Second Screen and the Social Television Trend

"Second screen" is a term that refers to an additional electronic device (e.g. laptop, tablet, smartphone) that allows a television audience to interact with the content they are consuming.  According to a recent Physorg article,  it is "the hottest new thing in television."  As some believe that as much as 30 percent of Web-surfing is done while watching TV, a lot of effort is being put into ways to keep the viewer's online focus aligned with the programming being viewed simultaneously.  For example, the broadcaster of a sports event may provide synchronized feeds of statistics and other currently relevant information or allow the viewer to see different camera angles.  Other programming may utilize the second screen for alternative scenes, information, soundtrack, and/or characters.  A marketing application may help viewers buy stuff they see during TV shows.  Social television applications may simply aim to make the television experience more social, by enabling interaction with other viewers; offering the chance to win points, awards, and prizes; and encouraging the user to comment on, rank, or otherwise actively engage the experience.  Below are some examples:

• GetGlue is a social networking site for entertainment fans to interact.  It allows users to check-in to TV shows or movies they are watching, music they are listening to, books they are reading, video games they are playing, celebrities they are chatting about, or pretty much any topic they are thinking about.

• IntoNow utilizes a patented sound-recognition technology called SoundPrint that hears and recognizes what is being watched, right down to the episode.   It then lets users share with friends on Twitter or Facebook, provides full episode and cast info, lets them know what their friends are watching (notifying friends who are watching the same show), and provides one-click access to IMDb, iTunes and Netflix.

• Previiw allows the viewer to choose a scene within a show or movie and clip a portion of that scene (up to 140 seconds), for the purpose of commenting on and sharing through their social network, web site or blog.

• yap.TV is a completely personalized TV show guide fused with streamed content for thousands of TV shows.

• During the last Video Music Awards telecast, an MTV website featured an app called Hot Seat, a seating chart of the auditorium where the show was staged. A user could slide his computer mouse across the chart to see what celebrity was sitting there, along with all that celebrity's tweets during the event.

Why is this worth all of the fuss?  The following example illustrates the power that Internet social media can unleash in the entertainment world:

• Last October, the singer Usher completely split the front of his pants during "A Decade of Difference" concert honoring former President Clinton and celebrating the tenth anniversary of his foundation.  Within minutes, fed by "OMG" messages on Twitter and Facebook, the live video stream on Yahoo! immediately swelled from 1 million to 20 million.