From our experience managing social TV apps for a range of leading pay TV operators and consumer electronics companies, we have found that user behaviour is very consistent. Social TV apps are being used by most consumers to simply stay in touch with friends, whilst watching TV. For the most part it is the more basic features being used, rather than those features, which require a lot of interaction, such as writing messages.

Almost exclusively, the TV usage is consumption of social feeds and content rather than the production of such content. The mindset of the consumer in front of the TV is an expectation to be entertained. In my opinion, this is very much the core of the TV experience, and content consumption should be the centre of all applications. This philosophy should also be applied to Social TV apps and at Accedo we’re working hard to bring generation two of social TV apps to the market.

Simply allowing users to stay up-to-date with messages and status updates from friends, although a nice app, will not be enough of a game changer to radically alter consumer behaviour and make social TV a must-have app. By introducing media content, such as photos or video, into those apps, the offering will become much more compelling.

Indeed, the possibility to directly view photos and videos instantaneously on the TV screen when friends upload them is a very attractive feature. There has already been a dramatic increase in broadband spends and improvement in chipset performance, which is set to get better still. This will of course make the possibility of accessing such content in high quality increase and it’s not difficult to imagine “social TV channels” being sent to friends via new forms of apps. Imagine grandparents being able to, directly on the TV, view the latest videos of their grandchildren living in another city, immediately after they have been uploaded from the camera. You can even have personal settings allowing for messages during the broadcast to highlight updates from certain prioritised friends.

-- Content submitted by Michael Lantz, CEO of the global leader of apps and app store solutions for Connected TV and IPTV, Accedo Broadband