--CBS Signs up as Social Syndication Platform's First Customer
At the recent DEMOfall show in San Diego, a San Francisco-based start-up called iWidgets unveiled its new iWidgets Social Syndication Platform and announced that CBS Interactive has signed up as the platform's first customer. According to the company, the iWidgets Social Syndication Platform will allow CBS viewers to watch full episodes of CBS television shows directly within popular social networks and to interact with other viewers through such features as content-sharing, polls, ratings and contests. "Launching the iWidgets Social Syndication Platform with a major media company such as CBS Interactive is an exciting showcase of how social syndication can increase engagement of existing content," iWidgets CEO, Peter Yared, said in a prepared statement. "With social syndication, Web sites can now have their users share with their friends interesting information about themselves, such as their favorite television programming, their last run plotted by GPS, and their favorite recipes, which drives traffic and brand awareness." Added Anthony Soohoo, SVP and general manager of CBS Interactive: "We're always looking for new ways to let our fans engage with their favorite CBS TV shows. By socially syndicating CBS content with iWidgets, CBS fans can now customize their Facebook and MySpace pages with content from shows like 'CSI,' 'Survivor' and 'NCIS.' This allows them to share their favorite episodes with friends, as well as invite their friends to participate in interactive polls and contests."
iWidgets bills the iWidgets Social Syndication Platform as making it easy for Web sites to "socially syndicate" their content and user activity "deeply into" social networks and portals, such as Facebook, MySpace and iGoogle, in order to drive traffic and increase brand awareness. The company says that users of those social networks can now view a range of CBS programming within them, including the "CSI" family of shows, "Amazing Race," "NCSI" and "Numb3rs," and that, over the next few months, CBS plans to socially syndicate the majority of its programming through the platform. According to iWidgets, the new platform is based on its patent-pending WidgetWORA technology, which it claims provides the ability to publish to a range of social networks, portals, blog services and Web sites. The company says that--"unlike previous-generation widget solutions that place a square of identical, standalone Flash into destinations"--iWidgets are "deeply integrated" into the social graphs and viral channels of social networks.
