Tech firms exploiting ‘second-screen’ craze
Reblogged from New York Post, by SARA ASHLEY O’BRIEN
TV is creating a new generation of wealth in tech-land.
With 9 of 10 tablet and smartphone owners using their gadgets to enhance their television-watching experience, Silicon Valley startups are rushing in to capitalize on the craze — known in the business as “second screens.”
Get Glue, Yap.tv, Shazam, Yahoo!’s IntoNow and Miso are just four of the firms seeing rapid growth in the second-screen sector.
Get Glue, one of the “veterans,” having launched in 2008, now has more than 2 million users who are “checking in” to entertainment.
It has more than 350 million data points for its users — who appear to have a hunger for added TV content information.
For example, during the April 1 season premiere of HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” 50,000 second-screen user check-ins briefly crashed servers.
During last season’s premiere, just 8,000 users checked in.
According to Mark Ghuneim, founder and CEO of Trendrr, a social-media platform, social television creates “shared experiences and proximity — to both your friends and characters in a show,” which benefits advertisers, networks and consumers.
This engagement metric is the core of second-screen television. Social apps like Viggle have insight into engagement, which is quickly becoming indispensable to the television industry… [Full Story]
