In Late April Lost Remote hosted its first ever NYC event. The day begin with a fireside chat I led with our main keynote speaker, MTV President Stephen Friedman. Friedman captivated the room in a discussion that drove into the fascinating details of how MTV treats social. We’re excited to share the full transcript from the keynote that includes Friedman discussing the value of Instagram, Tumblr and trusting the young generations both within the company and the audience to guide where their brands thrive and tell stories. Read more

CBS announced it has acquired TV Guide Digital, buying up its remaining 50% share of the company from Lionsgate. The deal folds TVGuide.com and its mobile apps into CBS Interactive, which already runs TV.com and other entertainment brands like GameSpot and Last.fm. “It’s a brand that has a nice-size audience, and a highly monetizable category that has a lot of relevance going forward,” CBS Interactive President Jim Lanzone told the LA Times. “That’s why it fits so well with our strategy.”

Read more

At Lost Remote we’re very lucky to interview big names like Mark Cuban, MTV President Stephen Friedman, Dan Rather and more. While big names like these (and the ones you might have seen at the Lost Remote NYC Show) have defined social TV, the future of TV lies in the hands of the yoots (the generation that was born into social) . Meet Melanie Witkower, a rising senior at Syracuse University who has embedded herself as a social TV expert within production arms while spending the semester “abroad” in Los Angeles.

Read more

Trendrr has rolled out a new product called Curatorr that enables its clients to roll out real-time Twitter experiences on TV, mobile apps and other digital screens. Curatorr also joins Twitter’s “certified products” list, which includes services like Mass Relevance, Crimson Hexagon and Radian6. In fact, Curatorr is positioned to compete with Mass Relevance, which has been growing leaps and bounds as media companies and brands alike expand their real-time products.

Read more

It’s accepted knowledge that digital is upending traditional media. But sometimes, that’s just not the case. In the latest installment of Mediabistro’s So What Do You Do?, Entertainment Weekly managing editor Jess Cagle tells how social TV has been a boon to his mag’s print sales:

“There is tremendous engagement around television… I will very often look at the social media surrounding of a particular show and make the [cover story] decision based on that,” Cagle explained, pointing toVampire Diaries as an example. “We thought there is so much social media going on around the show, and it went crazy.  Ian Somerhalder tweeted it out to his legion of followers, and that actually translated into print sales.”

Read the full interview in So What Do You Do, Jess Cagle, Managing Editor of Entertainment Weekly?

– Mona Zhang

Since launching in January 2012, Viggle has been making a splash as the go-to second screen app for brands and advertisers alike. We’ve recently written about Viggle’s partnership with the NBA for the 2013 NBA Playoffs and about their partnership for with Dan Marino for their MyGuy app activation surrounding the NFL Playoffs. Read more

For decades the television industry has dreamed about the Holy Grail of interactive advertising: commercials that enable viewers to pick up their remotes to get a coupon, book a test drive or enter a contest. While there have been many successful experiments so far, none of them has scaled. As we wrote two months ago, Twitter was poised to crack the code. And today, it looks like they did just that.

Read more

Last weekend, Viacom’s MTV, VH1, CMT, Palladia and LOGO channels were down at the Hangout Music Festival leveraging social TV, traditional TV and an impressive multi-screen experience. The festival, on the gulf shores of Alabama has grown tremendously now in their 4th year. In addition to editorial coverage of the festival MTV, “wanted to evolve and extend our coverage model to extend to all screens, leaning heavily on social to help push out news coverage and VOD clips in real time, while also running a multi-camera live stream.” The hard work paid and MTV is sharing the results exclusively with Lost Remote. We also interviewed Dermot McCormack, head of Connected Content for Viacom Music & Logo Group about the big activation. Read more

With the TV upfronts come announcements of cancellations as networks set their schedules for the fall. As social TV grows it becomes easier and easier to understand how fans feel about these decisions they usually have no control over. Social media analytics company Crimson Hexagon provided Lost Remote with social analysis on both of these shows. Here are the details. Read more

Xbox revealed its next-generation console today, Xbox One, featuring live TV integration and two big announcements to blur the lines between television and social gaming. “Until now the television viewing experience has been a one way experience, but that’s about to change,” explained entertainment chief Nancy Tellem. “Only on Xbox, will TV become social.”

Read more