12 predictions for social TV in 2012
It’s great to watch Mashable, ReadWriteWeb and more proclaim that social TV has been one of 2011′s top trends. That’s why we focused Lost Remote exclusively on social TV nearly a year ago. Now that we’re heading into 2012, we believe that social TV is much greater than a trend: it’s nothing short of a revolution in the TV industry.
We’ve mapped out 12 of our predictions for next year based on emerging behavior we’re seeing in the social TV space. A couple, admittedly, are educated guesses, but that’s what makes it entertaining. To the list:
The year in social TV by Bluefin Labs [Infographic]
The VMAs, the X Factor and NBC all topped Bluefin Labs‘ most-social list for 2011 in a handy infographic that wraps up a big year for social TV. A glance at the word cloud makes it clear that the VMAs, Justin Bieber and the Jonas Brothers dominated conversations across the web. Here’s the infographic, and make sure you check out the additional insights they provided us following the graphic:
‘Bored To Death’ and ‘How To Make It’ fans react to cancellation
Sadly, great content and business models clashed recently as two of the best shows on television were cancelled. HBO’s ‘Bored To Death,’ ‘How To Make It In America,’ and ‘Hung,’ will be no more.
What hurt the most was not knowing that the recently concluded seasons for these shows would be their last….
SocialGuide’s year-end look at social TV [Infographic]
As 2012 is upon us, it’s very fun to see that the leading social TV data analyzers are proving fun and insightful infographics. Brooklyn-based SocialGuide, who will be rolling out a new analytics product soon, has put together a year-ender graphic with the most social TV and movies of 2011:
NBA Digital throws social town hall for Christmas opening
It seems like just yesterday that the NBA barely made it out of a horrendous lockout and announced that the season would kick off on Christmas Day. You can imagine what it must have been like to be a social media marketer working at the NBA and it’s affiliates. Everything was frozen as talks went on, and fans across social were sad, upset, angry and eager for basketball to return on TV and in their cities.
While the major social marketers at the NBA and NBA Digital (managed by Turner Sports) probably had game plans ready to go with the hope that there would be a season, they really had no idea when this might be, or that they’d be thrown into a Christmas Day launch that they know millions around the globe would be anticipating and tuned into. They spectacularly planned an “unprecedented ’NBA Town Hall’ on Facebook,” and through #BIGNBAXMAS and @NBA on Twitter.
How STARZ is using social TV with ‘Boss’ and ‘Spartacus’
As the year comes to an end, it’s a good time to reflect on some of the best television shows from this fall. There’s been a handful of new successes from the premium cable channels, which is no surprise since they’re able to be riskier and raunchier not having to answer to advertisers and broadcast standards. The premium cable space is also much smaller, so it’s often even more competitive than broadcast and cable. Since 2009′s cult-favorite Party Down (which is now being made into a movie) STARZ has been smartly investing in more original programming as the network competes in the premium cable world that has constantly benefited TV fans with superb content.
Kelly Oxford and the future of Twitter-savvy TV writers
Kelly Oxford is the latest personality known for her Twitter feed (@kellyoxford) and blog to get a TV deal. NBC will pick up her “single-camera ensemble comedy,” written by Oxford, that will be about a divorcing couple and an overbearing sister.
Since CBS cancelled “$#*! My Dad Says,” there’s been skepticism on the possibility of giving someone who has attracted a large Twitter following a chance to write for TV.
GetGlue rolls out new conversation, discovery and web features
Today, GetGlue has announced a bunch of updates for their iPhone and web app with the hope of improving discovery within their community of “over 2,000,000 entertainment fans that checked-in more than 100,000,000 times” in 2011. This past year was a big one for GetGlue; they really seem to have created a place for TV fans to find each other, win fun stickers (that they actually send you) and more. They even had a promotion with Entertainment Weekly and the GAP with a 40% discount for the fall TV season.
Networked Insights and IPG Mediabrands team up to provide real-time data for TV upfronts
Networked Insights, one of the leading social TV data companies, and IPG Media brands have announced that they will “provide a solution that will help brands get the most value from their TV advertising dollars based on a TV show’s social profile at this year’s upfronts.”
Networked Insights says its clients have seen at least a “10 percent increase in media spend efficiency from this approach.” Social already played a huge role at this year’s upfronts in May, and while 2011 hasn’t even ended yet it, seems it’s going to play an even larger role in where advertisers spend in May 2012.
KOMO-TV to stream live news to mobile devices
When local stations cover breaking weather stories, one of their greatest challenges is getting the information to the people who really need it. Hurricanes, blizzards and tornadoes are often accompanied with wide-spread power outages. And that means no TV. For mobile users, the smartphone becomes their best (and only) option for news. It’s one of many reasons why streaming live video to mobile makes sense for newsrooms.
In September, Scripps Television became the first local TV group to enable live streaming to mobile devices via their partnership with EndPlay. And now Fisher Communications has signed up with EndPlay to offer the solution to their viewers as well.
How the Food Network used social to capitalize on Thanksgiving
For TV companies focused on food, Thanksgiving is one the most important times of year to leverage web users, searching, sharing, snapping pictures and most importantly eating delicious food. The Food Network recognized how important creating an easy destination online for the holiday and programming shareable content along online to compliment their linear offerings.
Their work paid off earning the Food Network their highest rated November in their history…
Social TV startup Tweek.TV launches from Berlin [Invites]
Part of the excitement around the fact that social TV is still so young is that there’s an entire globe out there ready to hack, create and find new ways to make TV more social. Last week Tweek.TV, another social TV startup emerged in one of my favorite cities, Berlin. Marcel Duee, the company’s co-founder previously worked at a startup (considered to be one of Berlin’s first startups) that was sold to Nokia.
ABC News debuts political site with social stock market
ABC News has rolled out OTUSPolitics.com (as in “Of the United States”) this morning, a dedicated politics site to cover the 2012 Presidential Campaign. At the top of the site is a ticker called a “Political Stock Market” — powered in part with data from the social TV startup Bluefin Labs — which shows how the candidates are “trending.” Explains ABC:
Fox News ties Twitter to real-time debate feedback
During Thursday night’s GOP debate, FoxNews.com tracked real-time Twitter feedback by using two hashtags, #answer and #dodge. When viewers felt a candidate was answering the question, they tweeted #answer along with the candidate’s name. And when a candidate was avoiding it, #dodge. The results were compiled in real-time on FoxNews.com, powered by Mass Relevance:
Inside look at how VH1′s ‘Tough Love’ leveraged Facebook
At the Social TV Summit last month, Facebook’s Andy Mitchell told the audience that he’s “pretty confident” the massive social network can help drive ratings. Since Facebook has more than 800 million active users, most networks have adopted a strategy of creating show-specific pages to create and nurture the communities around their shows. This is also the case for VH1′s ‘Tough Love,’ a reality show about matchmaking and dating advice, hosted by matchmaker and celeb-host Steven Ward.
New BreakingNews.com asks crowd to help curate stories
For the last several months, the social news startup BreakingNews — where I work — has been growing our editorial team to filter and verify breaking news from the growing avalanche of real-time information. Most news organizations ask viewers to send them eyewitness photos and video, but we’re trying a different approach: since many eyewitnesses are already sharing their firsthand accounts via social media, our goal is to discover, verify and point to them as quickly as possible.
Today we launched a new BreakingNews.com that encourages the crowd to help us do just that. Using the same tools as our editors, users can search and submit eyewitness reports.
NBC stations partner with Instagram for viewer photos
Several NBC owned-and-operated stations have teamed up with Instagr.am to solicit viewer photos to use on-air and online. While the station sites have their own photo upload capability, the new partnership taps a thriving community of 15 million mobile phone photographers on Instagram.
For example, NBC stations in NY, DC, Miami and Connecticut are inviting viewers to use the app to snap their favorite photos of holiday lights. If you’ve used Instagram, you’ll know you can’t “send” a photo to someone, but you can add a hashtag. In NBC’s case, stations asking users to include localized hashtags on the photo so staff can discover them. NBC says most of its stations have integrated Instagram into their production systems for a seamless way to port them on the air.
MLB Network unveils brand new social media layer to studio
Even though it’s the off-season for the MLB, the MLB Network is hard at work leveraging social media by curating off-season chatter through their programming — and now they’ve rolled out a brand new social media area inside of their state-of-the-art Studio 3 in New Jersey.
The social area of the studio serves up 108-inch touchscreens for MLB Network talent to interact with fans through Facebook polls, Twitter and email. MLB Network has over 98,000 followers on Twitter and over 350,000 likes on Facebook.
