I've heard of various media companies attempting this for at least the past 10 years; has something changed recently that makes now the right time for this to work? (This wouldn't be the first time cultural and technology changes led to the success of an idea that has failed before)
Do you know why the previous attempts failed to catch on? How will you avoid those problems?
The examples that I looked at were all aimed at live broadcast and then just stop making sense (e.g. AMC storysync). The statistics I have looked at for Game of Thrones show, within a week of the first airing < 25% of the views are live, the rest is already some form of delayed watching (DVR, re-run, on-demand).
I am confident that the trend away from broadcast towards on-demand is working in our favor.
Not sure if the attempts are comparable and if the same problems apply. Finding the integration (or other route) that helps generate enough traction is one of the top tasks on the business side of this.
This seems actually kind of cool. I've always enjoyed reading Twitter during popular keynotes, but it would be super cool to see what other people think during my favorite tv show. Have you planned to do a Twitter like rating (show popular comments + a few new random ones).
How are you planning on syncing this with Netflix, Amazon, and co? You could have a start button in your app but I doubt this would really work out well because some shows have different lengths on different platforms (some add a longer intro, others filter some content) and I often like to pause the TV show, which would make it out of sync unless I also pause the app.
There's up- and downvoting and we use that to rate-limit comments that are being displayed as you go. Downvoted comments (like spoilers) get filtered out quickly, upvoted (or new) comments make it through the rate-limit. We're using a modified version of reddit's published scoring system.
Syncing is the single biggest technical issue and currently not easy since most platforms don't allow access to the point where we could really time-sync. Still looking at a few options, though.
There definitely is some interest. I'm hoping, HN is also going to be an indication whether people want this.
Monetization can happen through partnerships with content creators/publishers (even white label solutions), timed advertising or affiliate links (think "I love the dress Claire is wearing – here's the link" or "Meet 'The Mountain' at ComicCon – link").
They can, if they're watching at the same time. When testing, we did find ourselves checking back what other people's reaction was later on. App still needs notifications for this. Netflix/hulu/amazon are definitely interesting for partnerships/integration.
spoilr.tv is to something like that, but asynchronously. Your buddy is a week behind on Game of Thrones, but still sees your comments on the last episode, time-synced with his watching it (and you're going to be notified if he/she responds to them).
Do you know why the previous attempts failed to catch on? How will you avoid those problems?