Interactive TV News Round-Up (I): Comcast, HBO, Cox, GetGlue, Entertainment Weekly

Because the [itvt] editorial team has been busy this week working on the TV of Tomorrow Show 2011, we are covering recent news in round-up/summary form. Once again, we anticipate that it will take us a few days to catch up with all the news we plan to cover: so if your company has sent us a press release or briefed us on an announcement, and you don't see your news covered in this issue, please bear with us.

• Comcast has announced the launch of Xfinity TV in Spanish. Elements of the offering, according to the company, include: "1) Newly launched www.xfinitytv.com/latinoTV, a Spanish-language entertainment Internet portal with access to more than 500 Hispanic video choices online, including movies, music videos and shows from television and movie partners including Univision, Cine Mexicano, Gran Cine, Caracol TV, Discovery Familia, ¡Sorpresa!, Tr3s, select content from HBO Latino, Starz and many more. 2) A tripling of on-demand programming in Spanish to nearly 700 video choices for customers to watch anytime, plus new content from broadcasting partners including Telemundo, Galavision, TeleFutura and mun2. 3) Additional Spanish-language HD content on-demand on TV. 4) More movies that are available the same day as DVD in Spanish than ever before."
• In other Comcast news: At the recent Deutsche Bank Securities Media & Telecom conference in Palm Beach, Comcast president, Neil Smit, in response to questions about Cablevision's new RS-DVR service, praised network DVR as "a great opportunity" and said that Comcast is "currently investigating that," adding that the company is "very conscious of the content owners and the content rights." He also stated that Comcast is exploring technologies that would allow customers to port content stored on a DVR hard drive to other devices for later playback. Light Reading Cable's Jeff Baumgartner has more.
• Cox Communications has announced that HBO's "TV Everywhere" services, HBO Go and Max Go, are now available to authenticated Cox customers who subscribe to HBO and Cinemax. "With HBO Go, Cox Advanced TV customers who subscribe to HBO have free, unlimited access to more than 1,400 titles online, including virtually all of HBO's programming inventory, any time and from any US location with a broadband connection," Cox states in its press materials. "HBO's sister service Max Go, adds more than 450 titles of Cinemax programming online, allowing Cox customers who subscribe to Cinemax to instantly watch movies from their computer. To view online, HBO and Cinemax subscribers can go to HBOGo.com and MaxGo.com or simply go to cox.com/tv. Once there, subscribers sign in with their Cox user ID and password, make their selections and view. HBO Go and Max Go offer Cox TV customers new titles immediately after premiering on HBO and Cinemax. HBO Go and Max Go also give subscribers the ability to create a watchlist that keeps track of bookmarked content for later viewing, extra content including interviews, recaps, and behind-the-scenes pieces; and customizable views showing titles in slideshow, grid or list format. Max Go also includes 'Browse by Tags,' a feature allowing users to find titles via keywords."  
• AdaptiveBlue, the company behind the "check-in"-based social-TV service, GetGlue, has formed a partnership with the magazine, Entertainment Weekly. "Readers who check in to items featured on EW's 'Must List' via GetGlue can unlock virtual and physical stickers, which in turn reward users with exclusive curated content from the editors of Entertainment Weekly," the companies state in their press materials. "This is the first publishing partnership for GetGlue and the first social check-in integration for Entertainment Weekly...Readers who check in to items featured on EW's 'Must List' via GetGlue can unlock virtual and physical stickers, which in turn reward users with exclusive curated content from the editors of Entertainment Weekly...Each week fans will be able to check in to the items featured on EW's 'Must List' to earn unique fan stickers, and then share with friends through Twitter and Facebook. Check-ins in consecutive weeks will unlock additional stickers. Each sticker will feature a set of unique rewards--'Must See Movie List,' 'Best Characters of the last 20 Years,' etc.--hand-picked by Entertainment Weekly's editors for GetGlue fans."