Finding answers to the question “what’s on TV” has never been both so difficult and so easy. With an ever-increasing amount of content making its way not only to televisions but to the Web as well, trying to narrow down just what exactly to watch has never proven so complex. Enter services like TweetTV, which has just unveiled its new “super responsive designed” series of mobile HTML5 apps that will not only provide better ideas of what’s on, but also to help users connect to those who also enjoy these programs.
TweetTV, at the outside, offers an impressive array of features in its own right. There’s a TV guide system that’s wholly localized, and as such, offers up a great picture of what’s going on television in a user’s particular area. Plus, it can interact with social media, checking on tweets, discussions, or even multi-user video conversations about particular shows, movies and the like going on television. Given that TweetTV was founded by one of Google’s (News
– Alert) first account optimization specialists in AdWords, Bradley Markham, it’s a safe bet that this app knows how to find this sort of thing.
But, the augmentations that the HTML5 mobile version will bring into play are just as impressive, offering them up through mobile Web browsers without the need to install an app. It will be able to offer a different interface based on the platform on which it’s being used, and further tweaks look to both improve overall speed and make the mobile Web app feel like a native app. TweetTV also incorporates discovery tools that allow users to select genres and networks, then discover what others are seeing on these networks or in these genres via a system of live tags, which itself is called an “industry first”.
Better still, TweetTV is looking to offer up a rewards program for its users, joining up with the PaeDae prize network to offer up a variety of goodies like gift cards and instant coupons, among others. When users perform “certain actions” on the site—word is that the actions in question call for things like tweeting about what’s being watched at the time—they accumulate points, points which can then be traded in for various goods and services that users may want. Backing that up further is $750,000 in seed funding from Joe Kalfa, an angel investor interested in the company.
Using social media to better pin down what’s on television is a smart idea. Throwing in the lure of free goodies to get more people putting up information about what they’re watching on television is even better. Nielsen often offered cash rewards to users who filled out surveys about what they saw on television, so the idea isn’t a new one, but it is more personal and available. This not only gives the users incentive to talk up their favorites, but it also helps beleaguered cable companies and networks get a better handle on what’s working and what isn’t, valuable research that might under other circumstances, cost quite a bit more than a few judiciously-applied gift cards.
A win-win situation for all concerned, TweetTV looks to be a great way to find out what’s going on in the world of television, and find plenty of new things never before seen.
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Edited by
Amanda Ciccatelli