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GENERAL NEWS

Social TV and the Second Screen via Coca Cola

Consumers are increasingly using a second (or even third) device while watching TV. Television manufacturers and content producers want to take advantage of that complementary usage and find ways to increase interaction around what you’re watching. The most obvious enhancement is social media, which sparks engagement and conversation about what’s on the tube. If you’re not already tweeting or posting a status update about your favorite show, movie or team, there’s a good chance you will be in the years to come — particularly as technologies and content tie-ins continue to emerge.

What Is Social TV? via Cable TV

Social media also provides a way for show creators, advertisers, and poll takers to interact with viewers. Did something significant just happen on your favorite show? Chances are people are talking about it as well as responding to a single poll question about the event. It’s instant positive or negative feedback for executive producers and advertisers, and it’s becoming a critical part of the television experience for all parties involved.

2013:The Rise Of The Sports Fan via Daily Dot

the new sports viewer is augmenting his or her experience with a wealth of commentary and useful data from friends, other viewers and literally thousands of sports professionals weighing in on the action. That second screen will be a site of technology innovation, making the sports-watching experience not just markedly different from former passive viewing, but better. We all know there is massive chatter online during games, but 2013 marks the moment it gets organized, richly produced, pervasive across our screens and sold in all new ways.

#TOK Interviews: Chuck Parker from Second Screen Society via TOK.TV

The real question for everyone in the ecosystem: Is this a threat or opportunity? Or more aptly put, how do you make second screen your opportunity?

RESEARCH

Twitter study details best practice for TV engagement via IP & TV News

A new study from microblogging service Twitter delves into the relationship it has with television, revealing amongst other things that 40% of all UK Twitter traffic at peak TV viewing time is about TV. The study, called ‘Tune In With Twitter’, adds: “Through the two distinct phenomena of discovery and engagement, Twitter and TV drive each other in a complementary cycle [...] Twitter is a real-time, public mirror for both broadcast content and advertising.”… The study makes five key recommendations to broadcasters and brands looking to optimise their Twitter and TV campaigns: integrate hashtags with a strong call-to-action; plan campaigns with social profiles in mind; connect content and advertising with tweets; amplify engagement with a Promoted Trend; and tell connected brand stories.

Under 25’s swap remote controls for iPhones as ‘Social TV’ trend takes over via Digital Clarity

How young people watch television is rapidly changing according to a new study of UK mobile internet users below the age of 25. 80% of those surveyed use a mobile device to communicate with friends while watching TV with 72% using Twitter, Facebook or mobile applications to actively comment on shows as they are watching them. These are the findings of a study conducted by Digital Clarity (www.digital-clarity.com), a specialist digital marketing agency which polled over 1300 people under 25 from a cross section of the UK.

Study: Prime Time Spending Wildly Inefficient Spending Accounts for Dollars And Of Impressions via Ad Week

A new study from advertising consultancy Simulmedia suggests that there’s a large disparity between prime-time ad spending and the actual return on the investment. In the two-week period measured, more than half of TV ad dollars (54 percent, or about $91 million) were spent on the four-hour block between 8 p.m. and midnight, and yet only 34 percent of all measurable impressions were logged during that time…conventional wisdom has had it for years that the most bang for your buck to be had was in prime time. Now, that’s appearing to be less and less the case.

Over 85% Of Marketers Plan To Raise Their Mobile Budgets via Clickz

Over 85 percent of marketers have reported that they plan to increase their mobile advertising budgets in the near future, according to a new study by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and MediaVest. According to the study, 95 percent of marketers are currently using or plan to incorporate mobile advertising into their marketing plans. Study participants reported that brand building, awareness, and customer retention were the most common objectives for their mobile advertising plan…To come up with the study results ANA and MediaVest surveyed 68 client-side marketers in the fourth quarter of last year.

DPAA Says Sector Growing At 6X Pace Of Media In General via Sixteen-Nine

The Digital Place-based Advertising Association says the sector it bangs its drums about grew at roughly six times the pace of total measured ad spending. The data from Miller, Kaplan, Arase  suggests digital place-based media grew by 11.8% from Jan-June 2012 over the same period last year, comparing that against Kantar Media data that shows total measured media for the same period increased by 1.9%.

Facebook Shows Outsized Influence on Social via eMarketer

About three in 10 said they had used SMS to discuss shows, and roughly the same number reported using Facebook for that purpose. Among online channels, Facebook had the greatest influence on getting people to watch a show—46% said they picked up a show as a result of the social network. That was followed by Twitter (14%), the websites of TV shows (9%) and then forums or discussion boards (8%).

SHOWS & NETWORKS

FBI Teams Up With ‘White Collar’ To Get Viewers To Solve Real Crimes via Mashable

Viewers of White Collar can now flex their crime-solving skills — just like the TV drama’s duo of Federal Bureau of Investigation consultant Neal Caffrey and federal agent Peter Burke. The FBI and USA Networks have created “Real Life White Collar Crimes” to let people help the FBI solve real crimes revolving around stolen items.

Evolving From Experiments To Social TV Formats via Never .No Blog                                             

Univision did a great job of exploring the power of geolocation during the US elections. By simply isolating buckets of conversation in swing states and heavily concentrated Latino populations, it somehow seemed to give new relevance and power to the sight of a message being displayed onair – coupled with the power of a truly elegant Viz World powered animation…ESPN reminded us of the power of re-igniting old formats with the fuel of social.

Linking the two screens: from TV to Twitter via Andres de Rojas

This week the TV show Bones returned from its Christmas break. It’s one of those shows that has embraced social media, showing on each episode the Bones hashtag to guide the Twitter conversation into a common place. This allows the producers to monitor what the audience is saying about their work, and it makes it easier for the show to appear as a Trending Topic. It’s a promotion tool that is easy and free.

Sky1 to pilot interactive second screen quiz show hosted by Sara Cox via The Drum

During the broadcast the audience will be asked to answer eight rounds of yes/no questions based on morals, while they answer the question Cox will speak with a selection of viewers via Skype to provide insight a snapshot of the nation.

Cyanide & Happiness turns down TV deal, turns to Kickstarter via Daily Dot

“We’re starting to realize that TV as an industry just isn’t compatible with what we want to do with our animation: deliver it conveniently to a global audience, something we’ve been doing all along with our comics these past years,” Wilson wrote. “That’s just the nature of television versus the Internet, I suppose.”… WIlson feels that the entertainment industry is changing and soon the Internet will be the main way people watch programming, and C&H fans are likely already on the cutting edge.

SUPER BOWL XLVII

Animal Planet, IntoNow Try Making ‘Puppy Bowl’ Social Tv via Ad Age

CBS is letting people who watch the Super Bowl on digital platforms this year choose camera angles and try out social-media features. Now Animal Planet’s “Puppy Bowl” is getting the second-screen treatment as well.

Target Skips Super Bowl Commercial In Favor Of Mobile Game via Mashable

On Feb. 3, big brands and their agencies will line up to compete for what they hope will be remembered as the best TV commercial for Super Bowl XLVII, spending tens of millions of dollars in the process. One major retailer, Target, will be sitting on the sidelines, having developed a more modest (and budget-friendly) mobile game instead…”We’re viewing digital as a lot more than shopping online — it’s an opportunity to connect with guests better,”

It’s Cowboys v. Showgirls (Coca-Cola Unveils Super Bowl Plans) Coke’s Super Bowl Ad via MSNBC

But Coca-Cola is asking viewers to cheer for three very different groups in an interactive marketing blitz during the big game: a troupe of showgirls, a band of cowboys and a biker-style gang of “badlanders” — all on a quest for a thirst-quenching Coke in a desert…With Super Bowl ads costing around $4 million for 30 seconds, it is increasingly important for marketers to make that investment count, extending Super Bowl campaigns online before, during and after the game. “The second screen is a huge deal for us,” said Stuart Kronauge, president of sparkling beverages. “It doesn’t matter where consumers are, be it TV, mobile or tablet, we need to be there.”

Marketers Debate Value Of Twitter, Facebook In Super Bowl via Ad Week

While Facebook and Twitter are increasingly becoming an integral part of the Super Bowl marketing mix, there is a growing debate over their true value and effectiveness beyond generating buzz…Chatter on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest will be metered for brand equity, said Shiv Singh, PepsiCo global digital head, as will data from the brand websites, mobile apps and out-of-home digital. In addition, Pepsi plans to survey mobile consumers in the days after the game. The abundance of data will help show Singh’s team whether the Super Bowl ads and halftime sponsorship were worth the spend. “There’s a lot of tricks to winning the social media buzz wars,” Singh said, “but being a part of the culture in a way that extends brand equity is the effect we want to see.”

APPS & SERVICES

Rumor: Dijit And Miso Are Close To Merging, As Social TV Consolidation Continues via Tech Crunch

If the deal happens, Dijit and Miso won’t be the first (or the last) “second-screen” or “social TV” companies to explore hooking up with each other, or with others in the space.

Social TV Guide Tweet TV Launches HTML5 Mobile Apps, Now Offers Rewards To Incentivize Activity via TNW

TweetTV, the social media TV Guide, discovery tool, and Twitter-based social media platform, is launching what it calls “super responsive designed” mobile HTML5 applications that will work across multiple platforms. The company believes that through these non-native apps, users can follow links to its platform and use the service all through the mobile web browser — all without needing to install anything.

Connect TV Social App Adds Auto Syncing Timeline To Sync Your Social Media With Your Show via Geeks World                                             

ConnecTV, the social TV network for television fans, today announced a unique new SocialTV Timeline that dynamically syncs on your mobile devices to whatever show you’re watching, and offers a stream of integrated news, bios, special info, polls, and celebrity tweets. ConnecTV’s SocialTV Timeline also puts front and center “guest star” chat with stars from hit programs “Pretty Little Liars,” “Dancing With the Stars,” and “X-Factor,” as well as Super Bowl and Heisman Trophy-winning sports celebrities.

Global TV platform, SimulTV, aims to deliver on ‘TV Everywhere’ concept in the New Year via The Social Media Monthly

With the unprecedented success of “over-the-top” (OTT) services like Netflix, it is clear that there is an acutely defined market of consumers that, above all, crave immediacy and accessibility…SimulTV enables you to watch TV with anyone, anywhere, anytime on any web-enabled device. Their plan is to customize the TV Everywhere concept within the arena of social media by providing a service where consumers can watch TV and engage with others simultaneously while using a singular medium.

Akamai Moves To Optimize TV via Technology Review

Akamai, the Web optimization company whose servers deliver up to 30 percent of Web traffic, is setting its sights on creating a TV technology that can detect what a person is watching and stream secondary content to a smartphone or tablet in near real-time…What Akamai sees is a chance to bring some order to this chaos and make everything run a bit faster—and through the Web, not a collection of apps…“Second-screen apps are all about user interface, user experience—so anything that impacts that user experience to make it more seamless and enjoyable is going to make a difference,”

Ooyala Adds Twitter Integration, Signs Up ESPN As First Client To Embed Videos In Tweets via Tech Crunch

Since Twitter released its Cards API, enabling publishers to add additional media — like photos, and, uh, video, among other things — Ooyala has been working to integrate it with the company’s video platform. The idea is to let publishers quickly and easily add embedded videos to their tweets. According to Brian Theodore, group product manager at Ooyala, ESPN will be using the platform to post highlights and other short-form videos to its Twitter stream. Doing so will enable it to take advantage of the real-time nature of conversation that happens during live sports.

TWITTER

Why Twitter Isn’t Saving Television via Chris Bolman

TV has a bigger viewer engagement measurement problem than digital, while simultaneously lacking the distribution outlets for the viral sharing of content. To paraphrase Mark Suster, when it comes to internet TV the pipes are smarter, and they also flow to a lot more destinations. Yes, I can extend the conversation around a show like “Big Bang Theory” to Twitter, but I can’t disseminate viral video embeds of its core content…Yes, AMC’s The Walking Dead is considerably more interesting and immersive than it’s side carriage webisodes (or just about anything I’ve come across on YouTube recently). But the tide is turning…The video media landscape is undergoing a sea change, and second screen isn’t necessarily the life-raft the big networks and big studios seem to see it as. Twitter isn’t saving TV, and neither is Hulu. So while the future of TV is undeniably social, it looks increasingly unlikely that it ends up being the TV + Twitter mashup currently being heralded as “Social TV.”

Should TV Take Notice of Titter’s New Video Sharing App Vine? via Lost Remote

Vine also requires you shoot the video yourself — no uploading from another source, even existing videos on your phone (at least as far as I can tell). So if you’re a media brand and you want to upload a funny six-second promo, well, it looks like you’ll have to shoot it yourself with an iPhone… If a new video app scales like Instagram — likely with a focus on shorter clips — it will offer another platform for TV brands to creatively promote themselves. It will evolve into a rich source of eyewitness video reports. And it will grab a big chunk of “attention share” on mobile devices, which simultaneously makes that space more competitive for TV brands.

Three Reasons Why Twitter’s Vine Is The Future Of Content  Marketing via Econsultancy

Yesterday Twitter’s CEO Dick Costolo tweeted a six second video clip of himself making steak to his 1M+ followers. This is a big deal to many because it was using the tech behind Vine, a video sharing startup acquired by Twitter. It should be a big deal to content marketers everywhere because it’s a glimpse into the future.

Twisted Vine: As Twitter Pursues Amplifiers, Its Becoming Noisier Forbes via Forbes                      

If the first phase of Twitter’s evolution was about simplifying the idea of what a social media product could be and building a massive audience (which, unquestionably, it has done exceptionally well), the second phase is about monetizing, turning all of that engagement into dollars. This part is a work in progress—and a lens through which to look at what the company rolls out. So I have been surprised that the coverage of Vine has sidestepped the deeper why in favor of the hackneyed “Instagram of video” analogies…Particularly on mobile where it’s hard to get people to click on ads that will interrupt their experience, ads attached to inline media will get watched, and, if they are targeted properly, without much annoyance to the viewer. Even better, of course, from the advertising perspective, would be ads that auto-play with sound as you scroll through your tweets, but how to get from the mute Twitter timeline to something more like television?

SMART TV

Samsung’s 2013 Smart TV’s To Have Promising Features, TV App Developers Will Benefit via Wireless Duniya

With this release I see a great potential in Video streaming apps for entertainment companies. TV channels / Video on Demand categories can best utilize these features. With motion sensors, the Minority Report style of  experience is very much possible in the apps. Gaming experience will be amazing. Social interactivity will increase. Education is another space which can better utilize this platform. A whole new world of opportunities awaits .

The Story Behind DIAL: How Netflix and Youtube Want To Take On Air Play via Gigaom

Netflix and YouTube have teamed up to launch DIAL, a protocol that helps developers of second-screen apps to discover and launch applications on smart TVs and connected devices. The effort is already getting support from a number of notable players, including Samsung, Sony, Hulu and the BBC. DIAL could become a key piece in efforts to establish an open alternative to Apple’s AirPlay…DIAL stands for “discovery and launch,” which pretty much sums up what the protocol is meant to do. DIAL-enabled second screen apps will be able to discover DIAL-ready first-screen devices in the same network and launch apps on them. That may sound trivial, but it’s actually solving a big problem for second screen app developers.

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