablet app dovetails with consumer behavior.

PROS & CONS OF SOCIAL TV

Can TV go social without being ruined? via TNW

Yes, smart TVs and second screen apps are transforming what it’s possible to do with television – from app stores to social viewing guides. The problem is that a lot of what’s out there right now just isn’t that compelling…Meanwhile, most ‘social’ apps that run on TV’s amount to nothing more than the opportunity to look at tweets while the show you’re watching plays in a small window in the corner of the screen.

What if Social TV Is Less Social Than We Think? via AllThingsD

But you could also draw a different conclusion which doesn’t flatter either GetGlue or Twitter much: Perhaps there isn’t that much social TV chatter, period. For instance, a new episode of “The Big Bang Theory” draws around 12 million viewers. But even if you use the most generous interpretation of GetGlue’s stats, the combined active GetGlue + Twitter social audience would be under 65,000 people — much less than 1 percent of CBS’s total.

The Two Biggest Hurdles Social TV Still Needs to Overcome via Ad Age

Social TV is an incredibly powerful force, but measurement is in its infancy. We are currently looking for ways to gather more meaningful data and context… Facebook is the elephant in the room. It has tremendous potential to provide networks and media buyers context, rankings and aggregate data. Currently, there’s no great way to measure and monitor the volume of conversations on that platform. Twitter data is primarily public. I’m not suggesting Facebook should make its data public, but they could anonymously aggregate it in a way that shows the number of people talking about a certain show and compare it to other networks. This would allow us to present it to media buyers and monetize social chatter.

Why social media is critical to the future of TV via Simon Mainwaring

I talked about the shared future of TV and social media and wanted to pass on some thoughts from the event. I cannot stress enough how important the relationship between the two is, whether viewed through the lens of studios and network television, second- screen technology and e-commerce, or social media and viewer engagement. Here are four key reasons social media is so critical to the future of TV… “The future isn’t either traditional or digital: it’s a feedback loop between the two. Television fans want to get involved and be counted… So as you plan your content calendar for 2103, ask yourself what the marketplace will look like and how can you tell that story across multiple screens to get the greatest impact.

Future Of TV Looks Bright Thanks To Social Media via MediaPost

Last year, legendary adman John Hegarty offered a British reporter a compelling guide for making TV ads resonate in today’s media world … Use TV as the platform to widely distribute a spectacular spot and watch commentary (hopefully positive) cascade through Twitter, while YouTube views keep climbing… Of course, easier said than done since social media reaction can be wildly unpredictable… The VCR, cable, the Internet and DVRs were all supposed to wage successful warcraft against the major broadcast networks. Didn’t happen. “It’s a remarkably resilient medium,” he said. It shouldn’t be overlooked, though, that TV has received a nice gift with social media and all the opportunities that offers to give TV creative long legs.

5 Ways Social Media Is Improving Television via Social Media Week

The convergence of media and the proliferation of content are creating unparalleled opportunities for the television industry. TV is entering an era in which profitable, engaging, viewer-informed programming can take the industry to new economic and cultural heights. For the first time, powerful technologies enable us to gather real-time data and use it to make agile, smart decisions. In the hands of a great team, these disruptive, exciting technologies can help unleash enormous value across the entire life-cycle of a TV show.

Television finds salvation in the zombie apocalypse via BBC

Rather than resign themselves to audiences watching with half an eye, while posting pictures of kittens on Facebook, broadcasters are looking for ways to harness this trend to keep viewers engaged… Whatever the future holds, one thing is clear. As a species are likely to become ever more addicted to vast amounts of content – wherever it comes from.

RESEARCH

In Changing News Landscape, Even Television is Vulnerable via Pew Research Center

there are now signs that television news – which so far has held onto its audience through the rise of the internet – also is increasingly vulnerable, as it may be losing its hold on the next generation of news consumers… Among adults younger than age 30, as many saw news on a social networking site the previous day (33%) as saw any television news (34%), with just 13% having read a newspaper either in print or digital form.

Duh: Analyst Says TV Programming Price Increases Are Unsustainable And “A Train Wreck In The Making” via TechCrunch

Your monthly cable or satellite bill just keeps going up — that’s the reality we all face. And while consumers are getting squeezed by price increases, they’re not alone: Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett sees a reckoning coming, as increases in the cost of programming are also outpacing cable or satellite providers’ ability to support them… That’s one reason why Dish is looking at rolling out over-the-top live TV and satellite broadband services. And it’s a reason why other providers — like Comcast and Time Warner Cable — are experimenting with cheaper bundles of programming that don’t include high-cost networks like ESPN. Because pretty soon, if they don’t, consumers won’t be able to afford what they’re offering.

CEOs See Digital as Significant Driver of Future Growth via Damarque

According to Ernst & Young’s latest CEO study Opportunity and optimism: How CEOs are embracing digital growth released in September 2012, global media and entertainment CEOs are optimistic about the digital future and expect digital revenue will be a rapidly increasing percentage of overall revenue for companies.

SHOWS & NETWORKS

An inside look at Cinemax’s social TV strategy for ‘Hunted’ via Lost Remote

We’ve created a cross-platform narrative experience that gives people the chance to dig a little deeper into the storyworld of Hunted… It’s specifically designed to drive traffic through social sharing, and that’s absolutely being borne out in our traffic referrals. Each stage has social sharing components really integrated into the progressive story across the three major platforms (FB, Twitter, G+) along with GetGlue rewards at key stages. But more importantly, this was designed to be social in the sense of giving fans and communities something to talk ABOUT.

FX’s spooky social TV strategy for ‘American Horror Story: Asylum’ via Lost Remote

They partnered with EW and used their Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter presence to release exclusive clips… I’m sure there are a few fans of last season’s cast who were upset to hear this season will feature a whole new story, but the new storyline gives us a unique marketing angle; a hit show that has received 17 Emmy nominations is coming back, and you don’t have to have seen the first season to understand or follow.

Spider-Man Blu-ray comes with a Second Screen app for iPad and Sony’s Android tablets via Engadget HD

Since no blockbuster movie in 2012 can have a home release without a second screen companion app for fans to dig through extra content while they watch, Sony has, naturally, announced one for The Amazing Spider-Man.

TruTV Syncs Social Chatter With TV Everywhere via Multichannel News

Turner Broadcasting System’s truTV is bringing the social conversation to TV Everywhere, with a new feature that synchronizes select Facebook and Twitter comments about its shows with episode playback on its website.

Digital Blitz for ‘Jersey Shore’ Final Season Begins via Mashable

The live stream, which begins two hours before the 10 p.m. ET season premiere and continues through the episode, is just one of many online elements MTV has planned to enhance the televised narrative.

DEBATE

Social TV App Peel to Give Deep Analysis of Presidential Debates via Mashable

The TV discovery app Peel used its real-time social platform to provide a second-screen interactive experience this spring for American Idol, and now it’s turning its lens in a different direction: Politics… Over the course of the debates, users will tap “cheer” or “boo” buttons for each candidate to register how they feel during specific parts.

Be a Part of the Vote With Yahoo’s Elections Dashboard for IntoNow via Mashable

Yahoo is working to increase voter engagement in this year’s presidential election with their launch of the election dashboard for the IntoNow app… Yahoo has also injected a whimsical tool into their dashboard — a meme generator.

CNN.com To Let Web Viewers Clip-And-Share Presidential Debates via Multichannel News

CNN will stream the four presidential and vice-presidential debates in October live online and to mobile devices for free — and is hoping to get viral traction by letting website visitors “clip-and-share” video from the high-profile events.

MTV Hosts Live Twitter Fact Check During Debate via Mashable

MTV, for one, will be partnering with FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan research organization, to monitor the debate in real time via Twitter. The partnership is a branch off of Power of 12 — an existing MTV effort to increase young voter participation.

A social TV preview ahead of tonight’s big debate via Lost Remote

For starters,  Twitter has launched an event page to curate the best tweets, and YouTube and Xbox will stream the debate live.  Media companies are live-blogging and live-tweeting, and second screen apps will encourage viewers to react in real time.

Obama Might Have Lost The First Debate, But The Xbox Did Even Worse via Kotaku

Sure, it was cool to see how many people were rooting for each candidate—around 57% said they were voting for Obama and some 30% picked Romney—but I expected some sort of interaction that actually involved the live event we were watching. There were no questions about Big Bird, no polls about zingers, no interesting graphs or polls about who was lying and who was telling the truth… Hopefully Microsoft steps it up for the next one.

NIELSEN

Nielsen Marries TV, Online Ratings via Ad Age

Is an online viewer just as valuable to advertisers as a TV viewer? Up until now, the answer was no. Nielsen is looking to change that with the introduction today of its Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings, which will measure the number of people who watched a campaign only on TV, the number who viewed it digitally and the overlap between the two… Since traditional TV and the web typically use different metrics, it has been hard to calculate a campaign’s total reach and frequency across platforms… The CW move shows how cross-platform metrics could give TV networks more flexibility in their ad packages and a better sense of a program’s digital traction… “This is helping to equalize buying across online and TV,” said Kate Sirkin, exec VP and global research director for Starcom MediaVest Group

Is an Online Viewer Worth as Much as TV Viewer? Nielsen Says Yes! via Marketing Pilgrim

After the show airs on TV, in many cases, it moves to the internet. Only in this case, advertisers aren’t banging down the doors, offering up big bucks to run their ads on the show. Why? Mostly because of the notion that only viewers aren’t as valuable as TV viewers. And though that may have been true a few years ago, it’s not true anymore… The CW is the first network to test this theory and they’re doing it with the help of Nielsen’s Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings tool. The system bridges the gap between the way we measure a TV audience and the way we measure an online audience. If it works, it will deliver a single number that represents the total number of people who saw an ad during a TV show, no matter where they saw it… it’s clear that the old way of measuring TV success isn’t relevant anymore.

PINTEREEST

Why Is Pinterest Poking Around In TV Land? via Fast Company

So far we’ve been able to confirm that MTV, VH1, and Bravo are in the mix, though more are likely involved. While it’s too early to say what such meetings could yield, they serve as a sign of the two-year-old startup’s increasing interest in brands and media… TV brands have always played a big role in growing social platforms, and are likely a necessary part of Pinterest’s evolution. Twitter and Facebook have become intertwined with live-TV viewing; Instagram has worked with broadcast networks like CNN; and Foursquare has helped devise interesting applications with the History and Weather channels. On Pinterest, for example, we’re already seeing popular feeds from MTV and the Food Network. But as Hsia told me of up-and-coming social platforms, “You know, sometimes not everything is meant to be with TV.”

GOOGLE

Social TV: Linking Content, Buzz and Sales via Think with Google

An obvious first question for advertisers, for instance, is whether it is better to advertise on the first screen (TV), second screen (digital devices), or both? These questions can only be answered through a better understanding of how people actually behave when performing TV-related social media activities… We analyzed millions of tweets and found that online consumer engagement, as measured by new Twitter followers and overall buzz, correlates directly to having an active social media strategy. When, for example, an advertisement contained a social media-based game, viewer engagement was sustained over the duration of the entire broadcast. Looking more deeply at the content of viewer responses, we also found that positive sentiment and levels of Twitter sharing – measures often used to quantify the effectiveness of TV ads – varied significantly by demographic category…M ost significantly, linking online buzz to sales, we found buzz an excellent predictor of sales.

TWITTER

Voters’ Tweet Volume Might Just Be Noise via The WSJ

Measures such as tweets per minute are “more valuable in telling us when things happen that have a resonance with the electorate than necessarily telling us which direction that impact is going to be,” Mr. Keeter said. Tweets per minute is a refinement of earlier measures used by Twitter to show heightened interest among its users in news events.

ZEEBOX

Zeebox adds Viacom to its repertoire of media partners, one week after US launch via TNW

Now, however, it seems that media behemoth Viacom is also backing Zeebox for its US onslaught, joining the aforementioned companies “as strategic partners”, including investment, content and more… This is a major development for Zeebox, and will go some way towards cementing itself at the forefront of the second screen space.

Zeebox targets X Factor viewers with 2nd screen show via IP&TV News

Zeebox has partnered with interactive TV platform ShowCaster to launch an unendorsed second-screen TV show that will provide commentary and interactivity options for viewers watching X Factor on their main television. The new show (called #YAPPFACTOR) is exclusive to Zeebox and will feature comedian Jake Yapp’s tongue-in-cheek commentary on programme – live and in video as the show goes out, giving fans the chance to participate as they watch.

BSkyB, Channel 4 and Zeebox talk second-screen potential for TV via The Guardian

He outlined the four key drivers for second-screening. First: people want to find something to watch. Second: they want to get information about the show they’re watching. Third: they want to chat to friends. And fourth, they may want to buy things that they see on-screen… “Advertising I think ultimately will fuel this whole business.”… Gareth Capon, emerging products director at BSkyB, was also bullish about the commercial potential for second-screen apps and content, although he stressed that “the creative piece is the most important” element.

MORE APPS

Tweek Releases Major Update To Its Social iOS TV Guide For The UK and Germany via TechCrunch

Even as Tivo’s stock languishes and its patent battles play out, the world of social, TV and touch screens are continuing to collide, and it’s fair to say that most of the most interesting innovation is coming form Internet-based startups, not the TV world… Think of the Tweek iOS app as the potential Tivo of the future, bringing you recommendations for TV shows and socialising your viewing experience. It solves two main problems for the user: Which content is worth my time? Where can I get it now?

WiO Takes On Shazam With Second Screen TV Ad Campaign & New iOS App via TechCrunch

WiOffer, a new mobile app platform which aims to connect TV viewers directly with advertisers… the technology is more focused on making a connection between viewer and brand which impacts the advertiser’s bottom line… Efforts to tap into the potential of the second screen for advertising purposes have been expanding, but WiO will be fighting not only the obstacles involved with consumer education efforts, the more popular Shazam app, time-shifted playback which allows users to skip TV ads entirely, but also the very real possibility that second screen advertising like this won’t ever really become a mainstream activity.

Virgin Media readying to launch belated second-screen intiative via paidContent

The app forms part of the provider’s upcoming “Virgin TV Anywhere” strategy, which will let subscribers view live and on-demand TV from their subscribed bouquets on devices other than their cable-connected TV.