Interactive TV News Round-Up (VI): SeaChange, SocialGuide, YuMe

Because the [itvt] editorial team has been on the road the past few weeks, we are covering stories in this issue in round-up/summary format. We anticipate that it will take us several days to catch up with all the recent news: so if your company has sent us a press release or briefed us on an announcement, and you don't yet see your news covered in this issue, please bear with us.

• SeaChange International contacted [itvt] last week to let us know that it is demo'ing "dynamic ad delivery across consumer platforms" and a "seamless multiscreen subscriber experience" at this week's CableLabs Summer Conference in Keystone, Colorado. "SeaChange and This Technology have collaborated to deliver an ad management and delivery platform that allows operators to use existing broadband servers for placement decisions across TV's, PC's, mobile phones and tablets," the company states in its press materials. "Combining SeaChange's Infusion Advanced Advertising Platform with This Technology's SpotLink software, the platform leverages Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) and Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) specifications to interconnect VOD with broadband Internet and mobile advertising systems. What has traditionally required disparate advertising systems is now accomplished on a single system by enabling the SCTE-130 advertising specification to operate with the IAB Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST)...SeaChange Nitro," the company's press materials continue, "is the consumer interface for multiscreen video, leveraging HTML5 to give subscribers intuitive features and functionality for navigating and controlling video content on any video device. Key Nitro features include support for linear and on-demand video viewing, multi-room DVR, virtual channels, TV listings, bookmarking, search and recommendation, and handheld-as-a-remote capability, the latter transforming enabled mobile devices into in-home remote controls. The combination of Nitro with SeaChange's Adrenalin multiscreen video backoffice gives operators a platform that encompasses every aspect of multiscreen services, from the subscriber experience to content delivery, management and monetization."
• SocialGuide contacted [itvt] last week to let us know that it has launched "The Social 100," a social-TV ratings system, which it says tracks social media around TV programming as it airs, and ranks the most social programs. "The first report, compiled as the system launches out of beta, is for the period of July 1 through July 31, 2011," the company states in its press materials. "In the July report, The Social 100 ranks 'Basketball Wives' as the most social program in primetime and 'Family Guy' as the most overall social program across all airings. Fox ranks as the top social-TV network with viewers engaging the most on social media channels around its programming. The Social 100 publishes the Most Social Programs, Episodes, Primetime, Sports Events and Networks on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. It also publishes a social-TV snapshot, providing the total social-TV activity in the given time period. The data is collected using SocialGuide's proprietary Intelligent Social-TV Recognition System, which captures the real-time social activity that is happening across the linear-TV landscape. The system is the most comprehensive in the marketplace, tracking the social activity around every program aired across 170 of the most popular broadcast and cable channels, and is the only system to capture the full breadth of programs including series, specials, movies and sporting events. The social data is sourced from the Twitter and Facebook API's. Metrics tracked by the system include total comments, unique commenters, the average followers per unique and comments per unique. In July 2011, SocialGuide mined and filtered over 10.5 million social-TV comments by more than 2.6 million uniques for over 4,150 unique programs." Said SocialGuide founder and CEO, Sean Casey: "We developed The Social 100 to give comprehensive insight into the potential social reach and social engagement across the US television landscape. In the coming months we look forward to offering a premium service that will give networks, programmers, marketers and research executives deeper data and analysis of the social activity and reactions around their programming."
• Multiscreen video advertising technology provider, YuMe, announced last week that co-founder (and former CEO), Jayant Kadambi, has been named CEO again, replacing Michael Mathieu, who has served in that role for the past three years. Mathieu will continue to serve on the company's board. Kadambi "will lead YuMe in continuing to build both the media business and technology platform that provides end-to-end software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for video that allow publishers and advertisers to reach their audience on any screen--PC, mobile, or connected TV," YuMe states in its press materials. "YuMe has broadly expanded the reach of the YuMe business and technology platform: 1) Serving over 1.5 billion ad impressions per month on its global video ad serving infrastructure. 2) Triple digital revenue growth for three consecutive years--far outpacing the industry. 3) New relevance engine-based supply- and demand-side video infrastructure product offerings. 4) Expansion into Europe with the opening of a London office. 5) Additionally, the company has hired senior executive leadership, including Tim Laehy as CFO; and an experienced team to drive marketing and expansion on mobile platforms."