Bamboom promises free local TV over the web
If you work in local TV, here’s an interesting one for you. Bamboom is a new startup that’s working on a service that lets subscribers watch live and time-shifted local TV on phones, tablets and TV sets — without licensing the programming. Um, how? Let’s start with the Cablevision court ruling in 2008 that allowed [...]
Hulu Plus spotted in Xbox beta
Xbox has promised Hulu Plus is coming to Xbox Live this spring, and the video game blog Joystiq has a photo here of it in action in a private beta environment. It’s unclear if it will have any social features tied to Xbox Live (for example, letting us know what our friends are watching), but [...]
Mashable’s Lavrusik lands Facebook journalism job
Facebook continues to ramp up its efforts to court journalists with a new hire dedicated to the job: Mashable’s Vadim Lavrusik just announced (on Facebook, of course) that he’ll be joining the social network as “Journalist Program Manager.” “I will be leading the charge to build programs that help journalists utilize Facebook in their reporting [...]
Miso debuts contest to spur social TV ideas
Miso CEO Somrat Niyogi is honest about the future of TV check-ins. “We have found that the ‘check-in’ is just the starting point of a conversation about TV but it is not the be-all end-all,” he told Lost Remote. Miso, however, is a TV check-in app, similar to competitors GetGlue, TunerFish, Philo and IntoNow. That’s [...]
Andy Carvin’s Twitter ‘open newsgathering operation’
If you work in the social news business, you’re probably already following @acarvin on Twitter. When I first met NPR’s Andy Carvin in person at a session at SXSW (far right below), he was talking and tweeting in short, alternating bursts. Turns out, a Washington Post reporter had the same experience while interviewing him for [...]
Watch a debate in sync with tweets, transcript
As we begin to approach election season in the U.S., the Canadian season is in full swing. GlobalNews.ca has posted a cool interactive view of this week’s Leaders’ Debate, which ties tweets and a transcript together with the debate video: As you watch the replay, the transcript window scrolls to match. Below the player, a [...]
TV check-in app GetGlue hits 1 million users
Calling it major milestone, GetGlue says it has hit the one million user mark in March. The check-in app — which encourages users to check into TV shows and other forms entertainment, like movies and music — is now averaging one check-in per second. During primetime, GetGlue says it often hits 10 check-ins a second. [...]
Should TV get on Tumblr? KABC gives it a try
Tumblr is a relatively unexplored world for media organizations — especially in television — but today there’s a new TV station giving Tumblr a try. KABC in Los Angeles just debuted this Tumblr a few days ago with the goal to provide “insight to the newsroom and give you the latest Southern California news.” And [...]
SocialGuide strives to go beyond the TV check-in
With $1.5 million of fresh funding in its pocket, SocialGuide is full steam ahead with creating a new social TV platform that bridges TV shows with online conversations. When you first log into the SocialGuide beta site, you’ll see what founder Sean Casey calls “the first, real-time social programming guide.” The guide lists the most [...]
Analyst: Apple to launch subscription video service
Jefferies analyst Peter Misek has the TV industry buzzing today with a prediction that Apple is working on a huge, cloud-based video service that will take on Netflix. Misek writes in his report that Apple is close to opening a massive data center in North Carolina that will power it. Of course, Apple doesn’t comment [...]
Video phones kill the Flip Camera
Cisco announced today that it plans to shutter its Flip Cam unit — those very cool HD video cams that plug straight into your laptop — because its streamlining operations around its core networking products. The writing is on the wall: new smart phones are gobbling up the market, thanks to built-in video cameras and [...]
News brand engagement tips from HuffPo social manager
Mandy Jenkins, formerly the social media editor of TBD, and soon-to-be social media manager for Huffington Post Politics, has been busy blogging away about social media best-practices for news brands over at her blog, Zombie Journalism. “The key to communicating as a news brand – especially when many people are behind the curtain – is [...]
LG reveals ‘Tweet TV’ Android phone
NAB 2011 is off and running in Las Vegas, and one of the first social gadgets to come out of the broadcasting show is LG’s “Tweet TV” Android phone: The mobile DTV phone is a prototype that’s designed to show off LG’s ability to layer live data over a broadcast using software powered by Roundbox. [...]
C-SPAN scrolls tweets during quorum calls
C-SPAN is known for its riveting programming moments, like the quorum call, which the rest of the broadcasting world would fondly call “dead air.” During these pauses, C-SPAN is now scrolling tweets from senators and representatives. As Twitter’s Robin Sloan writes, “Quorum calls just got a lot more interesting!”
TV station rebrands as ‘Freedom 43 TV’
As the media universe gets more fragmented and cluttered — even more so with social media — diversification is key. For TV stations, that means unique programming, products and brands. And today, there’s word of an unusual rebranding at an Oklahoma TV station. From on-air to its Facebook and Twitter accounts, KAUT (previously known as [...]
‘Comedy Awards’ latest to plug Twitter hashtag on-air
We’ve written about several recent examples of TV producers promoting a hashtag or Twitter account on-air — from Oprah to the Oscars — to facilitate a social conversation along with the broadcast. And last night, The Comedy Awards joined the experiment by plugging the hashtag #comedyawards in the corner of the screen. (Photo from Comedy [...]
Masters iPad app shines on second screen
I’m a fan of Phil Mickelson, so when I turned on the Masters golf tournament on CBS on Saturday, I was disappointed to see him buried low on the leaderboard. In the game of golf, that means my favorite player wouldn’t be getting much airtime. That is, until I downloaded the Masters iPad app ($1.99), [...]
YouTube launches a live video experience
YouTube has hosted live events before, but now it’s launched a dedicated section to live video. More interesting, YouTube is rolling out a live streaming platform, “which will allow certain YouTube partners with accounts in good standing to stream live content on YouTube,” explains a blog post about the launch. We’re a bit surprised it’s [...]
