THIRD ANNUAL SCREENS ISSUE - MediaPost

TV
content but also are powerful
enough for content creation
and link-sharing has caused a
convergence between interactive
television and social television
applications.
As these charts show, there is
a very high correlation between
television viewing and the use
of post-PC devices for calls, text
and Web/app use. Twitter and
Facebook see very high activity
during televised events. Twitter,
for example, reached 12,233
tweets per second shortly after
the Giants defeated the Patriots
in the Super Bowl. (Not sorry,
Pats fans.) That’s 8,169 more
tweets per second than last
year’s big game!
Some analysts speculate that
the growth of social behavior,
like tweeting, during televised
events is related to the growth
of tablet usage. Nielsen reported
in late 2011 that 70 percent of
iPad use occurs in front of a TV,
making it seem that tablets are
the preferred second-screen
device for the couch.
One such application that is
focused on the intersection of
social and interactive television
is TV Dinner. (As the brains
behind this start-up, we have to
make the disclaimer that everything
you are about to read
in this section is self-serving,
but we are including it here
because it really matters. We
don’t think we’ll be the only
ones looking to create experiences
that make it easier and
more rewarding for people to
connect while watching TV.)
The vision of TV Dinner is
to provide a fun experience for
viewers in which they become
active contributors to the
48 MEDIA MAGAZINE Spring 2012
NIELSEN REPORTED
IN LATE 2011 THAT 70
PERCENT OF IPAD USE
OCCURS IN FRONT OF
A TV, MAKING IT SEEM
THAT TABLETS ARE THE
PREFERRED SECOND-
SCREEN DEVICE FOR
THE COUCH.
body of culture surrounding a
broadcast or event. The platform
essentially fuses elements
of interactive television with
social interaction. It launched
first on the iPad because we felt
it was by far the best “couch
computing” device.
Viewers become publishers
of various types of content
while watching their favorite
broadcasts. The content can
be image captions, poll and
survey questions, or simply
fun facts or opinions. Viewers
are then rewarded for creating
content, voting and commenting.
They have the capability
to earn super status within the
community when their content
reaches mass popularity.
At scale, platforms like TV
Dinner will become a hub of
self-expression and a source of
rich fan content. As these types
of platforms gain popularity,
there will be great value in the
real-time insights that can be
made about our relationship to
all forms of media consumption.
For now, platforms like TV
Dinner make for a fun way to
watch television and create and
enjoy fan content in a way not
possible with current mainstream
social applications.
Despite the media industry’s
recent obsession with the
notion of social television, the
“super-fan” has long played a
role in the rich culture of television.
Fan art and other types
of fan fiction have risen from
an underground pastime to a
mass, countercultural movement
— so much so that, one
can hardly deem these selfappointed
cultural curators as
counterculture at all.
While there is a great deal of
socialization around television
on Twitter, Get Glue and other
popular platforms, the most
robust fan culture is still seen
in the blogosphere. Blogs ranging
from the thoughtful and
snarky TV Critic (ex: Warming
Glow, Hulu’s The Morning
After) to teenage non sequiturs
about pop-culture happenings.
An early example of television
fan culture on the Web
was Lost. User-generated
content around the TV show
was unprecedented, but more
interestingly, in the beginning
it was unprompted. Given the
show’s vast fan culture, producers
began to tease audiences,
trying to thwart would-be spoilers.
This interplay between creator
and viewer gave rise to the
popularization of trans-media
storytelling, or the unraveling
of a plotline across various
media types. But trans-media
storytelling is not only about the
interaction between a story’s
point of origin and its ultimate
destination. Various fan-created
podcasts and blogs were created,
speculating the happen-
ings of both past and future
episodes. Eventually, fan chatter
helped shape the actual direction
of the show.
Since that time, fan fiction
has run rampant on the Web.
Show-specific sites such as
drunkronswanson.com take
fan culture to new and ridiculous
heights (that is not to say
this site is LMAO great). This
site features a single animated
gif of Ron Swanson dancing —
full screen. As if that were not
great enough, it does so at full
screen. Go watch it — I dare
you to not crack a smile!
Popular mash-up memes
based on television have also
gained popularity. “Cap Gifs”
and the alternate universe (AU)
meme have become incredibly
popular on the blogging platform
Tumblr. In an AU meme,
viewers build elaborate screenshots
and animations depicting
what could have been in
an episode or series. Recent
AU memes have explored the
push-pull relationship between
Richard Castle and his boss,
Beckett. These creations are
due, in part, to the longing that
fans have to witness a specific
outcome.
We are excited by the rise of
new self-expression tools and
the ongoing interplay between
content creators and fans, and
the fans themselves. Some say
that consumption is the new
production, or more precisely,
the act of watching a show
has become engaged activity,
empowering fans to play a role.
Why bother to become actors
when we can take part in TV
shows, right from the comfort
of our own couches?