Posted by
Cory Bergman on March 25, 2012
Two big-name entrepreneurs, Sean Parker (Napster, Facebook, Causes) and Shawn Fanning (Napster, Path) are teaming up to create Airtime, a social video company. “Our small team shares a passion for using the latest video technology to bring people together,” explains the new site, which just popped up with a graphic of a video control room and a button to apply for early access. There’s no word on when it may launch.
Posted by
Cory Bergman on March 22, 2012
One of the biggest challenges in TV today is finding the content you want to watch. With the addition of Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon to the already 500-channel universe — and your DVR — discovery is most difficult than ever. Not to mention, content appears in different windows on different platforms. Last year we wrote about Matcha.tv, a TV discovery site that enables users to discover content across Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon and Xfinity.
Posted by
Cory Bergman on March 22, 2012
A new survey by the Hollywood Reporter — which talked to social network users between the ages of 13-49 — reveals some interesting data about how social media impacts the TV and film industries. More than half of the respondents said social networks are important tastemakers in determining what to watch and buy. The most interesting part of the study, as it relates to TV, is boiled down in a single slide: 79% say they always or sometimes visit Facebook while watching TV — although it’s unclear how much of that activity relates to the TV their watching at that given moment….
Posted by
Cory Bergman on March 22, 2012
To commemorate Twitter’s six-year anniversary, Jimmy Kimmel Live asked celebrities if they read tweets about themselves — and had them read a few on camera. Absolutely hilarious. While some celebs have social ghost-writers, many do read @mentions on Twitter, and the real-time feedback can be harsh.
Posted by
Natan Edelsburg on March 22, 2012
Each year we see more celebs flocking to social platforms, launching their own accounts and finding new ways to grow their fan base by leveraging the depth of the matured social web. You don’t always see an actor taking his charitable passion and combining that with an innovative way to share useful and important information via social. James Denton, who plays Mike Delfino on ABC’s Desperate Housewives, has teamed up with Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) to launch a social platform, “where patients and caregivers can share the most useful questions and answers provided by their care teams to aid their treatment.”
Posted by
Paul Balcerak on March 21, 2012
This Thursday night, I’m going to be one of the lucky participants in the next phase of social TV at the Seattle TV station I work at, KIRO 7 Eyewitness News. Even better is that we’re encouraging all of you to join in and help us out, as well. Starting Thursday at 10 p.m. online, and at 10:30 p.m. on TV and online, we’ll be airing Connect with Jenni Hogan, a TV special about how people can get the most use out of social media, and we’ll be making the audience at home a huge part of our show.
Posted by
Cory Bergman on March 21, 2012
It’s a shoot-out in the social TV analytics space these days, with SocialGuide, Trendrr, Bluefin Labs and Networked Insights among those companies battling it out across networks, brands and agencies. SocialGuide has launched a new product called SocialGuide Intelligence (SGI), which it bills as the only social TV analytics and audience engagement platform in the marketplace. Beyond offering social TV reports and ratings for different TV shows and channels, it enables clients to “identify and engage with its social influencers and key comments” from directly within the tool.
Posted by
Cory Bergman on March 20, 2012
ABC Family’s “Pretty Little Liars” has always attracted lots of social media attention, thanks in part to its young female audience. Monday’s season finale of the show, however, generating nearly 645K tweets, peaking at 32K tweets per minute. “We’ve been tracking tweets about television shows and events for several years, and this is one of the biggest hours of TV on Twitter we’ve ever seen,” said Jenn Deering Davis, Founder of TweetReach. “‘Pretty Little Liars’ is consistently among the most active shows we track, and last night’s finale eclipsed the show’s previous high of 289K tweets during one show.”
Posted by
Cory Bergman on March 20, 2012
This is an interesting partnership to note. In advance of NAB next month, the social TV startup Never.no has partnered with one of the biggest TV graphics companies, Vizrt. Calling it an “unprecedented integrated social TV and graphics infrastructure,” the companies promise to help solve one of the biggest challenges of social TV: seamlessly incorporating audience participation in a way that matches the visual flow of the broadcast, both on TV and devices.
Posted by
Cory Bergman on March 19, 2012
The second-screen app ConnecTV — which has partnered with 201 TV stations across 10 local media groups — launched some interesting co-viewing features in time for March Madness. For starters, the app can recognize the game you’re watching (via audio) and display real-time stats and background info on the respective teams and players.
Two big-name entrepreneurs, Sean Parker (Napster, Facebook, Causes) and Shawn Fanning (Napster, Path) are teaming up to create Airtime, a social video company. “Our small team shares a passion for using the latest video technology to bring people together,” explains the new site, which just popped up with a graphic of a video control room and a button to apply for early access. There’s no word on when it may launch.
One of the biggest challenges in TV today is finding the content you want to watch. With the addition of Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon to the already 500-channel universe — and your DVR — discovery is most difficult than ever. Not to mention, content appears in different windows on different platforms. Last year we wrote about Matcha.tv, a TV discovery site that enables users to discover content across Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon and Xfinity. 
A new survey by the Hollywood Reporter — which talked to social network users between the ages of 13-49 — reveals some interesting data about how social media impacts the TV and film industries. More than half of the respondents said social networks are important tastemakers in determining what to watch and buy. The most interesting part of the study, as it relates to TV, is boiled down in a single slide: 79% say they always or sometimes visit Facebook while watching TV — although it’s unclear how much of that activity relates to the TV their watching at that given moment….
To commemorate Twitter’s six-year anniversary, Jimmy Kimmel Live asked celebrities if they read tweets about themselves — and had them read a few on camera. Absolutely hilarious. While some celebs have social ghost-writers, many do read @mentions on Twitter, and the real-time feedback can be harsh. 
Each year we see more celebs flocking to social platforms, launching their own accounts and finding new ways to grow their fan base by leveraging the depth of the matured social web. You don’t always see an actor taking his charitable passion and combining that with an innovative way to share useful and important information via social. James Denton, who plays Mike Delfino on ABC’s Desperate Housewives, has teamed up with Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) to launch a social platform, “where patients and caregivers can share the most useful questions and answers provided by their care teams to aid their treatment.”
This Thursday night, I’m going to be one of the lucky participants in the next phase of social TV at the Seattle TV station I work at, KIRO 7 Eyewitness News. Even better is that we’re encouraging all of you to join in and help us out, as well. Starting Thursday at 10 p.m. online, and at 10:30 p.m. on TV and online, we’ll be airing Connect with Jenni Hogan, a TV special about how people can get the most use out of social media, and we’ll be making the audience at home a huge part of our show.
It’s a shoot-out in the social TV analytics space these days, with SocialGuide, Trendrr, Bluefin Labs and Networked Insights among those companies battling it out across networks, brands and agencies. SocialGuide has launched a new product called SocialGuide Intelligence (SGI), which it bills as the only social TV analytics and audience engagement platform in the marketplace. Beyond offering social TV reports and ratings for different TV shows and channels, it enables clients to “identify and engage with its social influencers and key comments” from directly within the tool.
ABC Family’s “Pretty Little Liars” has always attracted lots of social media attention, thanks in part to its young female audience. Monday’s season finale of the show, however, generating nearly 645K tweets, peaking at 32K tweets per minute. “We’ve been tracking tweets about television shows and events for several years, and this is one of the biggest hours of TV on Twitter we’ve ever seen,” said Jenn Deering Davis, Founder of TweetReach. “‘Pretty Little Liars’ is consistently among the most active shows we track, and last night’s finale eclipsed the show’s previous high of 289K tweets during one show.”
This is an interesting partnership to note. In advance of NAB next month, the social TV startup Never.no has partnered with one of the biggest TV graphics companies, Vizrt. Calling it an “unprecedented integrated social TV and graphics infrastructure,” the companies promise to help solve one of the biggest challenges of social TV: seamlessly incorporating audience participation in a way that matches the visual flow of the broadcast, both on TV and devices.
The second-screen app ConnecTV — which has partnered with 201 TV stations across 10 local media groups — launched some interesting co-viewing features in time for March Madness. For starters, the app can recognize the game you’re watching (via audio) and display real-time stats and background info on the respective teams and players.
