New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

TV-focused sports apps continue to emerge each week. We wrote about five of them in July and there are already many more on the market. Even Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen recently invested in SportStream a new second screen app focused on making sports TV more social. SportsStream points to this study which shows 83% of sports fans check social platforms while they’re watching.

For Viggle, this launch shows that they’re more than just an app, but instead a platform available to develop specific niches within the TV ecosystem. Fantasy football is obviously a big part of the social TV football experience and Viggle is trying to innovate the space with the launch of MyGuy.

Lost Remote: Why has Viggle launched a new app experience?

Chris Stephenson: We designed Viggle as a platform on which our network and brand partners can build their own apps and experiences. Viggle is meant to span all TV and the apps that get built on Viggle are specialized, whether that’s around specific shows, subjects, brands, etc. We built MyGuy this way so that we could give the millions of Americans who love fantasy sports a robust experience, including the Smacktalk chat feature, the ability to sub players as the game plays out, etc. It also serves as a proof of concept app for our partners.

LR: What are the social features?

Stephenson: With our integration of Facebook Connect, people can now sign in with Facebook. Additionally, any actions they take within Viggle such as checking in, redeeming points for rewards, playing MyGuy, etc… will all automatically appear on their timeline (provided they authorize that of course).

LR: Will you still encourage sports viewers to use Viggle to watch sports?

Stephenson: Absolutely. Viggle is an integral part of the process. In order to get to MyGuy, the sports viewer first checks into the game on television. MyGuy is presented as an option at that point and the sports fan can choose to play if they want to. MyGuy knows what teams are playing and the Viggle user can easily pick their players. They can sub as often as they want during the game. They’ll get Viggle points for watching the game and they’ll win more based on how their players do.

LR: Anything else?

Stephenson: Take a look at the fantasy focus groups that Olivia Lee did for us when we were testing MyGuy. She’s a UK comedienne known for her hidden camera show “Dirty Sexy Funny.” You can find them here (and embedded above) . In addition to Facebook Connect and MyGuy, we also released a program guide within the “What’s On” section of the app. You can customize the guide by tapping and holding on your favorite channels.

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Viggle Live was used throughout the games to poll viewers who were watching the TV broadcast of the Olympics while using their app. Users that answered questions earned points that can be turned in for rewards from Groupon, Best Buy, Sephora and Hulu Plus, and more according to Viggle. The company announced that 18 million questions were answered throughout the games, and they’ve released a few highlights:

- When asked which Olympian they might leave their spouse for, 61% of men and 60% of women proudly said they weren’t interested.
- 76% believe Michael Phelps to be the greatest Olympian ever.
- 36% of respondents said Andy Murray’s triumph over Roger Federer has been the biggest surprise of the games; the cheating that occurred in badminton came in a close second at 31%.
- Although inspired by the Olympics overall, 75% confided that after watching track & field events they’d still rather sleep in than go for a run the next morning.
- Asked which Olympic sport they would like to compete in, 17% of Viggle users said badminton, 16% said table tennis and 12% shocked the judges by choosing rhythmic gymnastics.

Here’s the infographic:

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

FANGO, which can be found on Yahoo! Australia has no relation to the Yahoo!-owned IntoNow. The company also released some interesting stats about the Australian social TV market:

- Over half of the Australian population now owns a smartphone and this is expected to rise to nearly two-thirds by next year.
- Tablet use is growing even more quickly with 18% of households now owning a tablet and this is expected to more than double to nearly 40% within a year.
- Multiscreen behavior is becoming the norm in Australia with 60% of people accessing the internet while watching television, a large proportion of these people doing so daily. (According to, Nielsen The Australian Online Consumer Landscape, March 2012)
- In June 2012, 59,699 FANGO polls were completed, 91,795 trivia questions were answered and over 10,000 badges were awarded to fans based on their levels of interaction

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Viggle has quietly become a significant competitor in the second-screen space. It announced today that it’s surpassed one million registered users in just over six months, “faster than any other TV check-in application.” Viggle says users spend an average of 86 minutes within the app per session. “Viggle is the only service aside from Twitter with the ability to completely dominate the total social activity occurring for a show,” explained Trendrr’s white paper for June. “Viggle activity accounted for 92% of all social activity accounting for ‘Around the World in 80 Plates’ and was responsible for a majority of social activity in several other programs.”

Those metrics could entice TV developers to build on Viggle’s platform. “Opening the Viggle platform to networks, cable operators and producers allows our partners to optimize the in-show experience for Viggle users,” said Chris Stephenson, president of Viggle Inc. “Partners will benefit from the power of our rewards ecosystem while creating their own unique programming enhancements.”

To demonstrate the platform, Viggle created the MyGuy gaming experience during the NBA Finals. “75 percent of Viggle users who had checked into the games used MyGuy to play along live,” explained the company. Viggle said one of the big benefits of the platform is enabling TV partners to launch second-screen products quickly. For example, apps developed with HTML5 can be seamlessly integrated into both the iOs and Android versions of Viggle.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Viggle integration for Pitbull included rewarded users with points for playing along with Pitbull, answering questions and polls along the way. We spoke to Ryan Osborn, Senior Director of Digital Media at NBC News about their creative use of #hashtags on screen, Viggle and how they continue to provide added value to the series’ sponsor, Toyota.

Lost Remote: What’s NBC New doing differently with social TV for your morning summer concerts?

Ryan Osborn: As social TV continues to mature so has our strategy. There are three different audiences for the concerts: people watching TV at home, crowd watching live on Rockefeller Plaza and also the audience that will watch on-demand clips on TODAY.com. Each group uses social media in a different way and I think this year we have taken a much more holistic view of integrating each.

LR: How are you using #Hashtags differently?

Osborn: Hashtags have become a core part of our messaging. From the moment TODAY Senior Producer Melissa Lonner booked the artists, hashtags have been seen in on-air promos, on our sites and on the day of the concert can be seen in the upper left corner of the television screen.

LR: How are you using Viggle for the first time? How will you be judging success?

Osborn: Every year, we like to try something new and experiment with a platform that seems to offer a unique value. This year for a few concerts, we’re testing a synched second screen experience with Viggle that allows users to unlock real-life rewards.

LR: What have you learned from social TV experiences in the past?

Osborn: Artists are more engaged than ever before. Each year have watched them get more social media savvy. When a performer uses our hashtags and help share our content within social media it can really drive the experience.

Anything else?

Osborn: Our sales team has made clear that Toyota is a great partner. As we continue to activate audiences on new platforms, we aim to drive value for our advertisers in new ways.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

USA has gone above and beyond when it comes to working with partners to help push social TV forward. They even listed GetGlue, Miso, Shazam and Viggle in their upfront advertisement that showed up in AdAge, The New York Times and more. Their Hashtag Killer platform was a huge success and their innovative use of Viggle, Miso and Yap.TV (which has been installed over 125,000 times) has shown they’re deeply invested in trying out new social TV strategies.

Redniss explained that one of the, “big goals we had was to trend worldwide,” a goal they achieved twice with the help of fan-filled red carpet and a massive WWE announcement made via a live tweet. They also invited over 100 of their top fans across their shows to the red carpet and event. We interviewed Redniss in this video after the presentations.

Hoch described the role social played in the announcement that WWE (who recently revamped their website to live on top of social) will be launching #RAWactive. “The big announcement is that Raw is expanding to three hours and it will be more interactive and social than ever before,” he explained. “Really for the first time we will bring our fans into the game and let them be part of the voting, part of the process, using social tools,” he added. He also described how John Cena made this announcement. “We had a surprise – John Cena came out – no one knew about it and he announced it and within minutes it was trending on Twitter, the hashtag #3hourRaw”.

USA’s talent were excited to speak about the importance of social to their careers, their shows and the network.

Peter Gallagher (27,974 followers on Twitter) of Covert Affairs:

I think its remarkable about USA is that they’re really right in the book right now in terms of marketing in this era. The fact is they embrace social media right off the bat, just like the way they do everything else, not in a haphazard way, in a focused and strategic matter, it’s really effective. It’s been interesting because Chris Gorham got me tweeting about a year ago. I’m stunned, I love them [my follwoers]. I love talking to them and it does my heart good. In a way I can’t overstate the importance especially in this era now when so much effort is being made to divide us, to polarize us for reasons of politics or power or money or whatever…we’d much rather all get along and accept the fact that we’re all on this boat together which is what social media does so brilliantly. It’s the present it’s the future and I think it could be our salvation.

Dulé Hill (110,954 followers on Twitter) of Psych:

I talk to the fans everyday. It’s a part of my lifestyle. I actually get my morning news through Twitter now. I’ve been on it for about a year. We get instant feedback, when the episode airs I get a chance to interact with the fans right away and tell me what they like and don’t like about the show. I’ve done Character Chatter a couple of time and will do some more – really whatever they ask me to do. I was very reluctant to get into social media – I was a little skeptical at first. Once I got into I love it. It’s like Al Pacino, when you try to get out he keeps pulling you back in. You can’t leave social media once you get there. I enjoy interacting with folks who I don’t know, from all over the world. That’s what I enjoy the most…on Twitter over time you just get to know different handles and what’s going on with them and things like that…Out of seasons their are long gaps between off the air on the air – any time we can do something involving social media to keep the audience engaged and even build the audience is great. There are different folks who like playing these role playing games [Hashtag Killer] that may not be aware of the show. The more you can do that the better. It gives our fans something to look forward to. That’s why I like to tweet them from them set.

Warren Cole (42 connections on LinkedIn) from new series Common Law:

I think social media is affecting television in that it’s integrated into entertainment already. It’s part of television, it’s part of movies. There’s an immediate response to anything now because of social media and that’s the same for entertainment. you’re not going to be able to get away with much because you’re going to get the criticisms, the voice of the people, just like in politics how social media’s affecting that. It’s democratic. [USA Network] They’re very aware of it, of how important social media. I get a lot of pressure to be a part of social media and I understand why – because it is so integrated, I just need to catch up a little bit…now it’s like say what you gotta say whenever you want to say it and I rarely feel like I have something important to announce to enough people.

Ryan Johnson (1,410 followers on Twitter) of Fairly Legal:

I’m on a show called Fairly Legal, I play the new character Ben and if you’ve seen any of the social media on Fairly Legal, my character came along to divide the crowd and he certainly did that. I’m on Twitter – it’s like a direct kind of way for communicating with people watching the show. As people are watching it they’ll be chatting to us about how they’re thinking and feeling about the way things are going with the story line, stuff like that. It gives us great feedback on what people like and also what they don’t like. It’s awesome in that regard… in the old days it would take a long time to find out what people thought about the show, now were finding out in the moment. Tomrorow night I’m doing a thing called Character Chatter on USA so fans can be watching the show and they can chat away about what they love and hate about Ben Grogan.

Michael Trucco (7,618 followers on Twitter) of Fairly Legal:

I’m terrible at it actually. I screw up all the time. Baron Vaghn tweeted something. I responded to him saying, WTF, where are you, we’re all at dinner, the whole cast is here, come join us. Randomly, some gril says, oh my god, I know this wasn’t for me, but oh my god I feel like I can join you for dinner. She was somewhow, she got caught in the Twitter train that I responded to. I thought I was talking to Baron, I invited someone I never met in my life to come have dinner with us. She was here today with the fans… Baron Vaughn is my tutor in these matters.

@barvonblaq @rutabega80 @virginiawms @onlysarahshahi @realsandrahess @ryanjohnsonofoz @tamara_asmar WTF? Where are you? Come join us!

– Michael Trucco (@originaltrucco) May 17, 2012

The USA Network control room for the very social upfront.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

]]> Natan Edelsburg http://lostremote.com/usa-network-trends-worldwide-during-upfront_b29582#disqus_thread http://lostremote.com/usa-network-trends-worldwide-during-upfront_b29582 http://www.lostremote.com/?p=29582 Fri, 18 May 2012 07:56:37 +0000 After navigating through the beast that is NYC’s midtown Hilton to the third floor, the social TV industry packed into a large ballroom as AdAge put on their social TV conference with brands and networks presenting what’s working, what’s not and what the future of the social TV industry will be. You can read AdAge’s recap here. Kraft Food’s Bonin Bough, Coca-Cola’s Jennifer Healan, WWE’s Jason Hoch, MLB Advanced Media’s Bob Bowman, ESPN’s john Kosner, VH1′s Kristin Frank, USA Network’s Jesse Redniss, CBSi’s Marc DeBevoise, Trendrr’s Mark Ghuneim and Twitter’s Joel Lunfeld were among the presenters.

Here are a few highlights:

Involving talent in the social TV conversation:

VH1 talent including @DritaDavanzo now all go through social media training program — @kristen_frank at #aasocialtv

– Ad Age (@adage) May 9, 2012

Not surprisingly, the panel that seemed to have garnered the most attention was when Kristin Frank presented on stage with one of the stars of their hit VH1 reality show, Mob Wives. Drita D’Avanzo, one of the wives, cooly, calmly and excitingly presented on how she was trained by VH1 execs as she prepared to become a big TV star. She described how it was the “little things,” that made a big difference. Frank described how she went from “under 500 followers to over 300,000.” The age of social TV is proving to bring marketers and talent closer together than ever before.

Social media big driver of CBS video traffic

Beet.tv caught up with CBS Interactive VP and General Manager Marc DeBevoise at the event, and he revealed that social media drives 15% of CBS’ online video views. Here’s the interview:

Facebook illustrates how it can help TV programmers

Facebook’s Kay Madati is increasingly visible at social TV events, and this was no exception. Beyond the usual success stories of Facebook pages and Timelines, Madati shared a fascinating idea from Facebook VP of product Chris Cox: that someday, perhaps, your DVR would automatically record a TV show based upon its popularity among your Facebook friends.

Viggle shares engagement data

The social TV loyalty app Viggle says 625,000 people have registered so far and the average session tops 93 minutes per user. Active Viggle members check in an average of five times each day and while checked in, engage an average of 15 times with Viggle games, videos and interactive ads. “We set out to enhance the TV experience and we’re seeing the results from our users who are hungry for more ways to interact with their favorite programming,” said Chris Stephenson, president of Viggle.

Kraft Foods investing in great content with MediaVest:

One of the most famous execs in the social world is Bonin Bough, formerly of Pepsico now the Vice President of Global Digital and Consumer Engagement at Kraft Foods. Bough took the stage with Amanda Richman the President of Digital at MediaVest who they worked with on a social TV campaign that involved Wheat Thins and The Colbert Report. Read (and watch) about this “sponsortunity” here and here. Bough described how this clip was, “four times more shared than clips on average,” referring to other Colbert clips.

Richman also described how they, “did some great work with Viggle and Miracle Whip, expanding the ABC Oscar’s Live event.” Brands seem to live the direct to rewards play Viggle seems to be owning. I’m still skeptical if the concept is encouraging distraction from broadcast TV, but had a lot of fun playing around with the app during the Superbowl.

Bough also discussed how with belVita they, “did the first ever ‘Clip and Share‘,” program, which “allowed users to go watch a clip online and share it with brand messaging,” with MTV content.

The future of social TV events:

Social TV events are the new popular way to capture how traditional media is being innovated and affected by the new tools and top thinkers. The way this $70 billion industry is changing provides endless great discussions, and we will be there to give you an inside look at each event. We hope to see more and more talent, directors, producers and show runners participating. In a traditional world, an “upfront” once a year with talent is enough, in a social TV world we want to see those on TV and making the TV part of this conversation. AdAge Social TV did a great job pushing this forward.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

]]> Natan Edelsburg http://lostremote.com/highlights-from-adages-social-tv-event_b29069#disqus_thread http://lostremote.com/highlights-from-adages-social-tv-event_b29069 http://www.lostremote.com/?p=29069 Wed, 09 May 2012 14:35:55 +0000 Viggle’s direct-to-rewards approach is continuing to interest networks. Today USA Network has announced they’re partnering with Viggle to create a second screen experience around the classic, “To Kill A Mockingbird.” During Saturday’s airing at 8pm Eastern, they will be leveraging Viggle to tap into the film’s fifty-year history. The network will be matching points earned by users for a donation of up to $20,000 to the Characters Unite nonprofit, which supports civil and human rights. Fans can also convert their points into donations.

“Fans will learn about iconic moments, celebrity recounts, exclusive photos and videos as they watch Universal’s digitally remastered and fully restored classic being broadcast nationally for the first time,” explains the release.

The idea of using Viggle to raise money for a nonprofit seems like a very good idea. Instead of constant personal point-earning, this seems like a great incentive to get new people to try out the service by helping a good cause. Additionally, watching a film on TV is a lot different than watching primetime programming. While I often find that any second screen experience can be distracting to my primetime TV habits, when it comes to a linear airing of a film, Viggle could be a great way to remind people about the non-primetime programming that the network has and make a very “old school” movie interactive in a social TV world.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

]]> Natan Edelsburg http://lostremote.com/usa-network-teams-up-with-viggle-for-to-kill-a-mockingbird_b27531#disqus_thread http://lostremote.com/usa-network-teams-up-with-viggle-for-to-kill-a-mockingbird_b27531 http://www.lostremote.com/?p=27531 Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:29:23 +0000