The "television" in interactive television these days too often seems to be secondary to "interactive". We're all about interacting with Facebook and Twitter and advertisers and second screens. Watchitoo, a NYC based start-up, brings "television" back front and center with it's multistreaming collaboration platform.
I recently met with the Watchitoo team in NYC to talk in depth about their strategy and to get a first-hand look at Watchitoo's features. First, here's a short video that describes some of those features:
Three Reasons To Watch
- Video Dominates: At CES the experts underscored that video is the #1 use case for connected TV apps. Watchitoo enables programmers to put their video front and center and surround it with yet more video content (frequently user generated). Imagine a pre or post show chat with stars and fans or, depending on your objectives and the type of content (talk shows anyone?), video chats during programming. All recordable for future playback.
- Control Room Curation: Not all content is created equal and that applies to grainy video feeds from fans as well as not-so-thoughtful tweets and Facebook posts. Watchitoo gives programmers the ability to chose various feeds and orchestrate the most engaging experience. See my below video of Andrew Goletka, Watchitoo's VP of Corporate Development giving a brief overview of the virtual control room.
- White Label: I don't want to download yet another app and Watchitoo doesn't ask fans to do that either. Rather, programmers can embed cloud-based Watchitoo in a brand's existing site which fans are already used to visiting.
I saw all this in action and it looked quick and easy. Watchitoo also promises robust analytics but I didn't review those in detail. What I did keep thinking about was all the opportunities to engage fans at a relatively low cost in an entertaining video focused experience. And isn't it television that's bringing all of us and all these eyeballs together in the first place?
What do you think are some additional use case scenarios for Watchitoo?
Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce, is the go-to expert for t-commerce sales strategy and execution. For more iTV insights, subscribe to Inside the Screen or follow him @iTVcommerce.
