Not sure it's entirely revolutionary but I've always thought that the whole social networks audience should start to be a massive channel for friends promoting / watching shows in the next generation of the web - namely when it is really viewable through their TV so is a 'normal' sociable watching experience. And ideally from the social network industry's perspective you watch within the confines of a nice social network player.
This would start to extend the advertising model for social networks into something slightly more interesting than the current one which is not seemingly appealing for a host of reasons (read interview with Publicis Modem MD for some interesting views on problems with social network ads) - being that of driving up eyeballs for shows and therefore indirect ad revenue. ie. perhaps Rupert Murdoch is going to be right after all with the combination of content + delivery + social network traffic.
The various tipping points have started to come in place or be crossed:
- Scale of audiences
- definitely exceeded tipping point (whether Facebook, MySpace etc)
- Technology to extend web video into living room
- not at tipping point - YET - but Apple et al will get it right on the cool hardware front with simpler plug-and-play devices
- Bandwidth
- there for some players (eg cable) but others have far to go
- Content partnerships into Social Networks
- growing ..... but most involve redirects back to the main content broadcasters site
The news today about CBS promoting shows through a relationship with start up iWidgets social syndication platform is another step on the latter ...
US TV network CBS will broadcast a number of its shows on Facebook, MySpace and Google's personalised homepage, iGoogle, after signing a deal with San Francisco startup iWidgets.
The iWidget app will allow social networkers to watch TV series such as CSI, The Amazing Race, NCIS and Numb3rs. CBS says it hopes to add more shows, including Star Trek, in the coming months.
Users will also be able to share and rate episodes as well as participate in polls and competitions.
Several other TV networks have deals with social networks: MySpaceTV features shows from Fox and NBC, Facebook has an ABC.com widget and Bebo also has a deal with CBS. However, the latest CBS deal is the first that allows users to watch shows directly from social networking pages, without being redirected to the TV networks' sites, according to Silicon Valley Insider.
iWidgets taps into an flavor-of-the-month and describes itself on its web site:
People are spending increasing amounts of their online time on social networks like Facebook and MySpace and portals like iGoogle. The iWidgets Social Syndication Platform drives traffic and interest for your website by syndicating your content and user activity to social networks and portals. iWidgets is the only turnkey solution offering deep integration into the social graphs and viral channels of social networks, in addition to an online PowerPoint-style editor offering full creative control.
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