Mobile posts Dominate TV chatter on Facebook

As the battle for control of social media in and around the television between Facebook and Twitter continues, a report released today by Facebook in partnership with SecondSync, a social TV analytics provider shows that up to a 25% of television viewers post (on Facebook) about programs that are watching. Up until now the assumption was that most activity took place pre or post the shows airing and not in real time. Additionally the survey uncovered that 80% of TV-related chatter on the social network comes from a mobile device.

Other relevant findings from the analysis of real-time patterns and types of engagement included:

Real-time interactions: TV-related Facebook interactions happen during the show airing.

• Widespread reach: The scale of TV-related chatter seen on Facebook corresponds to the broad reach of the social network. Shows such as the Sound of Music Live and Breaking Bad generate 7.34 million and 4.47 million audience interactions respectively.
• Mobile engagement: 80 per cent of TV-related chatter on Facebook is generated from mobile devices.
• Multiple interaction opportunities. Posts are most closely aligned to real-time TV ‘events’; the bulk of TV conversations are contained in Comments; Likes have a long tail of engagement.

Accounding to SecondSync, they plan to continue to work closely with Facebook. Areas of future research will include investigating the extent to which Facebook drives TV tune-in, measuring the reach of TV-related interactions, and looking at the effectiveness of Facebook calls to action in TV advertising.

are contained in Comments; Likes have a long tail of engagement. MORE: Secondsync.com Feburary 2014 Whitepaper - "Watching with Friends"

Yahoo's IntoNow fades to Black

I guess I can remove this app from my iPad. Obviously I wasn't using it and apparently I wasn't alone. Yahoo's IntoNow second-screen app is shutting down effective March 31st. You may remember it as one of the many that popped up in the early part of the decade. Purchased by Yahoo in 2011, it offered Shazam like capabilities which gave it built-in auto content recognition (ACR) technology for recognizing television programming, a feature which first caught my attention and had me downloading it and trying it out. As with other second-screen apps it also allowed the users to check-in to the television shows they were watching and share their viewing habits with friends on Facebook and Twitter. Frankly, I found this to be a feature I never used. If I wanted to share info like this I would have asked them over and made popcorn! Ryan Lawler @ TechCrunch agrees writing, “The idea was as preposterous then as it seems now, but thanks to the relative early success of Foursquare back in those days, eager app makers were trying to get people to check into every damn thing.” MORE: techcrunch.com 01/29/14 - Yahoo Is Shutting Down IntoNow, Nearly Three Years After Acquisition by Ryan Lawler

Facebook vs. Twitter in the battle over Media Exposure

It looks like Facebook is going back into the ring in the fight for television exposure with Twitter. On Monday the company released two new conversation search tools designed to give news, sporting, TV entertainment organizations and marketers more insight into the real-time social conversation occurring on Facebook.  This effort is part of a partnership they have with tech company Mass Relevance to help its media clients utilize the new tools. As reported here in an earlier post, with Facebook having also launched hashtag support to unify topical conversations, along with testing trending topics, it not be far-fetched to believe that producers would gladly utilize these tools to integrate discussions that people are saying right into their shows. Certainly for some, importing user comments from Facebook could be a welcome improvement over Twitter since there aren’t any character limitations. Will viewers be open to hearing more significant discussions instead of trying to interpret the statement based on 140 characters? Time will tell.

Trendrr Aquired, Twitter Continues To make Television a Foundation of its Business

Less that two weeks ago we were reporting on Twitters continuing moves into television with a trending product experiment and highlights on how they have been acquiring companies and commissioning studies to make television a bedrock of its business.  Today news broke out on a blog post by Trendrr founder Mark Ghuneim, "Twitter has acquired Trendrr". If your not yet familar with Marks company, Trendrr tracks and analyzes conversation about TV shows on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.  Taking it one step further, Trendrr  not only tracks conversations, but offers curated tweets on a certain subject or from certain sources through its Twitter certified product, the aptly-named Curatorr.  Currently they list ABC, MTV and Univision as clients and state that they will honor its existing contracts, but won't be signing new ones. The deal comes a month after a Trendrr study reported that Facebook has five times more TV chatter than Twitter - a study that likely won't be repeated!

Twitter Testing TV Trending Feature

As we have reported here on SMM before, Twitter is getting even more cozier with the television industry. The move is hardly a surprising one: In February, Twitter acquired social TV analytics firm Bluefin Labs, a sign the site is doubling down on its social TV efforts. Twitter also teamed up with Nielsen in December to create the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating for the fall 2013 season, which will provide a "common benchmark" from which to measure a TV program's engagement.  So what Twitters next big bet on the TV business, a new feature that would see currently-trending television shows appear prominently within the timelines of users.

According to reports across the blogosphere, the 'Trending TV' experiment is currently being tested on a small percentage of iOS app users who are seeing a show-specific box at the top of their timelines when they refresh their feeds. In its essence, the proposition seems quite similar to second-screen apps like GetGlue and Zeebox that already use Twitter data to generate virtual chat rooms where viewers discuss ongoing shows.  Combine this with last month’s launch of Twitter TV Ad Targeting, a new service designed to enable Twitter and TV ad campaigns to be synchronized and its easy to see who is quickly becoming the next 800 pound gorilla?

Nielsen: Tweets Actually Influences TV Viewing... Really!

No surprise but this week Nielsen released research that conclusively states that an increase in Twitter commentary about a TV show can increase viewership of that same show as it airs live.  By analyzing minute-to-minute trends in Nielsen’s live TV ratings and tweets for 221 broadcast primetime program episodes using Nielsen’s SocialGuide, the study found that live TV ratings had a meaningful impact in related tweets among 48% of the episodes sampled.  The results also showed that the volume of tweets caused significant changes in live TV ratings among 29% of the episodes.

SocialTV comes to Dish Hopper Subscribers

Dish Network has been creating a stir in the broadcasting business this year with the launch of their Hopper Whole-Home ad skipping DVR system has announced the launch a new app called "Social" that it says is the industry’s “first and only set-top app that delivers on-screen social content relevant to the show or channel a viewer is watching.” The app enables customers to join social media conversations about shows that they are currently viewing allowing them to effectively multitask between watching a show and following social media posts about that show on the same screen. Accessible via Dish's "quick launch" bar, Social lets customers link up to four Twitter and four Facebook accounts to the app. Viewers have three options for the type of content displayed in the status bar: Now Watching shows the Twitter feed relevant to the show or channel the user is currently watching. My Twitter gives full Twitter functionality, and My Facebook displays the user's personal Facebook feed with full functionality. Perhaps even more interesting, the Social app contains a data bar at the bottom of the TV screen that displays information related to the program being watched like stats about the top areas in the country where people are tweeting about the program, the program's sentiment rating and percentage of Tweeters by gender and frequency of tweets. Two thumbs up for Dish on this new addition. I believe users will really enjoy this new apps as they have empowered consumers allowing them to follow social conversations and post in real-time without leaving their TV screen.

NCAA March Madness Live App Breaking Records

Yes it’s that time of year again when college basketball captures the imagination of the country, brackets are filled out, brackets are busted, and fans everywhere are tuning in to all the excitement. With 68 teams, seven rounds, and 67 games, it’s no surprise that one screen just isn’t enough. Last year March Madness accounted for over two million tweets and Comscore reported that Turner Digital and CBSSports.com drew 20,012,000 and 15,938,000 million unique visitors.

No doubt those are all records that are about to be broken because CBS and Turner Sports relaunched the latest iteration of the NCAA March Madness Live App today. In addition to the app’s availability through the App Store and Google Play platforms, fans can access this content online via the ncaa.commarchmadness, CBSSports.com, and bleacherreport.com websites. The major features comprise: full game replays, real-time game alerts, video highlights, real-time tournament brackets, and personal channel lineup facets, and live radio broadcast.
Hear and see all about it right from Turner Sports and CBS executives as they discuss their multiscreen coverage plans for the "March Madness" NCAA men's college basketball tournament: MCN Original Video -- CBS, Turner Sports Ready For 'March Madness' or better yet, get the app: Apple or Android

UPDATE 03/26 - Apparently I wasn't the only one that love's this year’s app. I found that I was so impressed with it that many times it was acting as my primary screen as I quickly switched between games in the second and third rounds. As linear TV coverage produced the best Nielsen numbers for the first week of the tournament in 20 years, the digital presentation of NCAA March Madness Live was also setting new all-time highs through the tournament’s first week, generating 36.6 million live video streams across online and mobile, (tablets and smartphones), double the 18.3 million for the entire event in 2012, according to Turner digital officials. That equated to than 10 million hours of live video consumed across digital properties during the opening week of the tournament, up 198% from 2012.

CBS Connect 2.0

Leslie Moonves, President/CEO of CBS has historically been the most resistant of the big networks to offer its content to alternative platforms. With this launch as well as the recent licensing deals with Hulu Plus and Amazon, the network is now pushing hard into the digital circle. Back in January, the company launched CBS Connect app, which offered up social media real-time conversation and synced second-screen experiences -- but no full episodes. Finally yesterday they announced a new iOS app that allows users to stream full episodes of the network's primetime lineup (8 days after broadcast), along with daytime and late night programming the day after broadcast. Android and Windows 8 versions will be released later this year. The the company said it will integrate with the existing CBS Connect app by the start of the fall season, so viewers can access a slew of second-screen features, including social feeds and bonus content tied to TV shows like CSI, Criminal Minds, NCIS: Los Angeles, and Hawaii Five-O. More @MediaDailyNews 3/14 - CBS Starts CBS App, And Full-Episode TV Player

Netflix Adds Facebook Integration

Netflix has finally released a new feature that allows subscribers to let their Facebook friends know what television shows and movies they are watching while also seeing friends’ viewing activity. The company has been trying to integrate Facebook elements in the U.S. for quite some time spending over a year lobbying Congress to amend a 1988 law called the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) that previously made such an app illegal in the United States. This past December that all changed when Congress passed a bill which updated the VPPA to accommodate the Facebook integration. According to Facebook, international users have had a sharing option for some time but the application restricted the sharing functionality. Now international users will be able to upgrade to the new version as well.
The video link at the top of this post (provided by Netflix) explains the new features.

The Good, Bad & Ugly of the Second Screen

Yahoo's INTO Now

Ok full disclosure... in my paying job, during the past year I have worked with more and more companies that are involved in the Second Screen space. As a connoisseur (insert nerd) of all things tech, I've collected quite a few of them but in general my overall feeling is that most tend to lack intuitive UI's and frankly are just poorly thought out from a user’s perspective. So it brings me to ask, do they actually offer anything to the viewer? Well that's the question TV and movie critic Noel Murray recently explored for Grantland.  A self-professed second screen novice, Murray spent the month of February trying out various apps.  After using them to accompany his both live and pre-recorded viewing, Murray's general perspective was that they didn't really enhance his viewing experience as promised.  Read his story: 03/05 - The 'Second Screen': Is This App Really Necessary?

The Walking Dead Swarm Twitter

The Darewin Agency created a clever social media campaign via Tweeter and Facebook to make The Walking Dead a hit on France's NT1 TV network. @AdFreak - 03/05 Zombies Swarm around infected hashtag in Clever Campaign for the Walking Dead

Monetizing Second-Screens the Zeebox Way

Second-screen apps have been trying to figure out how to turn a profit from the growing chatter around TV and Zeebox thinks they have the answer. Earlier this week they launched an automated advertising platform called SpotSynch that will show users targeted digital advertisements simultaneously with specific TV programs and commercials. The goal of the new product is to create an immediate path to engagement, said Jason Forbes, exec VP-managing director of Zeebox USA. Traditional TV ads create demand and are a call to action, ads on Zeebox let viewers go to brands' websites, get more information, enter a sweepstakes or take a poll or quiz. The hope is that playing Zeebox ads off commercials will increase the impact on viewers while creating a monetization model the company can bank on.

First launched in the App Store in September, Zeebox is a second-screen TV app. Using it, viewers can see comprehensive TV listings, information about favorite television personalities, and, of course, it comes with a social element. According to the company, Zeebox has been downloaded about 1.2 million times since it arrived in the U.S. Full disclosure, I use Zeebox on a ongoing basis, at to onset, I do not have any issues with the concept behind SpotSynch. I actually feel it will add to my viewing experience and I like the idea of having consistent ads on two platforms providing they are relevant. Second screen apps, by their very nature, are supposed to add to the TV viewing experience however, if SpotSynch becomes too obtrusive to my television viewing experience, my opinion and future usage of the app is very likely to change.

Ooyala

Video streaming solutions start-up Ooyala has launched a new product called Twitter Video Card, which it actually developed in collaboration with Twitter. Twitter Video Card allows Ooyala customers to embed videos directly inside their tweets. It shows up as a thumbnail in the Twitter stream, which followers can click on to play without having to leave the social media site. Since Ooyala worked with Twitter on the Twitter Video Card, the product has received official certification from the social media company. This means the embedded videos will be accessible across all Twitter platforms, including its desktop and mobile websites, as well as its native apps for iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. Congrats to both ESPN and Pac-12 for launching this innovative video technology. When TV broadcasters deliver video directly to their Twitter followers, they connect with viewers in new and meaningful ways. They are also redefining the television experience by making it mobile, social and fun. Check out the customized look and feel of the Pac-12 player, tucked inside a tweet.

According to Ooyala release, the Twitter Video Card is also armed with the company's proprietary video discovery technology, which will algorithmically surface relevant videos once a user has finished watching a particular clip. Using Pac-12 as an example, the Ooyala player within the tweet will be able to recommend a post-game press conference clip to a user who has just watched highlights from that game. For advertisers, Ooyala notes that Twitter Video Cards will be able to tie ads (presumably pre-rolls) to the embedded videos.

GetGlue's Top Ten's for 2012

GetGlue has released their results for the top 10 social TV shows and movies on its platform for 2012. Here's a quick rundown:

• Top three scripted broadcast shows in terms of new episode activity were: Once Upon a Time (ABC); Glee (FOX); Grey's Anatomy (ABC).
• Top three scripted cable shows were: True Blood (HBO); The Walking Dead (AMC); Game of Thrones (HBO).

Top three movies in terms of total social activity on GetGlue: The Hunger Games; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2.

Top three scripted shows in terms of total social activity: The Big Bang Theory (CBS); The Walking Dead (AMC); True Blood (HBO).

See the full list: GetGlue’s Infographic

ConnectTV's Local Ad Network

ConnecTV has unveiled a national and local ad network for second-screen TV ads. The company announced that over 400 ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and CW national and local affiliates will be the first participants in the new ad network, which allows advertisers to pair their TV spots with a synchronized experience on tablets and smartphones. Available via ConnectTV's free second-screen app or any ConnecTV syndication partner, the new Ad Sync platform allows brands to deliver extra goods such as promotional offers, contests, and marketing alerts, as well as the ability for viewers to watch product-related videos, find the nearest store, or even purchase what they're seeing on TV. At launch, ConnecTV says it's offering an exclusive "Charter Advertising" program, which will let brands and agencies to customize companion-marketing experiences and lead second-screen research panels, among other things. The new ad network will be sold by both ConnecTV and its broadcast partners, which include Belo, Cox, Scripps, Gannett, Hearst, Meredith, Post-Newsweek, and Raycom.