SocialTVNews

If you’re looking for the latest video clips from your favorite sports, you might soon find them on Twitter. The social media company has solidified a deal with ESPN that will let users check out the action via Twitter video clips.

 

Read the entire article at http://gigaom.com/2013/05/13/espn-and-twitter-plan-to-announce-partnership-for-tweeting-sports-video-clips/. 

Lisa Hsia, executive vice-president of Bravo Digital Media at NBCUniversal, gives us five predictions for the Social TV industry over the next few years.

Lisa will be speaking at the TV:Xperience event taking place in New York City on July 15th-17th. For more information and to register, please visit www.tvxperienceevent.com.

 

Social TV will no longer be seen as a branch of the existing TV experience. Social TV will be equivalent to watching TV. The second screen, sharing with others as you watch, interactivity  – the “social” part of TV will all be part and parcel of the regular TV experience.

Social TV will also be available “on demand”. It won’t matter if you’re watching live or days later – you will be able to see content and what your friends and other influencers were saying as an ongoing thread between and during episodes.

 

And you’ll be able to sign up to follow celebrities and see what they’re saying so co-viewing with friends or people you aspire to be friendly with will be part of the experience.

Transmedia storytelling will be a part of the social TV experience. Multi-platform storytelling will be commonplace, as will fan content co-creation based on the TV watching experience. You’ll be able to enjoy programmes as standalones, or branch off to go deeper into specific storylines created by the producers… or fans.

 

Social TV may even become a new way to inform the development of new shows as data analysis tools become more sophisticated. Imagine the new formats – crowd-sourced formats, new kinds of show creative, a much more personalised viewing experience.

The dream of buying Jennifer Aniston’s sweater from Friends will be a reality. Shopping and sharing with friends what you’re shopping for will be easy and frictionless.

 

Social TV will allow for a totally new way to market shows. The old ways of promoting a show – out of home billboards, expensive promotional ad buys – will be gone and replace by much more social and targeted opportunities since data will allow for much more focused targeting of audiences.

Twitter is close to securing a partnership deal with two major television networks to bring high-quality video content and advertising to the micro-blogging social platform, says Bloomberg, citing sources that are familiar with the matter.

 

Twitter has been holding talks with Viacom and Comcast Corp’s NBC Universal, seeking to add more entertainment and news video which would stream within tweets directly on Twitter.

 

These deals could be reached by mid-May, with the resulting ad revenue split between Twitter and the networks.

 

Twitter, which already has existing agreements with ESPN and the Weather Channel, as well as aunique relationship with Nielsen, acquired Bluefin Labs, the social analytics company that tracks what consumers say about the shows and commercials they watch on TV and shares that data with marketers, agencies and TV networks, back in February.

 

These new deals are expected to further Twitter’s fairly aggressive push into social TV, following a very successful partnership with NBC during last year’s London Olympics.

Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) today introduced new social features that make it easier and more fun to find TV shows and movies to watch and discuss with friends.

Starting today, Netflix streaming members in the U.S. can link their Netflix account to Facebook. The new Netflix/Facebook integration lets Netflix members see what their friends have watched by adding new "Friends' Favorites" and "Watched by your friends" rows to Netflix. Members also automatically share what they watch only within Netflix and can optionally share what they've watched to Facebook. All U.S. Netflix members will have access to the social features by the end of this week.

"There are few better ways to find a movie or TV series you'll love than hearing about it from your friends," said Tom Willerer , vice president of product innovation at Netflix. "Facebook already makes it easy for our international members to connect with friends over TV shows and movies and we're thrilled to now bring this experience to our U.S. members."

Read more about Netflix's New Social Features Make Finding TV Shows and Movies Easier - BWWTVWorld by tv.broadwayworld.com

 

Have you ever watched TV while using a laptop, smart phone, or tablet? Wait, why am I asking? Of course you have. That’s what we all do now, right? So I guess the real question to ask is how often do you use Twitter vs. Facebook while watching TV? In many ways, Twitter is becoming a bona fide second-screen experience while watching television. And in many ways, TV may also serve as the second screen to those engrossed in their Twitter streams. If you think about it, the idea that the TV becomes the second screen to digital experiences is rather provocative.  Perhaps this is why Twitter is making some notable moves in the television analytics market recently.

 

On December 17th, Twitter and Nielsen accounted an agreement to create a new Twitter-based TV rating. Steve Hasker, President, Global Media Products and Advertiser Solutions at Nielsen, shared his view on the importance of Twitter’s role in the new world of TV in an official statement, “As a media measurement leader we recognize that Twitter is the preeminent source of real-time television engagement data.”

 

Twitter didn’t stop there, however. In February 2013, Twitter announced the strategic acquisition of Bluefin for its TV-centric data science to, according to Twitter COO Ali Rowghani, “help us create innovative new ad products and consumer experiences in the exciting intersection of Twitter and TV.”

 

Analytics. Ad products. Experiences. The deals with Nielsen and Bluefin represent wise investments considering that they were led by a leading social media company that’s often misconstrued as a mere second screen product in this space. Instead, we can consider Twitter now as an extension of personal experiences…a digital form of self-expression if you will.

 

Read more at http://networkingexchangeblog.att.com/small-business/tune-in-with-twitter/. ;

During dramas — good ones, at least — people barely tweet at all. They tweet a ton before and after, but go silent for the hour: For trashy reality shows, tweeting starts high and trails off (perhaps as viewers get hate-watching fatigue): People tweet a lot during investigative shows (Panorama is like 20/20), but more interestingly they keep tweeting after it's over: During movies, they tweet during iconic or notable scenes but not much else: The X-Factor, a singing competition show, saw spikes for each performance: And huge, perhaps obvious, spikes in the finale: This one's the most interesting. Tweets actually drop off during ad breaks, when it seems like they might spike. But that's because fewer people are watching — they reach for the remotes to change the channel before they reach for their

When looking in their crystal balls, experts predict that social media will dramatically alter how we experience television content in 2013. Read this post by Jennifer Van Grove on CES 2013.

 

What will the social TV landscape look like in 2013? Experts weighed in with their predictions at CES during a panel discussion on how social media is changing TV consumption, discovery, and measurement.

 

Social television can be defined as the intersection of television content and social networks. The category also considers how consumers engage with TV-enhancing applications on second screens like mobile phones and tablets.

 

Moderator Michael Wolf, a Forbes contributor, put the social TV crystal ball question to Richard Bullwinkle of Bullwinkle Inc., Jack Flanagan of BlueFin Labs, and Trevor Stout of Yap.tv. Their answers ranged from the obvious to the proactive.

 

Read what the experts had to say at http://ces.cnet.com/8301-34435_1-57562603/2013-social-tv-predictions-from-the-experts-at-ces/. 

 

 

What began as a natural phenomenon — you see something on TV, you say something on Social Media — has the attention of every TV exec these days.

That wasn’t quite as true a year ago.

From record engagement to major campaigns to multi-million dollar acquisitions, there’s no question that Social TV has a future. Nobody is clear on what that is, but the point of this post is to look back.

Here is my list of 10 important moments for Social TV. It’s far more idiosyncratic than scientific, and surely I missed something big and good, but it offers a glimpse how much happened in this critical year for the space. Feel free to add to the list.

(Just a few notes first: I did not factor in app roll-outs, per se, although two new arrivals were important beyond the app technologies. And I’m not looking at brand campaigns, though there were many excellent ones, including the Voice, Nissan, True Blood’s #makersday and many more.)

10. Twitter hires Fred Graver as “head of TV” (read Ad Age)
This was fairly quiet news, but everyone already knows Twitter became the king of Social TV without really trying that hard. Graver, a longtime TV exec, is helping the company become a more purposeful trailblazer. ”There’s a whole ecosystem being described here,” he told Ad Age, “and we’ve only begun to map out that frontier.”

9. American Idol’s finale scores big (read Bluefin Labs)
By the time American Idol drew 1.4 million Social Media comments for its May finale, the overall trend of greater engagement was already clear. What amazed people was American Idol set the Social TV record for biggest finalewhile dropping in the Nielsen ratings from the year before.

8. Shazam enters Social TV
With a quarter-billion users and big-time brands as partners, Shazam entered Social TV with a bang. First it was the Super Bowl. Then it was the Olympics. Then Shazam settled into every day TV. Scan for a song while watching TV and you’re getting the message that Shazam wants to be a player.

7. CNN wins the Social TV election war (read Forbes)
Both on election night, and throughout the campaign, CNN won the Election 2012 Social TV battle over its cable and broadcast opponents. It was a reminder that the cable network is still a big digital player.

6. MTV VMAs catch The Grammys (maybe)
In what was arguably the most sophisticated Social TV integration yet, MTV landed in the #2 all-time slot for mentions, or #1, depending on who was counting. It confirmed two things: 1) MTV is awesome at Social TV; 2) There is no standard for Social TV measurement … yet.

5. The Grammys grab 13 million mentions (read Forbes)
The Grammys’ Social TV numbers were more remarkable, however, because no one saw them coming. Surpassing the Super Bowl and all expectations (including those who measure Social TV), the show had one last surprise: It wasn’t necessarily the Whitney Houston tribute that drove the chatter. In fact, the Twitterverse relatively quiet during that section of the show.

Read the rest of the story at http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhumphrey/2012/12/13/social-tvs-top-10-moments-for-2012/.

There’s a debate about how you watch TV that boils down to this: Are you willing to lean forward? Meaning, is the average viewer willing to engage with the television show in new, more active, ways. A whole industry is interested in that question, which spawned Social TV. So far, conclusions are few.

 

But some are bullish, including Markets and Markets, a research firm in Dallas, which released a report last week stating: “The global Social TV market revenue is expected to grow from $151.14 billion in 2012 to $256.44 billion by 2017, at an estimated CAGR of 11.2% from 2012 to 2017.”

 

No, say others, who argue most will never tweet, let alone check-in, or chat, or vote, when they just want to relax with some TV. You might use an app that helps you find the next show, but that’s about it.

Peter Kafka wrote a thought-provoking article for All Things D a few weeks ago that leaned heavily toward lean-back. The headline — “What if Social TV Is Less Social Than We Think?” — gives you a sense of where he was heading.

 

A few days later Somrat Niyogi also took after Social TV on Tech Crunch, but mainly because it’s losing to Twitter, especially on live events. That’s most notable because he runs Miso, a Social TV company.

 

Read the entire article at http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelhumphrey/2012/10/18/social-tv-data-is-not-the-new-nielsen-how-it-might-be-better/. ;

Twitter announced Twitter Amplify this morning, the official name of its program to partner with video creators to embed video directly into the company's social stream. Knowing that a name simply isn't enough to get our blood pumping, the company also revealed a variety of new content partners to bolster its already strong relationships with the NBA and ESPN: A&E, Bloomberg TV, Major League Baseball, and Warner Music are just a few of the many new partners signed up for Twitter Amplify. And yes, we should all expect more Amplify partner announcements in the coming months, as Twitter's actively seeking said partnerships. A video is worth a whole lot more than 140 characters, eh?

NBC is giving the public more than just a new slate of programming. There are prizes to be had, too.

 

The network said Sunday that it's holding a Twitter-based sweepstakes linked to its fall schedule presentation to advertisers - a social-media twist on the annual TV rite occurring this week.

 

One of the prizes is a trip to Los Angeles to attend a final taping of Jay Leno's "Tonight Show." The other is a New York visit to see one of the first tapings of the relocated "Tonight" with new host Jimmy Fallon.

 

The contest opens Monday, when the network announces its lineup, and it runs through June 13. Fans can enter by following NBC's Twitter accounts of its upcoming schedule, which will include a new Sean Hayes sitcom.

With the growing popularity of social media, TV has become increasingly social. People now communicate and interact extensively about TV content on social media, especially via Twitter and Facebook.

Even Nielsen, the U.S. media measurement and analysis company, launched a new Twitter TV Rating this past December, essentially validating Twitteras its own measure of television program popularity. This March, their studyshowed that heavy tweeting about a show really does predict popularity; among 18 to 34 year olds, an 8.5% increase in tweets corresponds to a 1% increase in a show's TV ratings for premiere episodes, while a 4.2% increase in tweets predicts the same ratings boost for midseason episodes. 

It's not simply that social media use correlates with TV watching trends; it also directly influences what viewers are watching, Nielsen found. A prior study, from September 2012, found that of all online channels, Facebook had the greatest influence on getting viewers to watch a new show. 46% of those polled said they picked up a new show thanks to a Facebook presence, as compared to Twitter (14%), TV show websites (9%), and discussion boards and forums (8%). 

Facebook is now taking advantage of its clout by launching a TV check-in, that allows users to tag TV shows in their status updates.

It's not just Silcon Valley's social network giants that are innovating to merge traditional media with social interaction. In the Middle East, startups are surfing 3 major trends. 

 

To read the entire article, go to http://www.wamda.com/2013/04/tv-goes-social-in-the-arab-world-3-trends. ;

Mike Proulx, the guy who wrote the book on social tv -- explains what's changed lately in a conversation with Simon Dumenco.

 

In February of last year, Mike Proulx and his co-author Stacey Shepatin published the book "Social TV: How Marketers Can Reach and Engage Audiences by Connecting Television to the Web, Social Media, and Mobile." As senior VP and director of digital strategy at Hill Holliday, Mr. Proulx knows what he's talking about -- and, in just a few weeks, he and a few hundred other social-TV obsessives will talk even more about where the industry is headed. The third edition of Hill Holliday's annual TVnext Summit, an event Mr. Proulx created, is coming up on April 29 in Boston.

 

As the event approaches, Ad Age's Media Guy Simon Dumenco spoke with Mr. Proulx as part of the ongoing Dumenco's Media Peopleseries of in-depth interviews. What follows is an edited version of a longer conversation.

Simon Dumenco: Talk to me about what's changed in the social-TV space since the publication of your book -- other than everything.

 

Mike Proulx: The biggest change we predicted was that consolidation was going to be the theme for 2013, and that certainly has come true. In Chapter 5 in the book, we talked a lot about the social-TV analytic space, and since the release of the book Nielsen bought SocialGuide, and Twitter bought Bluefin Labs, so that leaves an interesting landscape where you have Trendrr as really the only independent social-TV analytics company now.

Dumenco: I have to say that I was surprised how quickly Bluefin sort of disappeared into Twitter's maw. After the acquisition, Bluefin employees almost immediately got Twitter email addresses and now they're essentially just part of the marketing department of Twitter -- because the ex-Bluefinners' jobs now involve proving the efficacy of Twitter, basically.

 

Read the entitre article at http://adage.com/article/trending-topics/q-a-real-state-social-tv/240799/

From Game of Thrones to the new Arrested Development, television is better than ever. And it's not just a lucky accident. Turns out that networks and advertisers are using all-new metrics to design hit shows.

 

On February 7, the fourth season of Community kicked off on NBC. It was something of a shock that the show had survived for so long. It ranked 193rd among broadcast shows. In May 2012, series creator and showrunner Dan Harmon had been unceremoniously canned. And on the night it aired, the season premiere pulled in just 4 million viewers. That’s a mere quarter of the audience enjoyed by ratings juggernauts like Two and a Half Men orThe Big Bang Theory. It even underperformed a rerun of the ABC reality show Shark Tank on the Nielsen charts.

 

Until recently, those 4 million viewers would have been the end of the story. Just a few years ago, similar niche favorites like Jericho and Firefly were summarily executed for such numbers. In fact, cult legend Freaks and Geeks averaged nearly 7 million viewers in its single, 1999-2000 season before getting canceled. But that night in February, Community accomplished something that none of those shows ever had the chance to do—it spawned two worldwide trending topics on Twitter.

 

Read the full article at http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/03/nielsen-family-is-dead/. ;

Twitter has acquired Bluefin Labs, a social TV analytics company that was founded in 2008, sources say.

 

Although we don't know the exact acquisition price, we were told this is Twitter's biggest acquisition to date. 

(Presumably these sources were excluding Twitter's early stock aquisition of Summize, which would now be worth ~$800 million.)

Prior to Bluefin Labs, Twitter's highest acquisition (as far as we can tell) was TweetDeck for $40 million in May 2011.

Since Bluefin Labs has raised $20.5 million to date, we assume the price is between $50 and $100 million (or higher), a healthy return for its investors, Time Warner Investments, SoftBank Capital, Acadia Woods Partners, Bedrocket Media's Brian Bedol, Jim Pallotta, Redpoint Ventures, Dan Gilbert, Lerer Ventures, Kepha Partners and the National Science Foundation.

Twitter's move into social TV makes a lot of sense. It hired a Head of TV last fall and there's a strong correlation between people watching shows and tweeting about them. Just look at last night's Super Bowl. With the help of a lengthy blackout, it was the most social event to ever air. According to Bluefin Labs, the event racked up 30.6 million mentions on Twitter, Facebook, and GetGlue, up from 12.2 million one year prior.

In addition Twitter has been dubbed the new TV Guide by Ad Age, and it secured a multi-year partnership with Nielsen in December to produce the first-ever social TV ratings.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-bluefin-labs-2013-2#ixzz2Jyo2cdzg