Inside NBC Philadelphia’s Foursquare efforts
A couple weeks ago, NBC 10 Philadelphia announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with Foursquare where reporters check-in and post updates from news stories. Now, NBC 10 has posted a promotional video that goes behind the scenes with reporter Tim Furlong on a story. “I think when people watch local TV, they want to feel invested in [...]
ABC’s ‘Dancing with the Stars’ gets social spin
Dancing with the Stars (or DWTS, as the kids say) is one of the most social shows on television, and ABC.com has just rolled out a social discussion section in advance of the season premiere. “We want to galvanize the entire social media conversation around ‘Dancing With The Stars’ into one place on ABC.com,” explains [...]
CNN acquires iPad magazine app Zite
CNN announced today it has acquired Zite, a personalized iPad magazine app, for an undisclosed sum. Similar to Flipboard, Zite starts with your Twitter account or Google Reader subscription — along with other customizations — to auto-populate an iPad experience that learns with your reading behavior. “Zite represents the next generation of content discovery and [...]
Shazam for TV helps Lil Wayne, Bing, ABC
Since Shazam announced that they raised $32 million to expand their integrations with TV, they’ve been busy working with Syfy, BRAVO, Oxygen and Spike TV allowing Shazamers to tag and unlock extra content. Shazam teamed up with Universal Motown, Lil Wayne’s music label and Vevo (“ranked by comScore as the #1 Music platform on the [...]
Beyonce helps MTV VMA’s set Twitter records
Every year the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) has that one big moment described as “lightening in a bottle,” by VP of Programming for MTV Digital Colin Helms. Last night that moment was when Beyonce finished performing, threw down her microphone, rubbed her belly indicating she was pregnant, followed by the camera turning to a [...]
Watching the VMAs with MTV’s second screen app
While MTV has gotten some criticism for the fact that they don’t have a host for this year’s VMAs, they ramped up their second-screen and social media offerings for Sunday night’s show in some impressive and innovative ways. “Our goal is always to create an additive experience, not distract, and capture that natural behavior in [...]
ESPN goes live with new Xbox experience
Sports fans will love the new ESPN Xbox experience, which just became available as an update for Xbox Live Gold subscribers who are using a participating cable, satellite or internet service from ESPN3 (list). We just gave it a spin and snapped a few photos. Like before, you can watch games in HD, but the [...]
Bravo partners with OkCupid for ‘Most Eligible Dallas’
While Bravo’s mega Housewives empire is in a bit of turmoil, it seems they might have a new brand on the rise fused with a new partnership with dating site OkCupid. In it’s second week “Most Eligible Dallas“, a docu-series on the top socialites from Dallas, had a double-digit increase in TV ratings to 860,000 viewers, [...]
NY Giants first in NFL to integrate Twitter on TV
In a first for an NFL team, the New York Giants will integrate Twitter into its live TV broadcasts and in-stadium videos. Through a partnership with Mass Relevance, the Giants will filter and display fan tweets during the remainder of the preseason games as well as the pre and post-game shows. During the games, tweets [...]
East Coast earthquake social media resources
Update: Twitter reports it had 5,500 tweets per second at the height of today’s quake. It notes that this rate (which it calls TPS) is higher than when Bin Laden was killed and is on par with the number of tweets during the Japan quake. Update: It’s certainly looking like the earthquake has only done [...]
Briefs: Fox, Facebook, Twitter, GroupMe
A few of the social media and TV stories making news today: – BitTorrent downloads for FOX shows spike after streaming delay (GigaOm) – Miramax brings movie streaming to Facebook for $3 a rental (PaidContent) – Twitter adds user photo galleries with last 100 pics tweeted (RWW) – Skype pays around $85 million to acquire [...]
Local TV is back and more social than ever
After a few years of tough times, many local TV stations are roaring back with higher margins and more newscasts. But have TV stations taken the economic turbulence to heart and embraced innovation in a new media world? “Our view was that local broadcasting had gone on autopilot,” said Dave Lougee, president of Gannett Broadcasting [...]
Foursquare launches events, teams with ESPN
Foursquare announced yet another new feature today — users can now check into events, like football games, movies and concerts (but no TV shows, at least yet). The mobile app has partnered with ESPN to help power the sporting events calendar as well as provide news around the events themselves. Screen grab of a sporting [...]
MTV’s launches ‘WatchWith’ for iPhone
Today, MTV announced an iPhone version of their WatchWith app (already available for the iPad) to offer a second screen experience for their shows, “including Jersey Shore, Awkward, Teen Wolf, 16 & Pregnant, Teen Mom and The Challenges.” Kristin Frank, general manager of MTV/VH1 digital media, explained how important this new app is for the [...]
The top TV shows, celebs and teams on TVGuide.com
Earlier this month, TVGuide.com debuted its Watchlist feature, which allows TV viewers to find and follow their favorite shows, celebs and teams across linear TV, video on demand and online services like Netflix. Now with a couple weeks under its belt, TVGuide.com has released its list of its most watched topics: Top Shows: 1. [...]
Hesitant at first, TV talent dive into Twitter
My favorite story of how TV talent triumphantly avoided social media — then embraced it with open arms when they needed it — has to be Conan O’Brien. Suddenly without a network, Conan went from zero to social overnight. But there’s another story you may not have heard. Pauley Perrette, who plays Abbey Sciuto on [...]
Social TV startup Umami scores seed funding
The New York social TV startup Umami announced a $1.65MM seed funding round today as it prepares to roll out a second-screen iPad app in time for the fall television season. Umami bills itself as a “turnkey publishing platform” for networks to create second-screen experiences around TV shows at lower cost than creating one themselves. [...]
ABC ready to follow FOX on web pullback
Last month FOX announced it was instituting an eight-day delay on streaming its shows to Fox.com and Hulu. That is, unless you’re a subscriber of a participating cable, satellite or IPTV service through the TV Anywhere initiative — or a Hulu Plus customer. Not surprisingly, now there’s word that ABC is planning to follow suit. [...]
