This is a guest post by Guinevere Orvis. Guinevere is a Web Producer in Toronto, Canada working both freelance and in the broadcast industry for Alliance Atlantis, CTVglobemedia and currently CBC. She has 10 years experience in the online space and specializes in social media, online marketing and content production.

Guess what television? You may not love the internet, but the internet loves you. Stop sending us takedown notices!

Broadcasters have a dirty little secret. I work in broadcast and I’m gonna let you in on this secret, only because I love the internet and I’m tired of hearing it get blamed for TV’s woes.

While we’re unleashing our lawyers on social networks with slips of paper with big words like “copyright infringement”, we’re also taking in huge new audiences on air and online — social media is actually helping our bottom line. How much? In one major broadcaster’s case, an additional 200,000 viewers in just one month. That company even let their growth secret out of the bag, “YouTube has brought a significant new audience of viewers to each broadcast.” Naughty CBS! They shouldn’t go running their mouths like that.

Continue reading “Social media boosts TV ratings” »

It’s about time. Traditional media has discovered the new media potential of high school sports.

The most recent media outlet to the — pardon the pun — tailgate party is the Fox Television Stations, which has just launched FoxHiLites.com as a platform for sharing video and commentary of high school athletics and athletes. The service/site is available in 23 Fox markets, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas, Washington, D.C., and New York.

FoxHiLites is like YouTube for high school sports. FoxHiLites encourages producers, athletes, fans, parents, and coaches to upload video, which may appear on one of the Fox stations. And it’s not just about football, basketball, and baseball: FoxHiLites is looking for contributions in band, softball, boxing and the martial arts, cheerleading and dance, hockey, soccer, skateboarding, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field and cross country, volleyball, wrestling, and other miscellaneous activities.

Continue reading “FoxHiLites is latest site/service dedicated to high school athletics” »

NewTeeVee notes that “Facebook Diaries” launches tonight at about 9 p.m. on Comcast’s video on demand service. I am intrigued by user-generated content mixed together by a professional producer to create a television show unlike any we’ve seen so far.

The Web component for the eight-episode, weekly series is already in place as the pilot episode, “Who Am I,” is available on Facebook and on Comcast’s video sharing site Ziddio. The project was announced earlier this year and has Facebook users recording and submitting clips of their lives based on topics such as who am I, heartbreak, road trip, wild nights, and my memory.

The user clips are taken by R.J. Cutler of Actual Reality Pictures and weaved, with motion graphics and music, into a half-hour show based on a theme. Cutler is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning producer of TV shows, including “American High” and “30 Days,” and his touch will be crucial to the success and future of the “Facebook Diaries.”

Continue reading ““Facebook Diaries” debut on Comcast’s VOD” »

Suddenly Nathan Fillion, actor, TV star, space cowboy, was a Twitter friend. Or so I thought.

When the Fox TV series Drive first aired in April, I noticed Fillon was a Twitter-er, a participant in the social media, short-message service Twitter. As it turned out, it was actually director Greg Yaitanes making the posts; he just used a Drive publicity photo (of Fillion) as an avatar.

Didn’t matter. Fillion or Yaitanes, I had a connection with someone working on an interesting new program, someone who would “talk” with me and feed me — and 909 friends and 718 followers on Twitter — with insider tidbits about filming, scripts, special effects during the show.

Fox may have been ahead of its time, not with the show (which it canceled) but with Twitter. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that NBC, CBS, ABC Family, and MTV are among several networks “experimenting with the marketing possibilities” of Twitter. As I discovered with Drive, there’s potential power between the network, the show, the people responsible for the show, and fans watching the show — if done right.

Continue reading “Television networks seek connections to viewers through Twitter” »

The recent dashboard update to the XBox 360 delivered Windows Live Messenger functionality to Microsoft’s next-generation console, which the company claimed, makes Xbox Live “the largest social network on television.” However, right now Xbox users are limited to inputing text using a virtual on-screen keyboard or can choose to plug in a USB one — which is hardly ideal. To solve this problem, Microsoft will soon be releasing a new input device called the ChatPad, which adds a snap-on QWERTY thumb-board to the traditional XBox controller.

Charles Husemann, over at GamingNexus, got his hands on a prototype of the device, and was impressed:

It’s a pretty tight fit so you don’t have to worry about accidentally knocking it off during gameplay. The unit isn’t really that heavy and doesn’t really impact the weight or balance of the Xbox 360 controller. I think this is something that a lot of people will snap on and leave on.

Using the buttons will take a little getting used to but like any small QWERTY keyboard once you get used to it you’ll be ripping off long diatribes in no time.

Husemann also reveals that the ChatPad has a backlight, which automatically turns on and off as you start and stop typing, rather like a mobile phone. Microsoft claims that this means the backlighting won’t impact too much on battery life.

Husemann concludes:

[the ChatPad] feels great, and I think a lot of people are going to snap this sucker up (especially now that Live is hooked into Live Messenger). Pricing and availability haven’t been announced yet but I think this is going to be another great Xbox accessory that a lot of people are going to want to pick up.

From what I know of the product, I think Husemann is spot on.

What’s also clear is that Windows Live Messenger integration, along with the XBox’s media extender (and forthcoming IPTV) functionality, further positions the game console as Microsoft’s trojan horse, designed to deliver Internet services into the living room.