Social Television
Posted: Tuesday 27 September, 2011
Colin Miller
The online world is a very sociable place, we are encouraged to share every experience with our friends, from where we are, to who we’re with and what we’re watching. The idea of social TV is not a new one, people have been encouraged to text in and tweet live shows for sometime now, research has even shown that around 80% of under 25s use social media while watching television. Is the next step to move TV channels to the internet rather than through a dish or aerial?
There is talk of YouTube introducing dedicated TV-like channels, which will feature regular shows and content, covering areas such as fashion, sports and comedy, could this be the start of a more complete social viewing experience?
YouTube users worldwide watch an average of three billion video clips a day and upload around two days worth of video every minute, it is undoubtedly the largest social platform on which to view video, with the more recent addition of 4OD on YouTube there are ever increasing steps to move programming online.
Television is a social experience, we talk about shows we watched the night before with our friends, plan what were going to watch together and recommend shows to each other, and until now this has predominantly been through word of mouth. Social media ties in seamlessly with the viewing experience, it allows us to share opinions and observations instantly with people watching anywhere in the world, so having more control and avenues for sharing this experience must surely be a good thing.
Apps such as GetGlue bring the ‘check-in’ experience familiar with location based apps like Foursquare to TV, movies and music, so rather than checking into a location, you check-in to a song or movie. Linked to a Facebook account your friends can instantly see what you are listening to or watching, and get linked to the content.
The evolution of mobile technology will also play a large role in how we view movies and TV shows, SKY already offers a service which allows subscribers to stream content from the service to their phones, although this type of service will only truly come in to it’s own when mobile networks offer data connections that allow this type of function to be used without being dependant on a Wi-Fi network.
With the advent of Google+ and its ‘hangouts’, we can share YouTube videos with our friends from within a video chat and talk about what we’re watching at the same time, in exactly the same way we would do if we were in the same room. The act of sharing experiences is something that appeals to us all and why should television be any different?
