TV station giving away a car in Facebook contest
We’ve written lots of stories on Lost Remote about TV stations throwing Facebook contests to drive new likes — giving away iPads, concert tickets and donations to charities — but WFSB-TV in Hartford, Conn. is holding a contest with the biggest prize we’ve seen to date: a brand new 2011 Nissan Maxima. The contest, timed with sweeps, has four days remaining, and the station has already shot up to 76K fans, up from 58K fans a month ago.
Watch Facebook, Twitter and YouTube at the Social TV Summit
The second Social TV Summit, organized by Andy Batkin, kicks off tomorrow (Wednesday) in NYC. Lost Remote (myself) will be there covering the event, and we will be streaming the live conference here on LostRemote.com like we did for the sold-out event this past summer in LA (this one’s also sold out).
10 broadcast TV groups team with ConnecTV for second screen
In one of the largest social TV partnerships to date, ten local broadcast groups are announcing a partnership today with ConnecTV to power second-screen experiences in markets covering 76 million households. The long-term commercial partnership spans marketing, advertising, and for some partners, an equity investment in ConnecTV.
The partners make up a who’s-who list of broadcasters: Gannett, Hearst, Belo, Scripps, Cox, Media General, Meredith, Post-Newsweek, Raycom and Barrington…
Sundance Channel premieres show on Twitter
AMC Networks’ Sundance Channel has unleashed the premier episode of Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys via TwitVid on their Twitter account. The show’s season two, which “celebrates the special relationship between straight women and gay men,” will premier on Friday night 11/18 at 9pm.
NBC’s Grim also offered the first episode via Twitter but required that you follow the show so they could DM you a code. With this TwitVid integration…
CNN launches a new, more social iReport
In August, CNN celebrated iReport’s 5th anniversary and announced a redesign of the site was in the works. The redesign is here with the goal to create the largest “social network for news,” according to Lila King, Participation Director at CNN who heads up iReport.
Both individual iReporters profile pages and group pages have gotten major updates, making them easier to navigate the different pieces of content (photos, videos, etc) that a user has contributed to an “assignment.”
Study finds mainstream media not using Twitter effectively
Mainstream media Twitter accounts rarely retweet others, don’t respond to people and largely focus on promoting their own links, finds a new study from Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. The study examined tweets from @nytimes, @cnn, @foxnews, @msnbc and several other larger media accounts, and it revealed “limited use of the institution’s public Twitter identity, one that generally takes less advantage of the interactive and reportorial nature of the Twitter.”
Slingbox coming to Facebook ‘soon’
It seems like my prayers are starting to get answered regarding Slingbox’s lack of social integration. About a week after I wrote my open letter to the company asking them let their customers help them share Slingbox on the social web, Conrad Gomes, a Senior Software Engineer at Sling Media commented that, “we’re trying,” and shared a link.
TV Land puts episodes up for Facebook vote
Fans of “The King of Queens” were asked a few days ago on Facebook to vote for their favorite episodes, and now the top ten will air in a weekend marathon on TV Land. Out of 1.4 million total fans on the “The King of Queens” Facebook page — it was also shared from TV Land’s page — nearly 5,000 placed their votes, says TV Land in an email.
Tablets blow away desktops in video engagement
Here’s yet another study that shows that tablets are made for video. Ooyala found that tablets averaged nearly 30 percent more viewing time per play than desktops, and tablet users completed videos at double the desktop rate. And most surprising, “Viewer engagement was generally higher on mobile devices (excluding tablets) than on desktops— even for long form videos.” Here’s the chart:
Who really owns TV talent’s social media accounts?
I’ve been asked this question more times by TV execs in the last year than any other: who really owns a personality’s social media accounts? Beyond Facebook and Twitter themselves, it’s a big grey area, but now there’s a case in the courts that claims that a Twitter account is a company trade secret.
Why is torrenting being ignored by the social TV world?
If you know anyone that lives outside the US that’s a TV junkie, there’s a good chance they religiously use torrenting to watch their favorite shows hours after they air on the East Coast. A few years ago I had the chance to hear CBS CEO Les Moonves speak at New York University, and I asked him if they care about the international community torrenting CBS’s content. He responded that the real problem with illegal downloading is with movies and that they’re not as concerned with TV.
Billy Crystal to host Oscars after trending on Twitter
It’s official, Billy Crystal will be hosting the Oscars. The actor and comedian hasn’t hosted since 2004 but is generally remembered by all ages as one of the best hosts of our time. Crystal made the announcement on Twitter less than thirty minutes ago, in a pretty funny way:
80% of mobile users multitask in front of TV
That’s just one data point in a fantastic study and analysis from Razorfish+Yahoo about the growing “second screen” opportunity. “A new imperative is clear, especially for those spending heavily on TV,” explains Razorfish’s Jeremy Lockhorn. “Content and experiences that move seamlessly from one screen to another are an absolute must.” Let’s break down some of best data from the study and then explore Lockhorn’s spot-on analysis:
Ashton Kutcher giving up management of his Twitter account
In the wake of a Twitter goof, Ashton Kutcher said he’s turning over the management of his @aplusk Twitter account to his team at Katalyst Media. It all started last night when Kutcher said he discovered that Penn St. Coach Joe Paterno had been fired. “Having no more information than that, I assumed that he had been fired due to poor performance as an aging coach,” he later explained on his blog.
Social analysis of CNBC’s Republican debate [INFOGRAPHIC]
Bluefin Labs put together a great infographic detailing the social results from last night’s Republican debate on CNBC. It looks like the official hashtag #CNBCDebate did well based on the Conversation Gist at the bottom. It seems there was a larger percentage of males chatting about the debate, and jobs, economy and housing were the most discussed topics:
X Factor app shows promise for the second screen
The X Factor iPad app disappointed me at first. Upon opening, it thought I lived on the East Coast, popping up a countdown for Thursday night’s show while I watched Wednesday’s show live on TV (I live in Seattle). But then I saw the “synchronize” button at the bottom of the app. I touched, and after a few moments of listening to my TV, it transformed the app into a synched second-screen experience.
CNBC features debate viewers’ tweets in ticker
Tweets in tickers aren’t particularly groundbreaking anymore, but CNBC’s iconic ticker was the ideal platform for viewer tweets during the Republican debate. Tweets scrolled consistently along the bottom level of the always-present ticker — even during commercial breaks. CNBC encouraged viewers to include the hashtag #CNBCdebate, and the best appeared on air:
Amazon Fire setting the stage as a social TV player
The Amazon Fire hits virtual (and actual) store shelves next week, and a new Retrevo survey suggests that the $199 device could be a big-seller — of consumers looking to buy a tablet, 44% say they’ll consider buying the Fire, another 44% say they want to learn more, and 12% say they want an iPad:
