Social TV success

We are, at our core, a social people. We congregate

in groups, seek out others who have

similar, backgrounds, experiences, incomes

and educations. Suburbanites enjoy their suburban

experience. City dwellers, well, dwell

happily in cities.

Even our entertainment experiences tend

to be homogeneous. “Parks and Recreation”

fans seek out other P&R fans; “Family Guy”

aficionados cackle at Stewie’s latest line and

“Homeland” fans trade conspiracy theories

over coffee.

Is it any surprise that Social TV has been a

phenomenon? That what we used to do the

morning after a show aired, talk about it at the

water cooler, has gone high tech?

Just look at social media in general… it’s

hard to not check up on your friends through

their Facebook page (if they’re not already

tweeting their exploits). It’s a lucrative business.

In May, Facebook is expected to roll out

its IPO that could fetch more than $5 billion,

valuing the startup at more than $100 billion.

Social TV hasn’t reached that stage, yet; at

least no single entity has.

And it’s a phenomenon that’s at odds with

trends in the entertainment industry.

As Sam Vasisht, president of 21TechMedia,

points out: the success of Social TV, which

requires a viewer to watch a show along with

others at a given time, flies in the face of what

has been generally acknowledged as a broad

decay of appointment-based television viewing,

a decay that began with TiVo and accelerated

as viewers realized they could watch that

primetime show any time they felt like it. THEY

were in control, and control was good.

The near total flight from appointment-based

TV increasingly is due to services like Hulu and

Netflix and even broadcasters making more

content available to consumers to watch anywhere,

on any device and at anytime.

The over-the-top delivery of content, or TV

Everywhere, if you prefer, has made the idea

of watching a show when it’s scheduled to

appear as quaint as having to show an 8mm

home movie of your recent trip to Brazil.

But Social TV is making its mark on the way

we watch TV by creating a more interactive

viewing experience, and creating a space that

brings fans together again. Like the water

cooler gathering, it gives viewers a place to

share worries about characters, favorite jokes

and expected plot developments.

The space is seeing new user interface

designs that make, for example CBS’s early

push into the space pale. It’s using micropayment

systems, allowing viewers to

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