CBS Local among new ‘Save to Foursquare’ partners
Foursquare rolled out a new feature today than enables users to save their favorite restaurants, bars and other spots to their “To Do Lists” with the click of a button. Foursquare announced several publishers who are adding the “save” button on their sites, including CBS Local’s TV websites.
‘Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show’ tops social TV charts
Well, perhaps this isn’t a big surprise, but last night’s Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on CBS dominated the Trendrr social TV charts for the night, outpacing the next closest show, Glee, 3-to-1. Turns out, CBS offered social integration in the show’s very popular live stream along with some high-powered social promotion.
What Spotify’s new app platform could mean for social TV
Spotify just announced an app store, which could significantly change the music industry and potentially provide an amazing platform for TV companies to connect music on TV with fans. The first new apps, which can be previewed for US users here (and will roll out to consumers in December), will be free. The launch includes, “Billboard, Fuse, The Guardian, Last.fm, Moodagent, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Songkick, Soundrop, TuneWiki and We Are Hunted, with Top10 and ShareMyPlaylists apps coming soon.”
Flingo dives into social TV with synchronized TV apps
With CES inching closer, the connected, smart, Internet-enabled TV market continuing to heat up. In fact, the Connected TV Marketing Association (CTVMA) just launched this week, which strives to promote and grow the quickly-emerging connected TV business.
One company that’s already been developing connected TV apps for three years is Flingo, a company that builds “super apps for smart TVs,” on Insignia, LG, Samsung, Vizio, Sanyo, Western Digital, and Netgear devices. Last month the company announced they’d be working with Collective Digital Studio to bring YouTube celebs The Annoying Orange, Fred, iJustine and FreddieW delivered straight to connected TV sets — a step to create a new kind of primetime on TV for these stars.
Verizon Fios will become first MSO to go live on Xbox Live
The seventh largest MSO, Verizon Fios announced today it will be offering 26 channels on Xbox Live beginning next month. In October, Microsoft announced live TV offerings from Comcast and Verizon. The Verizon-issued release described the advantage for Fios customers who are also Xbox-ers: “For the first time, these customers will be able to integrate their TV experience with voice and gesture commands through Kinect for Xbox 360.” If your an Xbox Live user you’ll need a Gold membership to go along with your Fios subscription. Here’s what the partnership will offer:
4 qualities of Facebook’s most-shared stories
Yahoo and CNN dominated the list of Facebook’s 40 most-shared articles of the year, which the social network released today. Yahoo accounted for 13, CNN had 10, NYTimes and Huffington Post had 7, Washington Post with 3 and WSJ had 1 on the list.
Why social TV startup BeeTV is calling it quits
The social TV space is exploding, but one startup is calling it quits — BeeTV announced today it’s putting its assets up for sale. “Right now we are trying to sell all the company’s assets (technology, patents, etc.) so the future is really dependent on what a potential buyer would do with this technology and the service that comes with it,” BeeTV CEO Yaniv Solnik told us in an email.
The company rolled out an update to its iPhone app in July, but it’s no longer available. “The service will have to go down, since we can’t afford to keep it alive,” Solnik told us. So what happened?
Gilbert Gottfried returns to TV after Twitter faux pas
Comedian Gilbert Gottfried received a huge amount of negative attention and lost a gig voicing the Aflac duck in their TV commercials after he made jokes on Twitter about Japan’s tsunami, shortly after the tragedy occurred. After about eight months out of the spotlight, Gottfried will be returning to television on an episode of Law & Order SVU, the New York Post reports.
‘Cord nevers’ will drive drop in pay TV subs, says analyst
The debate over cord-cutting reminds me of the DVR commercial-skipping debate several years ago. But now a respected analyst has weighed in with a new twist, cutting his projection of pay TV subscribers to a loss of 200,000 for next year, down from his earlier forecast of a gain of 250,000.
Credit Suisse analyst Stefan Anninger says it’s not about people cutting their service, but never signing up for it in the first place. “The real challenge to the pay TV business model are behaviorally-driven cord-nevers,” he said in a new report.
Big Ten Network releases an iPad app
Sports is a clear-cut opportunity for the second screen, and we’re starting to see the verticalization of iPad apps across leagues, sports channels and now conferences. The Big Ten Network, which says it’s “the most widely distributed authenticated sports television product in the marketplace,” has launched an iPhone and iPad app with live streaming.
As is becoming customary, the app requires authentication to access the games — you have to be a subscriber to the Big Ten Networks channel via Bright House Networks, Charter, Cox, DIRECTV, Dish Network or Time Warner Cable.
Google Plus debuts its first TV commercial
Google+ has launched a television commercial, which started airing during the Lions vs. Packers NFL game on Thanksgiving. The commercial focuses on the importance of “Circles” and how, “in your head you assign everyone these roles, once you step back and get away from that you realize these are the people that were actually there for me.”
Mississippi State paints a big Twitter hashtag in end zone
Twitter hashags on TV are all the rage, and one college is going all-out to ensure its hashtag will get some airtime this weekend. Mississippi State has painted a huge “#HAILSTATE” in the end zone for the “Egg Bowl” on Saturday against Ole Miss.
The idea sprang out of a weekly marketing meeting, said athletic director Scott Stricklin.
Thanksgiving check-ins on GetGlue raise money to fight cancer
GetGlue has partnered with Aflac to help fight pediatric cancer. On Thanksgiving Day, Aflac is donating $1 per GetGlue check-in up to $1 million. The Aflac duck is making its debut in the Thanksgiving Parade, so naturally viewers can check-in and earn a sticker. Check-in again later in the day to earn the Thanksgiving Day parade sticker — every check-in raises $1.
Social analysis of Tuesday’s Republican Debate on CNN
Bluefin Labs has again provided us with some great data on last night’s GOP debate on CNN. The debate accepted questions from audience members as well as questions submitted via Twitter, which were displayed on-air leading into each commercial. Bluefin Labs says the Twitter integration may have helped drive up total comments (second highest number of comments since the debate on September 7)….
An inside look at yap.tv’s most popular viewer polls
It’s hard to tell if there’s a leader in the second screen app space. Each has it benefits, needs to evolve more and will have to adapt quickly as the technology around their platforms quickly changes. We’ve recently written about yap.tv since the platform is now powering USA Anywhere.
eBay dips toe in social TV waters with updated iPad app
The shopping giant eBay has just updated its iPad app with a new feature called “Watch along with eBay.” The company’s first foray into the second-screen universe, the app displays items for sale that relate to the TV show you’re watching. Well, roughly relate.
eBay exec Steve Yankovich said he was inspired to add the new feature after watching the movie “Something’s Gotta Give” and wanting to buy a toaster in the flick. “You’ll be able to buy exactly what’s there,” he told SF Gate.
Inside the ‘Social TV’ book, now available for pre-order
The social TV world is quickly growing and expanding. Top level TV executives are discussing the current and future potential to sell social. Social data is becoming one of the main determinants to tell the temperature of how programming is received. Second screen apps and social TV startups are innovating each week and TV apps and websites are all transforming into the “second screen“.
Mike Proulx, Senior Vice President & Director of Social Media at Hill Holliday, is one of the leading thinkers in this space and along with co-author Stacey Shepatin (who leads Hill Holliday’s national broadcast buying practice) has added another page to the social TV history books by writing the first book dedicated to the topic…
USA Network’s Anywhere iPad app goes live
We recently gave you an exclusive look at the USA Anywhere app, powered by yap.tv. The second-screen app is now live and can be downloaded for iPhone and iPad here.
Jesse Redniss, USA Network’s VP of Digital Media gave us a quick interview on what to expect with the app:
Lost Remote: Will you promoting the app on-air?
