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[The Rainmaker]

MGON & MSMY's deal for that new IBM Watson powered app 05. Nice article

http://www.linkedin.com/pulse/social-interactive-tv-holding-keys-future-tv-dr-saied-agahi/

Social Interactive TV-Holding The Keys To Future Of TV

Dr. Sai Agahi

Founder, CEO at 05 Media Inc., AI based Social TV OTT platform

It may not be a new concept, but is for sure one of the latest trending news. One that has lots of attention drawn to it. So what is in fact social TV? Since the smartphone boom, our TV-evenings-watching are happening with a phone in our hands. And there is nothing wrong with that; this way we don’t feel alone while watching a series in the comfort of our homes.

There are those times when an episode, or a piece of news, a movie scene is so good that you want to share it. You want to make sure all of your friends have seen it, and you want speak your mind about it. So you take your phone and use it as a mean to express yourself. This is what social TV is all about.

And when the every 20 minutes commercial come, is nice to have something to watch beside lawn mowers ads, especially if you don’t have a yard.

So why talk about social TV? Studies say that “72% of second screen users are more likely to watch a TV show after engaging with its social media page or second screen app”. And this piece of information opens a whole new set of possibilities for brands and content owners.



It’s all about the data

The shift away from passive TV viewing is substantiated from various data studies and polls and it certifies the importance of social interactive TV. On one hand, it brings out the power of data and how can we unleash this force using the social interactive TV concept . Nielson’s research shows how social interactive TV is a bellwether for audience engagement and its main findings reveal how social shows deliver more engaged audiences.



It shows that more social shows deliver more engaged audiences. Combined with the fact that prior research has shown the correlation between neurological engagement and sales outcomes, as well as between program engagement and ad memorability, this research points to an important role for social TV data in media planning and buying.

On the other hand, with the feedback received from social networks you can have comprehensive access to consumers’ insight.

The TV ad campaigns will be aired at the right moment based on the audience a certain TV content has (because of their real-time tweets and activeness on social media platforms, the information gathered about them can be related to their demographics, their interest, their needs and desires). This will make the unnecessary TV ad distribution costs to hit a new low.

Analyzing on the spot the engagement of different (but for the same kinds of service) ads, brands can take action and rethink their air time distribution, if not the strategy behind their campaign.

The ones whose names everyone mentions

There are some apps that took advantage, in a good way, of this social TV trend and made viewers even more engaged, more connected, and more involved. As you probably have guessed I’m talking about Twitter and Facebook.

TVxTwitter had such a big impact that TV shows added on the bottom of the screen a personal “#” in order to have a better control over their tweets. This also makes viewers more likely to tweet about a specific show or piece of information and make a hype around them. As a result, when a TV show has a twitter integration there is a 20% increase in tweets per minute. Related to brands, if a brand engages with users, 23% of them visit the website and 19% consider trying the brand (according to Adwek).

As a result Facebook came and integrated this trends within their app in order to satisfy its users. As they introduced it “85% of people who reported visiting a social network while watching TV said they visited Facebook.” So what came next was expected. Three tools to bring viewers closer to a certain TV content while being online. These are:



(1)“Hashtag voting and polling” (this should excite broadcasters and media partners because they can poll audience during live streaming),

(2)“Photo and video submissions” (this gives the ability to submit photos and videos directly to how pages.)

(3) “Custom icons” (this final tool gives a Social Interactive TV – when social media meets television

certain TV content provider the opportunity to create its own icons that can be used in “what are you doing/watching” section of Facebook, and so on).





All well and good but is it enough?

Winning at social TV

So what comes next? Anticipating users’ needs became a necessity. They need to be more connected, to feel like they have an influence, an impact, that they matter and their opinion is heard.

This being the case, 05Media is re-defining user TV-interaction. Interactivities? With 05Media the sky is the limit.

With an innovative set of interactivities, featuring smart TV content solutions, users are able to interact with the content in real time; create polls on the fly – all the time; take advantage of real time questioning answering, betting and quizzes features, and many more.

Commodity is the key element. You watch a video and you can instantly interact with it. You don’t have to watch the movie, go to a specific link or find the right # to make your opinion be heard by the right ones - you just have to enjoy your favorite video and simultaneously share and interact with the content together with your friends and the community.

To sum it up, the people who just watch TV, without multi-tasking, are rare (87% of users to be more exact, as Accenture states in one of its studies, use the second screen) and 05Media listened to the consumers’ needs and came up with the solution they needed. Find more about it at www.05media.com.