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TV Guide rolled out an app to see what’s playing, watch whatever’s on, and also tweet, post, and blog about it. And that Apple is rumored to be releasing a mini-TV tablet to enable an iOS-style second-screen experience.

SimulTV’s solution is to combine both screens, right on the web. So your football game, Twitter conversations, Facebook messages, online search, and text and voice chat with others on SimulTV who are watching the same thing as you.

by this summer, SimulTV promises to have more than 100 channels, including ”top channels” from Latin America, China, Japan and Europe, plus 5,000 video-on-demand titles. The service is HD-quality, with picture-in-picture for the truly ADHD social TV aficionados, and according to the company, takes only half the bandwidth of typically required.

Still, you might say a revolution is brewing in the living room — and this one will be televised. It portends not only a change in the TV viewing experience but also poses a threat to cable and satellite TV distributors. Even network executives' notions about scheduling — how positioning a new show adjacent to a popular program in the evening lineup to drive ratings — look anachronistic at a time when Nielsen estimates that 47% of all American households have DVRs and can watch recorded shows whenever they choose, and 55% of broadband homes have at least one TV connected to the Internet, according to market researcher the Diffusion Group.

Concerns about how to reach this group known as the "never connecteds" and count their viewing in a show's ratings adds to a list of headaches that include slumping prime-time broadcast TV ratings and the flight of advertisers to cable.

these smart TVs may look dated compared with what Silicon Valley giant Intel has in store for later this year, not to mention whatever Apple Inc. is planning with its mysterious but hotly anticipated flat-screen TV.

Amplify is Twitter’s name for partnerships with media companies that focuses on the second-screen experience: fans talking about events and issues on live TV shows. Ninety-five percent of “live TV conversation” currently happens on Twitter, the company said in a recent blog post,

Twitter is doing a very neat three-way deal between the NBA, which gets its highlights promoted, and in this case, the movie After Earth, which gets publicity and the chance to increase its Twitter audience via the embedded Follow @AfterEarth account.

But negative comments about the feature continued. A more recent factor was the highly publicized revelations about surveillance activities by the National Security Agency. “What pushed me over the hump was the whole NSA sort of thing,” Huggers says. “I don’t want to go there.”

Not that Intel doesn’t plan to offer plenty of ways to personalize the TV-watching experience. For example, the company cites a Personal Profiles feature that helps switch between individuals using the device, so they have access to relevant content and recommendations. Another option lets users add favorites so they have access to recently watched shows, with the ability to instantly pick up in the program where they left off.

Still another feature, called Spotlight, integrates recommendations based on what’s trending in social media as well as curating content based on a user’s age, interest and time of watching, the company says.

Chromecast lets your stream online content to your TV and control it via your new Nexus 7 (also introduced today, along with Android 4.3) or any Android device running version 2.3 or later

Unlike Apple's AirPlay, which can stream content directly from mobile devices to Apple TV, Chromecast pulls content from the cloud. The benefit: If the person initiating the Chromecast leaves the house, someone else can continue controlling the viewing experience with a different Cast-enabled device. It also won't drain the battery of your device.

Like most Google TV devices, it comes with a separate and overly complex remote control. The remote control for Chromecast will be your favorite mobile device (yes, it even beats your iPhone). It's very un-remote like: No special interface or buttons. Since Chromecast revolves around apps, the app remains the interface. If you know Netflix, you know how to work Chromecast.

Tomorrowish’s claim to fame is saying that it has the only social media DVR. The company takes the US East Coast conversation during prime time, curates it, saves it, and then brings it together with the West Coast airings.

For brands, Tomorrowish will give them more engagement with viewers on social media, sponsored content, and celebrity conversations. Diving into the Social TV, it will work across all platforms so that viewers can interact with shows on mobile devices, TV, or computers. There’s also a mobile API that developers can tap into.

real aim to is help guide first-timers who have decided to download the app after seeing hashtags or “@” signs on TV ads.

Instead of taking days or weeks to figure out what’s so cool about Twitter, for instance, a newcomer could instantly stumble into a conversation happening about their favorite prime-time drama, during the very moment that show airs.

Much of the idea behind the overall redesign is to combat the massive user churn and retention problems

The service analyzes over 3,000 TV shows across “100%” of broadcasters and cable TV networks in Canada, recording 20 million relevant social media interactions each week. The idea is that clients – which currently include Quebecor Media, CBC, and Bell Media – can analyze posts and tweets, both for their own shows and channels, but also the industry over all, and adjust their social media strategy accordingly.

TvTweet, founded in Bordeaux, France in 2011, has found similar success in the European market, and is working with companies such as Orange, TF1 and NRJ12 across seven different countries.

A mélange of TV resource apps are getting together to help each other, and their users. Dijit, Thuuz, Tomorrowish, IVA and Simple.TV are partnering to integrate their products and services. The theory seems to be that they are stronger working together, rather than alone. Given the non-competitive positioning of each, this could be a boon for TV viewers. First a quick summary of what each of the companies does. Dijit’s NextGuide helps TV viewers discover new TV shows and remember to watch them. Thuuz provides real-time sports updates helping fans tune to the most interesting game on TV at any given time. Tomorrowish let’s viewers watching a show or event on-demand replay the social media buzz from the first broadcast. Internet Video Archive (IVA) specializes in providing show and movie trailers. Simple.TV provides live TV and network DVR services.

The gist: Later this fall, Twitter users will start to see a “See It” button on messages about some of Comcast-owned NBCUniversal’s shows, like “The Voice.” Clicking on those Tweets will open up a Twitter “card” with more information about the shows, and Twitter users who are also Comcast pay-TV subscribers will be able to record or watch the show directly from their computer or mobile device.

“We want to make the conversation on Twitter lead to consumption,” said Sam Schwartz, Comcast’s chief business development officer.

The deal also includes an “Amplify” advertising deal with Twitter, where Twitter and NBCUniversal will both sell ads against short video clips from the programmers’ shows.

Three years after launching the first generation of Google TV devices, Google is now looking to rid itself of the brand and realign its smart TV platform efforts more closely with Android. The move is part admission that Google TV failed, part hope that Android will eventually find its place in the living room.

They are calling it ‘Android TV.’”

Google announced earlier this year that it would update Google TV to the latest version of Android, which would allow developers to use the same APIs available on mobile devices.

Dunkin’ Donuts today is launching TV spots called #MyDunkin, featuring the brand’s passionate Twitter fans.

We’ve found in the last few years that letting consumers talk about Dunkin’ is far more powerful than any brand message we could put out.

You can use the mobile app to find a local Dunkin’ and receive geo-targeted offers. The mobile offers change as you go from market to market while using push notifications for location-based targeting.

Thirty-four percent of millennials surveyed watch mostly online video or no broadcast television, new research from The New York Times says.

Users reported spending the most time with funny videos, movie clips, music videos and then news.

And 59 percent said they’ll likely watch pre-roll ads if they know they won’t have to wait long for their content.

On their own, Twitter efforts resulted in a less-than-inspiring 4% boost in positive reactions to the well-known supermarket. Similarly, TV only managed to generate a measly 4% incline. However, as a twosome, TV and Twitter notched up a far greater 21% rise – that’s 21% more people willing to do their next shop at Sainsbury’s than before.

“This interaction between TV and Twitter is not something that we’ve orchestrated,” Mortensen reminded us. “It’s something that the audience are doing themselves. It’s driven by people, so it’s very natural.”

The findings indicated two different ways of engaging with Twitter in connection with TV – the ‘lean forward’ and ‘lean back’ approaches. Those who ‘lean back’ while interacting want stimulation without having to commit. In causal browsing mode, they will switch between the first and the second screen at will. Advertisers should not make the mistake of thinking that this nonchalant attitude creates disengagement though – having both screens working together keeps people in the living room in front of ads and makes them less likely to wander off. This type of audience are still taking in messages implicitly, and often find themselves unconsciously responding to brands' triggers.

While brogrammers are brogramming away to suit themselves, they're actually strangling their own chances of success. And looked at like that, it really should be obvious that the appalling record of the tech sector in attracting, employing and retaining women is one that the industry should be looking to remedy urgently and for the basest financial motives.

geek boy groupthink is a prison. It keeps women locked out, and that's one way in which it's disastrous. It also keeps tech firms sealed in, trapped by an idea of their audience as fundamentally like their nerdy selves which stops them from coming up with any number of good new ideas - good ideas that consumers like you and me would fall over themselves to use if only someone would invent them.

Twitter based information is now directly integrated into the guide of the X1 platform. Not only will users be able to scroll through the guide and see which shows are currently trending on Twitter, they will be able to reorganize and filter the programming based on what’s trending and change the channel from there.

Last week, Xbox and Twitter announced that Twitter will be directly integrated into the Xbox One’s TV experience. Automatically displaying tweets related to the show you are watching in a Lower Third type overlay experience as well as Trending hashtag and topic information integrated into the Xbox One’s OneGuide.

Curatorr may be powering curated streams of show based twitter content for EVERY show in Xbox One TV. Keeping in mind here that Curatorr is a Twitter owned product, these curated streams of content can be further fine tuned after the initial airing of shows and can then be “restreamed” as a Social DVR of sorts.