The State of Social TV
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Livia Iacolare, a social media coordinator at Current TV, discusses the concept of 'social television,' which connects viewers through technology such as apps that enhance the TV experience. She highlights innovations like real-time tweet displays during broadcasts and apps that sync content with what's being watched. Iacolare suggests that social TV could improve traditional rating systems and lead to more targeted advertising as the technology evolves.
The State of Social TV
- 1. 1)I am Livia Iacolare and I’m the social media coordinator for the Italian edition of Current TV. I’m currently doing some researches on the so called “social tv” phenomenon and I’d like to share my findings with you.
- 2. 2)The first question is “what’s social television?”. It’s anything that connects people through television: it may be a special box set, an iPhone app or any particular technology designed for that purpose.
- 3. 3)Actually TV itself has always been a social medium, because it creates a representation of society as it is and aggregates a community around specific events that shape a common identity.
- 4. 4)Moreover, we can watch TV while chatting with our friends, because TV content contains breaks and pauses that allow us to focus our attention on something else without missing anything.
- 5. 5)The development of technology also allowed us to have the so called two-screens experience, whereby we can watch TV while using our laptop or smartphone to share our viewing experience.
- 6. 6)A collective viewing experience is not necessarily a social experience. Is there anything such as “social cinema”? I haven’t heard of it. We don’t Tweet from a theater while watching a movie... Unless it’s a very bad movie or “The Tourist”.
- 7. 7)We don’t chat with our neighbor, unless we’re stupid and uneducated. That’s because the location itself discourages interaction, due to established social rules that no one is willing to violate.
- 8. 8)Now let's roll some social TV experiments: I want to mention what we did at Current to cover US Presidential Elections in 2008: we were able to display Tweets on screen during the presidential debates in USA. It was pretty cool!
- 9. 9)Currently there are iPhone and iPad apps that allow you to check into show (or rather potato couch-ins): it’s basically the logic behind Foursquare applied to TV consumption. Miso and GetGlue are the most popular ones.
- 10. 10)What are the pros? You check in and earn special badges, product discounts. What are the cons? You have to perform in-app searches in order to find the show you are watching. They still require too much effort.
- 11. 11)ABC made a step forward by creating an app that is able to sync up with what is going on on TV just by listening to audio. This app works only for Grey’s Anatomy, the most popular show of the network.
- 12. 12)Once the app is ready the iPad screen animates and shows polls, additional information and content that is related to what you are watching. It also allows you to share your activity on social networks and message your friends.
- 13. 13)Only two weeks ago some people in California launched IntoNow, an app that is like Shazam for TV shows. It instantly recognizes what show you are watching just by listening to audio. It covers 130 channels of live broadcasting.
- 14. 14)Now, thanks to these apps we can collect interesting information about how many people are watching our content on TV... But what about the sentiment? What do they think about what they see on TV?
- 15. 15)About 10 days ago Bluefin Lab released a technology based on MIT researches which enables content producers to track in real time and at scale what people are saying on social networks about every single piece of content.
- 16. 16)...which actually brings me to talk about the reliability of traditional TV rating systems. Do you know how many families in Italy are actually monitored by the the official TV rating system? Only 5163. I’m sorry... how many people live in Italy? 60 millions? That’s not even 5% of the Italian population!
- 17. 17)Social TV might actually provide us with better ways to calculate TV ratings in the future. How will that be possible? Well, I believe that the real change will arrive once all TV sets will be connected to the Internet.
- 18. 18)Information about the audience will be much more detailed, to the point that we will see contextual ads the way we do now on the Web or rather extremely targeted ads that only appeal to the people who are watching TV.
- 19. 19)The natural evolution of social TV would be a more sophisticated on-demand TV whereas the system is able to automatically pick the shows that you like and also suggests the ones you might like or that your friends like.
- 20. 20)So that’s pretty much what I was able to share with you in 5 minutes. The evolution of social TV is currently in progress, so if you are interested in this topic feel free to check out my blog and follow me on twitter. Thank you!
Editor's Notes
- #2: I am Livia Iacolare and I’m the social media coordinator for the Italian edition of Current TV. I’m currently doing some researches on the so called “social tv” phenomenon and I’d like to share my findings with you.\n
- #3: The first question is “what’s social television?”. It’s anything that connects people through television: it may be a special box set, an iPhone app or any particular technology designed for that purpose.\n\n
- #4: Actually TV itself has always been a social medium, because it creates a representation of society as it is and aggregates a community around specific events that shape a common identity.\n
- #5: Moreover, we can watch TV while chatting with our friends, because TV content contains breaks and pauses that allow us to focus our attention on something else without missing anything.\n
- #6: The development of technology also allowed us to have the so called two-screens experience, whereby we can watch TV while using our laptop or smartphone to share our viewing experience.\n
- #7: A collective viewing experience is not necessarily a social experience. Is there anything such as “social cinema”? I haven’t heard of it. We don’t Tweet from a theater while watching a movie... Unless it’s a very bad movie or “The Tourist”.\n\n
- #8: We don’t chat with our neighbor, unless we’re stupid and uneducated. That’s because the location itself discourages interaction, due to established social rules that no one is willing to violate. \n
- #9: Now let's roll some social TV experiments: I want to mention what we did at Current to cover US Presidential Elections in 2008: we were able to display Tweets on screen during the presidential debates in USA. It was pretty cool!\n\n
- #10: Currently there are iPhone and iPad apps that allow you to check into show (or rather potato couch-ins): it’s basically the logic behind Foursquare applied to TV consumption. Miso and GetGlue are the most popular ones.\n
- #11: What are the pros? You check in and earn special badges, product discounts. What are the cons? You have to perform in-app searches in order to find the show you are watching. They still require too much effort.\n\n
- #12: ABC made a step forward by creating an app that is able to sync up with what is going on on TV just by listening to audio. This app works only for Grey’s Anatomy, the most popular show of the network.\n\n
- #13: Once the app is ready the iPad screen animates and shows polls, additional information and content that is related to what you are watching. It also allows you to share your activity on social networks and message your friends.\n\n
- #14: Only two weeks ago some people in California launched IntoNow, an app that is like Shazam for TV shows. It instantly recognizes what show you are watching just by listening to audio. It covers 130 channels of live broadcasting.\n\n
- #15: Now, thanks to these apps we can collect interesting information about how many people are watching our content on TV... But what about the sentiment? What do they think about what they see on TV?\n
- #16: About 10 days ago Bluefin Lab released a technology based on MIT researches which enables content producers to track in real time and at scale what people are saying on social networks about every single piece of content. \n\n
- #17: ...which actually brings me to talk about the reliability of traditional TV rating systems. Do you know how many families in Italy are actually monitored by the the official TV rating system? Only 5163. I’m sorry... how many people live in Italy? 60 millions? That’s not even 5% of the Italian population!\n
- #18: Social TV might actually provide us with better ways to calculate TV ratings in the future. How will that be possible? Well, I believe that the real change will arrive once all TV sets will be connected to the Internet.\n\n
- #19: Information about the audience will be much more detailed, to the point that we will see contextual ads the way we do now on the Web or rather extremely targeted ads that only appeal to the people who are watching TV. \n\n
- #20: The natural evolution of social TV would be a more sophisticated on-demand TV whereas the system is able to automatically pick the shows that you like and also suggests the ones you might like or that your friends like.\n\n
- #21: So that’s pretty much what I was able to share with you in 5 minutes. The evolution of social TV is currently in progress, so if you are interested in this topic feel free to check out my blog and follow me on twitter. Thank you!\n\n