Siobhan O'Flynn's 1001 Tales http://1001tales.posterous.com tracing the roots & tendrils of storytelling today posterous.com Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:46:00 -0700 The future of TV is social & the revolution is coming! A Must Read Article from David Wasserman Digital Culture Blog « WCN TRANSMEDIA GROUP http://1001tales.posterous.com/the-future-of-tv-is-social-the-revolution-is http://1001tales.posterous.com/the-future-of-tv-is-social-the-revolution-is

"Named last year as one of the ten most important emerging technologies by the MIT Technology Review social TV is fast rising as one of the hottest topics since group buying. Ynon Kreiz, CEO of the Endemol group the largest independent production company in the world responsible for Big brother said Social TV is going to be huge.
“The ability to create content that will enable people to interface with each other, to connect, to recommend, to share and experience over television, is going to change the landscape of the industry.” 
But will social TV really live up to the hype? In this article we take a look at what social TV is, what the main trends are shaping TV, the challenges and the opportunities going forwards for media companies, businesses and marketers alike.

What is social TV?

Simply put, it’s about merging your social media networks to the TV.  It’s making TV social–again. It’s about taking the water cooler effect and making this virtual, it’s about the empowered consumer viewing content when and where they want, deciding who they want to share it with and being able to do this all in real time.In essence it is a term that describes technology that supports communication and social interaction in either the context of watching television, or related to TV content.Viewers are now using social media to connect with the TV with content that matters to them. Then, as the MIT study shows, they are engaging in massive real-time conversations around those shows and learning to be a part of that conversation and it is a participatory culture as well as a personalised one.TV always been social and on the face of it TV and social media seem like a natural fit but if the TV industry is going to make the most of the opportunities it is going to have change quickly and learn the lessons of the music industry...."

Social TV Figure
Figure 1 The Core elements of Social TV 

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Tue, 15 Mar 2011 04:24:00 -0700 'Twitter & TV have unique relationship' It's Not TV, It's Social TV: SXSW Panel http://1001tales.posterous.com/twitter-tv-have-unique-relationship-its-not-t http://1001tales.posterous.com/twitter-tv-have-unique-relationship-its-not-t

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Sat, 05 Jun 2010 19:45:15 -0700 The Next Wave of Social Apps Will Change Your TV Forever http://1001tales.posterous.com/the-next-wave-of-social-apps-will-change-your http://1001tales.posterous.com/the-next-wave-of-social-apps-will-change-your

The Next Wave of Social Apps Will Change Your TV Forever

Posted by Martin Bryant on June 5th, 2010

We’re standing on the edge of the next big social media revolution and your TV viewing will never be the same.

Where we are right now

To date,  online TV experiences have been quite limited. Apple TV, Roku and others offer easy ways to access online video content on your TV, while Netflix has brought movie streaming to a wider audience of TV viewers in the US via its service for games consoles.

At the same time, viewers are craving a more social way to watch TV. Many readers of The Next Web will have watched a TV show with a laptop, phone or tablet in front of them, using Twitter as a ‘backchannel’ to discuss the show with others as it goes out. Services like Miso and Picklive are attempting to build on this concept with TV-related games but things are about to get a lot more interesting.

In the next couple of years we’re going to see these two strands – technical advancements and changes in the way we want to watch TV – colliding to create a new form of TV viewing that is inherently social – and the implications will be huge.

A new type of TV

High-end TVs have been slowly transforming into computers for the past couple of years. a number of Internet-enabled TVs, for example, support Yahoo widgets that bring Twitter, Facebook, eBay and more direct to your TV screen.

This is only the beginning. More advanced systems like the recently-announced Google TV will allow developers much more scope to innovate with how they integrate social media with broadcast TV. At first it’s likely that we’ll see quite simple apps built around this idea. It would be relatively easy, for example to develop an app that displayed tweets related to the currently viewed TV show – perhaps by using an agreed hashtag for each show.

As we noted last time we explored the future of social TV, “tweets on screen” have limited appeal; it’s just another form of one-way broadcasting. Something more immersive and interactive would be far more interesting.

Building social interaction into the TV show itself

Imagine a future where TV shows are social by design. Gameshows could have teams of contestants made up of viewers who volunteer and participate direct from their sofas, interacting via on-TV controls and maybe even Project Natal /  Nintendo Wii-style motion sensors.

Meanwhile, the ‘backchannel’ discussion currently taking place on Twitter could be integrated directly into the programme. A Google TV app (for example) could allow producers to foster discussion via custom tools that suit the show in question.

By supporting participation via the TV itself, the discussion would be opened up to a wider audience of people who prefer not to use computers while viewing. So that the ‘backchannel’ doesn’t distract you from the show, it could be switched on and off at will, perhaps with a subtle on-screen notification if someone replies to you directly.

These are just a few ideas for what we might see. We’re likely to experience a period of intense innovation over the next few years and all sorts of unexpected ideas and apps will spring up out of nowhere.

Why TV producers will love social TV

There are a couple of great reasons for TV producers to embrace a social approach to TV:

Firstly, the TV industry is facing rampant piracy, declining ad revenues and competition from a vast range of other in-home entertainment options like gaming and web-based video. By making TV a more interactive experience, producers will be able to make watching the original broadcast a ‘premium’ experience. Downloading a pirate copy later just won’t be the same as participating in the show as it goes out.

There are challenges in making the interactivity work well and mistakes will be made, but the potential to boost viewing figures by transforming TV into an inherently interactive medium is huge.

Secondly, broadcasters will be able to collect analytics about the most popular parts of shows, what type of people are most engaged in them as well as realtime feedback as to how shows are faring with their audience. They can collect a lot of this sort of data already but by hosting the interactivity around a show themselves the whole process becomes a lot easier.

Social TV is on the way and it’s set to change the very fabric of the television industry itself.

Thanks to Jamillah Knowles for the inspiration behind this post.

[Image credit: Schmilblick]

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About the Author

Martin Bryant

Martin Bryant is based in Manchester, UK. A co-founder of the city's monthly Social Media Cafe events and award-winning blogger, he is Digital Content Editor for Marketing Manchester. His main interests are developments in the social web that relate to the mobile and music industries. Twitter, Personal site

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