GigaOM » beeTV

Social TV app BeeTV hits the dead pool

Ryan Lawler — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:30:44 +0000

After raising more than $10 million since being founded in 2007, social TV startup BeeTV is shutting down and putting its assets up for auction, CEO Yaniv Solnik informed us in an email Monday morning. Included in the sale is some patented recommendation engine technology designed to help viewers find new content.

BeeTV might be the most recent big social TV app to hit the dead pool, but it’s unlikely to be the last. Over the previous year or so, at least a half dozen startups have emerged with apps designed to allow users to share what they’re watching with friends and to get recommendations about new content they might like.

BeeTV’s issues speak to the difficulty social TV startups have in getting consumers to download and use their applications. In a crowded segment of the market, app makers have struggled to differentiate their products from the competition. One way to do so is by making the so-called “check in” feature as seamless as possible. And so, app makers like GetGlue are partnering with operators like DirecTV to link their apps directly to viewers’ set-top boxes.

Unlike some of the more recent social TV startups, BeeTV took a somewhat circuitous route to offering this functionality to consumers: It originally launched way back in 2008 as a way for operators to create personalized recommendations for their subscribers. But it relaunched earlier this year as a consumer-facing iPad app. That’s the opposite route of most of the latest app makers, which have launched to consumers first and have since been striking deals with cable operators and TV networks to partner on promotions designed to increase engagement and live TV tune-in.

Earlier this year, Philo — which competed with GetGlue and others — was acquired by LocalResponse. Consolidation is likely to continue as social TV apps get weeded out. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye on this space to see how the social check-in and recommendation apps evolve to get and keep users’ attention.

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Which TV Shows Are People Talking About? SocialGuide Will Tell You

Ryan Lawler — Fri, 20 May 2011 16:08:31 +0000

More than half of consumers watch TV with a laptop, tablet or mobile device in their hands, and a growing number are posting to Twitter or Facebook while doing so. But which shows are they talking about? That’s the point of SocialGuide, which aims to provide a real-time view into which shows are stirring up the most conversation.

Like other social TV startups, SocialGuide enables users to set up individual accounts, look for their friends and share what they’re watching on Twitter and Facebook. Once signed in, they can designate their location and TV provider, and get listings for the most talked about shows that are on, thanks to a partnership it struck with Tribune Media Services. Its SocialGuide also lets users see what their friends are watching as a way to help foster conversation between them.

But the consumer-facing aspect of the business — getting people to sign in and share what they’re watching — is probably the least interesting part of what it’s doing. Even if viewers don’t log in to the service or explicitly “check in” to any TV shows, SocialGuide can still provide valuable data to both TV viewers and the content owners themselves. The site works by scouring Twitter in real time for conversations about shows as they are airing, creating a listing of the most social shows on TV. It then aggregates of those social conversations into one spot. The result is a real-time social channel listing.

While SocialGuide can provide a high-level overview of all shows that are on, it also breaks down rankings into subcategories, such as series, reality, movies, sports and news. And each of the shows gets its own show page, which brings together all the Twitter or Facebook conversations as they happen. Customized show pages are one way SocialGuide hopes to make money. By providing skinnable landing pages for individual shows, it can allow content owners to take control of their online presence on the guide. SocialGuide also is able to provide real-time data: not just about how users are interacting with its own site, but what they’re talking about elsewhere as well.

SocialGuide isn’t alone in aggregating real-time conversations about shows: Yap.TV, BeeTV and even VH1′s Co-Star app all bring in conversations that happen around live TV on social networks. Nor is it the only aggregator collecting data around which shows are most popular at any given time, as Wiredset’s Trendrr.tv provides similar data.

SocialGuide is still officially in beta, but expects to publicly launch soon. It also expects to introduce new applications for the iPhone, iPad and Android-based mobile devices over the coming weeks. The Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup has a full-time staff of four, and has raised $1.5 million from angel investors that include Alex Zubillaga, the former head of digital strategy at Warner Music.

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BeeTV: Social TV Meets Recommendations On the iPad

Ryan Lawler — Tue, 17 May 2011 11:52:10 +0000

BeeTV has introduced a new iPad app designed to create more engaging, interactive experiences around TV. Like other social TV apps, BeeTV hopes to tap into the large group of potential users that connect with each other on the second screen while watching TV — whether that second screen be a mobile phone or a tablet device. Also like some other TV apps, BeeTV mixes a combination of checkins and social conversations online. But what sets BeeTV apart is its approach to recommendations.

Once a user has logged in with Facebook and chosen his TV provider, BeeTV makes recommendations based on his or her favorites, also providing a list of live and upcoming shows that a user might be interested in. Users can set alerts and invite friends to watch shows with them, as well as strike up conversations with each other around episodes that they’re watching. Each program has its own individual show page with tons of information about the cast and crew. From that page, users can rate or comment, with updates being fed into the app itself, as well as to social networks that the user has chosen to share with.

BeeTV was founded in 2007 and got its start as a social recommendation engine that was being pitched to service providers as a way to connect their subscribers to new content. The company raised $8 million to pursue that goal, but found that the operator sales cycle was much too long, and ultimately hampered innovation. As a result, co-founder and CTO Yaniv Solnik decided to spin out the technology and start a consumer-facing app business instead.

Now Solnik is the CEO and has raised $1.5 million from Italian VC firm Innogest to fund the newest iteration of BeeTV’s business. The company currently has about 10 employees, with its R&D operations in Israel and an eye toward starting an office in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Currently, the app relies on affiliate merchandising revenue from digital stores like iTunes and Amazon for revenue, but BeeTV plans to monetize the app through advertising and other sources. Solnick sees an opportunity for a link between ads that appear on the TV and calls to action on the second screen. Given BeeTV’s ability to recommend new shows, Solnick also believes that the app could offer up sponsored show recommendations to users.

For now, though, the name of the game is just getting users. The BeeTV iPad app is available on the Apple App Store now, with plans to create apps for handsets like the iPhone and Android mobile devices soon.

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Vid-Biz: Zillion TV, ESPN 360, Hammertime

Chris Albrecht — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:25:25 +0000

Zillion TV to Offer Some Movies Day-and-Date with DVD for Free; unnamed studio willing to experiment by offering consumers the choice of watching a targeted ad. (TheWrap) Also in movie windowing news — DVD Releases Taking Longer; the theatrical-to-DVD window was 144 days in the first half of this year, compared with 125 days during the same period in 2008. (Video Business)

Small ISPs Looking to FCC for Help Against ESPN 360′s Model; the little guys say they are being squeezed by the sports network, which is urging consumers to switch to larger ISPs that carry ESPN 360. (DSL Reports)

Hammertime Goes Viral in No Time; Hammer Pants Dance flash mob vid is a promotion for A&E’s new MC Hammer reality show, has already generated 900,000+ views in less than a week. (AdWeek)

Man Indicted After Alleged Rape Streamed Live; he was charged with two counts of sexual assault and one charge of voyeurism stemming from an incident earlier this year when he live streamed his actions. (CNET)

Chinese Audiences Don’t Mind Branded Entertainment; limited TV selection in that country provides an opportunity (and eyeballs) for brands to create web shows centered around their products. (The Wall Street Journal)

White House Vids Aren’t Watching You Back; vids posted on the administration’s page will be exempt from YouTube tracking; even the EFF likes it! (All Things D)

Reveille Partners with Machinima.com; shorts created for Machinima.com (previous coverage) that gain traction will be developed by Reveille for possible TV deals. (Variety)

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beeTV Takes Video Recommendations to the TV

Liz Gannes — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:00:25 +0000

Recommendation services, especially for online video, are a dime a dozen these days. But here’s one that’s a bit different: beeTV, which launched at DEMO today, is a content recommendation platform for TV operators that compiles a personalized channel of VOD content for each of that operator’s customers.

And hey, this is neat: The company’s tech team is led by Gavin Potter, who was recently profiled in Wired magazine for being “Just a guy in a garage” (his actual handle), albeit one who was kicking ass on the Netflix Prize (the DVD rental company’s open bounty to improve its recommendation system by 10 percent).

Milan-based beeTV says for TV operators it can be a marketing aid, and for consumers, a source of relief from dealing with overwhelming (but uninspiring) choices of what to watch. The idea, said beeTV chairman and founder Rodolfo Hecht, is “to give you satisfaction for what you already paid for.”

beeTV isn’t without its own limitations — recommendations are based on and restricted to only the provider’s content, and consumers don’t actually have accounts on the platform (metadata is gathered implicity) — but I like that it’s trying to get in on middleware instead of going direct to the web. And getting excellent data for making recommendations would require being invasive — like, for instance, Comcast’s musing that it might build cameras into its receivers to know which family member is sitting in front of the TV.

As for actual customers, Hecht told us today that the company has a deal signed with “one of the biggest IPTV players” that it can’t announce yet. Clearly, the peril of not interacting directly with consumers is that beeTV won’t go anywhere unless it can sign up IPTV, cable and satellite customers.

beeTV has 30 employees and is self-funded. Hecht recently sold his last company, a sports-oriented rights management company called Media Partners, to Infront for an undisclosed amount.

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