Summary the challenges of Social TV

Discussion:

the Challenge of Social TV

past -> present -> future

Chen Jing Fung @ III

2011/10/20

TVSocial

The history - Social TV

• Social TV

– 2001 Aveiro, university in Europe: the prototype for friends

MIT Top 10 (2010):

Social TV

– 2001 Aveiro, university in Europe: the prototype for friends connection while viewing TV (no sharing function)

– 2004 Aclatel - AmigoTV for IPTV: user can invite friends and talk with them in the same show (pop up dialog to interfere other viewer’s emotion)

– 2011 wikipedia: social television is a general term for technology that supports communication and interaction in the context of watching television, or related to TV content. It also includes the study of television-related social behavior.

Content selection, sharing, updating• Close tie with content

sharing and recommendation

TV listEPG

STBSTBWeb + TV

• The revolution of content

selection

sync

STBSTB

Real-time broadcasting service

Web

STBSTBWeb + TV

Search

Schedule for

pattern

Schedule for watching pattern

AT&T lab

Status update

Social TV - problems

Domain Question

Device/network 1. What is the “device” & “network” in use?

2. Some solutions focus on Web in the TV environment.

3. “Mobile devices” & “secondary screen” are becoming popular

Modality 1. How are they directly communicating btw different users?

• The options: text, audio, and video

Presence 1. How many users represented?

• Options: traditional buddy lists, ambient solutions, and • Options: traditional buddy lists, ambient solutions, and

more extended buddy lists as other social networks (e.g.

Facebook or Twitter-like)

Synchronization While watching, does the social interaction run synchronously or

asynchronously?

Strength tie 1. What is the network reach of the shared activity?

• Case 1: Close network usually includes friends or family

• Case 2: Open network allows strangers talking with each

other

Social TV – majorly interactive activities (1/4)

Activities Illustrations Features

Content

selection &

sharing

1. Can reference

for other

decisions on

what to watch

2. May send to

friends his/her

favorite

content for full

1. Most of the content selection and streaming

solutions lack social features -> what’s good?

• social features have useful info. includes ratings,

comments, recommendations

• Insight from the social network can be used by

a viewer or a recommender system

2. Content sharing i.e. the video or a link to it

• Sharing functionality directly: recommend by

Content selection Content selection

& sharingCommunication

Community

buildingStatus update

content for full

programs/edit

ed versions

• Sharing functionality directly: recommend by

their interesting parts of video

(means: fast edit & enrich the relative info.)

Communication

(1)

Direct

communication via

chat, audio, or

video with others

1. Direct communication btw its users

• Voice chat (AmigoTV & Motorola’s Social TV)

• Text chat (CollaboraTV, 2BeOn, Joost)

• During TV show, only CollaboraTV included

asynchronous communication

(people can leave at specific moments)

• Buddy list: users can easily see who is

available for chatting.

(if they are watching the same show or not)

Close tie (sync.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfrI8lwz4wI


Communication

(2)

“Water-cooler Effect”

Physical room ->

2. Offer direct communication possibilities

• Limited to (smaller) group of family & friends

3. Social TV allows users (at different locations) to (re)create a

social co-watching experience

• Joost: allow strangers to interact on a channel

(Should let strangers ease to focus on the same topic)

• Sharing which program someone is watching

4. Optimally support the communication Process

Non-sync. example

sync. sync.

sync. sync.


Content selection


Community


Physical room ->

Virtual TV chatting

zone

4. Optimally support the communication Process

• Diff. level: emotions, text chat and voice chat

Community

building (1)

Commenting about a

TV program with a

large community

1. Community building refers to the activity of sharing

thoughts, comments, & impressions about TV show with a

large community (also include with followers)

• Game: e.g. NBA Real Time Fantasy (immersive

activities) is provided by the TV channel or by

individual followers of the show

(activity: deciding the result of show)

• Use of telephone calls

• Specific web pages with Facebook & Twitter

updates


Community

building (2)

� Invite more

2. TV Chatter & starling TV run the community, where

comments related to a TV show are gathered

• Aggregation is from an external channel without

effort on the show

• Comments of the viewers were used for

interactively affecting the storyline of a drama

series

• Ex: Debate show (Current TV’s ‘Hack the

Feedback to affect the result of the

show

Social TV – majorly interactive activities (3/4)Content selection


Community


� Invite more

strangers ->

novices

� Gather the

avid fans

• Ex: Debate show (Current TV’s ‘Hack the

Debate”

3. More devices: mobile phone and laptop

• More convenient to use than a TV remote

controller

• When large audiences of strangers see a TV

program together,

• Text model become a good approach

(comments are synchronized with the show)

• Time-shifting can let people add/read

comment whenever they want

Non-sync. example

Avid fans

join


Status update Making

available to

others what

you are

watching

1. Many applications offer the status sharing

• “I’m watching Breaking News on CNN”

2. ‘checking in’ to that program

• TV check-in: Miso & Tunerfish allow users to indicate

the TV show

• LBS: Foursqure & Gowalla provide location-based

application for check-in

• Incentive: check into more TV show and then


Friends -><- Followers (competition)

Friends -><- Followers (competition)

Avid fans

Content selection


Community


• Incentive: check into more TV show and then

earn badges

• Status update: These applications offer users to write

something in a shot (ex. Twitter-like) for sharing more

info.

• Sync? (mobile counterpart) status update on time

• Mobile (text based): easy to change status + TV:

connected TV widget

(link to FB or twitter-like structure)

• Asynchronous? create a sense of commonality

• After communicating with short status updates

=> next day they will talk (post) more words

which is based on the same show

sync. with mobile & TV

badges

(competition)(competition)

What Future of Social TV (1/2)

• Predict the future of social TV

– Build on currently existing or emerging applications

– Google TV brings web media content to TV & integrates social media applications as FB and TwitterTwitter

– Look at trends in related areas (e.g. content creation, communication technology, & social network)

• 3 different interesting directions:

– Mash-up & connected TV

– Other activities in the living room

– New Social TV program formats

What Future of Social TV (2/2)

• Mash-up & connected TV

Web + TV

Search material

• New Social TV program

formats (Ex. UGC)

• E.g. quiz shows or soap

opera

Social

broadcasting

• Other activities in the living

roomlearning

sporting

dancingplaying

Social features…

Be a camera

Edit your show

shareshare

singing

Share your location

http://vator.tv/news/2010-04-15-glee-comes-to-the-iphone-with-help-of-smule

Reference • P. Cesar and D. Geerts, "Past, Present,

and Future of Social TV: A Categorization," in Proceedings of the IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (IEEE CCNC 2011), Las Vegas (NV), USA, January 9-12, 2011, pp. 347-351

• J. Abreu, P. Almeida and V., "Branco2BeOn - Interactive television supporting interpersonal communication", in proceedings of EGMM, 2001

• Coppens, L. Trappeniers, and M. Godon, 2004. “AmigoTV: Towards a social TV

• CollaboraTV : Asynchronous Social Television http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/CollaboraTV

• Chris Harrison - Ph.D. Research http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/Welcome

• Social TV forum http://bbs.phpchina.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=216032

• CollaboraTV: AT&T Labs (Youtubevideo) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfrI8lwz4wI

• AT&T Labs Research — Leading 2004. “AmigoTV: Towards a social TV experience,” Proceedings of EuroITV 2004 (Brighton, U.K.), accessed 14 February 2011

• MIT TOP 10 Social TV http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/25084/

• IMTC 2025 – Social Tv Keynote by Marie Jose Montpetit. http://blog.imtc.org/index.php/2010/05/20/imtc-2025-social-tv-keynote/

• What’s So Social About TV Anyway http://blog.imtc.org/index.php/2010/05/26/whats-so-social-about-tv-anyway/

• Social television (wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_television

• AT&T Labs Research — Leading Invention, Driving Innovation http://www.research.att.com/projects/CollaboraTV/index.html?fbid=rI5tj2EyCE6

• Current TV’s "Hack the Debate” http://current.com/shows/hack-the-debate/89467100_hack-the-debate-sizzle-excerpt.htm

• Joost http://www.joost.com/• boxxee http://www.boxee.tv/• Current TV http://current.com/• starling TV http://starling.tv/ • TV chatter http://www.tvchatter.tv/• Foursquare https://foursquare.com/

Summary the challenges of Social TV

Entertainment & Humor

social tv social tv

tv content

tv channel

tv program

tv schedule

tv remote

tv chatter starling

tv environment