Last week, The Wrap referred to the second screen as the new “wild west of television,” because of the rapidly increasing competition and no clear rules on how to do it right.
Well giddy up, because some people are starting to strike gold on this new frontier.
The three-part miniseries, “Hatfields & McCoys,” finished with 14.3 million total viewers thanks to a Facebook app that encouraged fans to pick sides and duel on Twitter with hashtags. Likewise, TNT’s “Dallas” used a Facebook timeline to create a history for the show to spark conversation and Likes before the premier. With 6.9 million viewers, “Dallas’s” debut was the top series premiere for a scripted series on cable so far this year.
These sorts of riches have heated up the battle for social TV control. Visiware is expanding its “PlayAlong” app to multiple countries, and integrating the game with “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” episodes in July. Yap.tv released a new update that offers deep Facebook integration for users to see what friends are watching and chat with them. Zeebox, the social TV app that has already had 1 million downloads, promises shake up the entire landscape when it premiers in the U.S next month.
With so many cowboys in the new wild west, its time for Magnet to ride into town and round ‘em all up. Yeehaw!
Project Runway Moves to Visual Social Media
Although Lifetime’s hit reality show has 116,500 Twitter followers and 1.4 million Facebook fans, “Project Runway” is turning to the new visual social networks like Pinterest, Piictu, and Viddy for its 10th season.
According to Ad Age, “Project Runway” will use these platforms to share images and video while encouraging fans to showcase their own fashion choices. Lifetime will use Instagram to post photos this season’s designers’ work, then will use the “Fashion Time” board on Pinterest to pin photos. They will also use Piictu to stream photos of fabrics, accessories, colors, and patterns, and challenge fans to show off their own fashion sense by adding to it.
The designers will each have introduction videos on Viddy, and they will continue to post throughout the season so fans can add video responses.
The whole campaign, which Lifetime is calling “Make It Work, will be united under the Twitter hashtag, #makeitwork.
This is the first time a TV show is using Piictu or Viddy, and Lifetime hopes it will give its core audience an all-new way to engage with “Project Runway.”
ConnecTV Goes Local
Last week, ConnecTV announced the largest-ever rollout of a social TV platform. Thanks to partnerships with the big four broadcasting networks, ConnecTV will now be able to sync with local news, weather, sports, and entertainment in 85 different markets around the country.
ConnecTV allows users to sync their iPad with TV programming from any source—live or recorded—and interact with supplementary content like sports stats, cast information, and quotes that can easily be shared with a user’s social network. Viewers can also invite friends to chat during live “viewing parties.”
With the addition of the local networks, users will now be able to engage in conversations sparked by local on-air personalities and events that are important to their community. Advertisers will also be able to promote local specials and use more targeted campaigns to promote national events.
ConnecTV is currently only available for iOS, but an app for Android tablets and smartphones will be out very soon.
Wanna Be A Suit?
For the second season of “Suits,” USA launched “Suits Recruits,” an online game that will challenge viewers to solve a legal case with the fictional law firm.
The game will run for five weeks across multiple platforms including the actual show, www.suitsrecruits.com, and Facebook. Fans will read case details, engage with the characters, and learn bits of inter-office gossip. Everything they do will earn them points, and two fans will win $50,000 for their “legal work” after the final verdict is announced on July 19.
It’s another intriguing example of a program taking advantage of the second screen to make the original program more engaging. Do you think it will work to drive up the show’s popularity?
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In the world of apps, we have two new second screen experiences we’ve tracked in weeks 24 and 25 of 2012:
Matcha.tv
iTunes Store
Platforms: iOS (iPad only)
Price: Free
Best Features:
- Aggregates content from Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Comcast Xfinity to put al of the available content in one central location.
- Also features rentable content from iTunes and Amazon – its like a tablet-optimized TV guide for streaming content!
- Connects with your Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, and Hulu accounts to provide more accurate video recommendations.
- Can filter content by type of video, year of release, and genre.
- Provides details about each video, and allows users to “Like” or “Dislike” them and create a queue of videos to watch.
Limitations:
- You must have an iPad.
- Currently, there is no sync with the first screen. More of a second screen app that says what’s available.
- Can’t currently do much in terms of helping you discover new content.
TV Dinner
Platforms: iOS (iPad only)
Price: Free
Best Features:
- Syncs with a popular show to create a game around engaging with the program with comments, captioned images and poll questions that each user can create.
- Gain points by creating content, or by interacting with other players’ content. Players with the most points become the TV Dinner show star.
- Share the content you make with Facebook and Twitter to let friends know what you’re watching and what you think about it.
- Connects with Facebook friends who also play TV Dinner.
- Can subscribe to your favorite shows to see show synopses and get reminders to log into TV Dinner when the show comes on.
Limitations:
- You must have an iPad.
- Does not seamlessly connect with first screen, you have to pick a show they already planned to have a game for.
- Can’t currently do much in terms of helping you discover new content.
