Randi Zuckerberg, who is director of marketing at Facebook and also the sister of CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, is leaving the company after six years to start a new-media firm to help companies become more social.

In her resignation letter, which is below in its entirety, Zuckerberg said:

“I have spent my years at Facebook pouring my heart and soul into innovating and pushing the media industry forward by introducing new concepts around live, social, participatory viewing that the media industry has since adopted. We have made incredible progress, but there is still much to be done and other ways I can affect change. Now is the perfect time for me to move outside of Facebook to build a company focused on the exciting trends underway in the media industry.”

Facebook confirmed the departure and in a statement said: “We can confirm Randi has decided to leave Facebook to start her own company. We are all grateful for her important service.”

There was no comment from Mark Zuckerberg directly.

The company Randi Zuckerberg is creating is apparently called RtoZ Media, which is obviously a play on her name.

The move is likely to be much noticed, since Randi Zuckberberg has been at Facebook since its early days and has also been a high-profile and charismatic personality both inside the social-networking company and in Silicon Valley. She has been on maternity leave for last three months, after having her first child, and sources said she has told them that being away from the rapid-fire pace at Facebook has given her time to reflect on what she wants to do in the next phase of her career.

Presumably, leaving Facebook will give Zuckerberg greater freedom to work for a range of companies without a conflict. That said, it’s unlikely she’ll take on Google+ as a client.

Zuckerberg is certainly going out on a high note–she was recently nominated for an Emmy award in the category of live coverage of a current news event for her work on “Facebook Live,” a real-time news show she created and hosted for the company.

Zuckerberg, who is definitely not a geek like her brother, noted in her letter to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and communications head Elliot Schrage: “I am thankful for the strong mentorship, guidance, and support, which is empowering me to follow my dreams and show that you don’t have to be an engineer to be a hacker.”

Source: Cnet News

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – When you think of Bono or Lady Gaga, the term “Silicon Valley entrepreneur” hardly springs to mind.

For now, at least. The U2 frontman and pop sensation join Justin Timberlake and Ashton Kutcher among the growing ranks of celebrities who, rather than employ their star power to hawk consumer products, are increasingly driving high-tech investments.

Hollywood has always held a certain fascination for the monied elite, from Wall Street bankers to Middle Eastern oil sheiks. Now, it seems Hollywood is returning the favor and dabbling in a bit of capital resource-allocation of its own.

Timberlake made waves in late June when he bought a stake in ailing social network Myspace alongside digital advertising company Specific Media. The actor-singer will play a crucial role in revitalizing the web company.

“We live in a world of brands,” said Howard Bragman, a public relations executive and founder of the strategic media agency Fifteen Minutes. “A handful of smart celebrities and their reps realize that all the areas where they can flex their marketing muscle are financial opportunities.”

Savvy celebs are trying to fuse entertainment and social networking, closing the gap between performer and fan. That may well be the key to future success, according to Bragman.

Lady Gaga — perhaps the most visible star on the social web — teamed up with Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures to invest in Backplane, slated to launch in the last week of August. Backplane — a sort of social network for rabid fans of everything from football to, yes, pop music — has raised over $1 million in funding.

“Celebrities, above all others, have to understand the importance of new media in order to survive. Social media platforms, in particular, are where celebrity careers either thrive or decline,” said Johanna Blakley, managing director at the University of Southern California’s Norman Lear Center.

“Timberlake’s bet on Myspace is a risky one, but it signals an acknowledgment that buying into the entertainment business these days means buying into new media, not old media.”

BEST AND WORST

Gaga has a double-digit percent slice of Backplane and a seat on the board, according to CEO and Founder Matthew Michelsen, who says he represents the pop diva in her Silicon Valley tech ventures.

The best way to understand Backplane is to look to football fans Michelsen calls facepainters — the ones in the stands. The site goes beta in late August among Gaga’s fans, whom she calls “little monsters,” according to Michelsen.

“You don’t know if those people are the president of a Fortune 500 company or the UPS man,” Michelsen said. “We want to provide a platform for them to interact around their love. It could be their favorite football team. It could be the little monsters. It could be Harley Davidson riders.”

Timberlake has been active in start-ups like Apple iPhone gaming app developer Tapulous and Particle, which develops micro-video application Robo.tv, through the digital investment wing of his business empire, Tennman Digital.

With Myspace, however, the former ‘N Sync member is not just putting his face on a product or bankrolling a venture. He gets an office, a staff of six, and a leadership role, according to Specific Media CEO Tim Vanderhook.

Timberlake isn’t the only Hollywood royalty either making a serious push into technology.

Ashton Kutcher, who got his start in “Dude, Where’s My car?”, has made a string of seemingly savvy investments from location-based social web Foursquare to Flipboard apps for the iPad. Most recently, his investment in Airbnb — a website that matches travelers looking for a cheap room with homeowners looking to rent out — won endorsement when venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz led a $112 million round of financing for the fast-growing company.

But while some celebrities may be eager to develop their brand by demonstrating boardroom savvy, critics say a few investments may have been misplaced.

There “arguably might be another tech bubble,” said Christopher Smith, director of USC’s Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. “Once your shoe-shine person starts talking about stock deals, it’s time to sell.”

Irish rocker Bono of U2 fame is one of five co-founders of Elevation Partners, alongside former Apple CFO Fred Anderson and Silver Lake Partners co-founder Roger McNamee. He has an undisclosed amount of his own money invested in the fund.

But in 2010, Bono was dubbed the “worst investor in America” by blog 24/7 Wall St, and his firm’s investments in Palm — since taken over by Hewlett Packard — Forbes Inc and Move.com have been roundly panned.

“Not every association works, but in the best cases they raise the profiles of the projects they are involved with, entice other investors and inspire consumers,” Bragman said.

“The key is authenticity. They have to choose associations that are credible and organic if they wish to succeed.”

Source: Reuters

TV is battling to keep viewers glued to the TV screen, and surprisingly TV executives are turning to social media.

A new trend called “social TV” could be the key to keeping live TV audiences that the industry is looking for. Each night, more and more viewers are turning on the TV, then jumping on their laptop, tablet, or smartphone and chatting about the show on social networks.

TV operators have started to try to capitalise on the natural buzz, and Facebook is positioning itself to be the go-to solution for TV operators.

Generally, users log into Facebook to see what their friends are doing. The network focuses on personal relationships that may or may not include common interests. This means that integrating with Facebook offers TV executives a unique opportunity to personalise TV.

Facebook’s main benefit to TV comes from its extensive reach (600 million active users), and the sheer mass of data available. Facebook boasts a huge social graph: the average user has 130 friends that the user has specifically chosen to interact with. This means if a user’s friend has talked about a TV show recently, they would like to hear about it. Even if just one friend mentions the show, the comment is relevant because of the personal relationship.

Through the Facebook API, TV operators can build apps and interactive experiences around TV shows.

Additionally, TV operators are increasingly looking to use social media to enhance the EPG. Several companies such as Comcast, HBO, and TV Genius have starting experimenting with integrating Facebook into the TV experience. Comcast have included Facebook in their new Xfinity TV Guide and the logic is clear: if friends are chatting about The Apprentice, users may want to know so they can watch, too.

Instead of replacing the EPG, social media is provides the perfect tool for personalising the TV experience. While TV is a “lean back” medium, a significant proportion of viewers are starting to share their thoughts online while they are watching.

As of today, TV Genius has released Facebook-integrated EPG that personalises the TV Guide with your friend’s recommendations. (Give it a go here)

Facebook is suited to TV experiences that involve your friends and chosen brands, and could play a huge role in personalising TV and making it more interactive. Over the next year, expect to see the face of TV changing: it’s not just about sitting back and watching blankly anymore.

Source: World TVPC

A TVGuide.com study found that more viewers chatted and tweeted while watching live TV during the past season and the top 10 most popular “social shows” are all aired on broadcast networks. Such social viewing is giving rise to a new metric, social impressions, that bolsters the gross ratings points. Stations are also discovering the value of tying local programming in with the Facebook and Twitter.

Have you heard about social media’s latest killer app? It’s called television.

According to a TVGuide.com study, social media discussions about television shows drove more live viewing and second-screen engagement during the 2010-11 television season and, interestingly, the top 10 “social shows” all aired on broadcast networks.

They are:

NCIS
American Idol
Criminal Minds
Glee
House
Fringe
Bones
Castle
Smallville
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

What’s interesting is that Idol is the only non-scripted program to appear on the list. The rest are broadcast network dramas, ranging from the general appeal (Criminal Minds) to the niche audience (Fringe).

These programs all share a similar trait: they all represent “appointment viewing” for their fans. And more and more, those fans prefer to watch their favorite shows live rather than time-shifted. That way, they are able to participate in the social world of the program instantly — where they can go online and passionately discuss the program they’ve just watched without fear of “spoilers.”

Not only do these highly-rated shows deliver committed audiences, but overwhelmingly, these viewers go online and act as social ambassadors for a program. Seventy-seven percent report that they use social media to share their love of a show; 65% use it as a platform to help save their favorite shows; and 35% use it to try to introduce new shows to their friends.

But don’t look for them to be Tweeting or chatting on Facebook during a program. Only 24% of the respondents who use Facebook to talk about these shows do so during a broadcast — while 68% of them go to Facebook to discuss it afterwards. (Twitter has a slightly more active in-program commentary, with 47% tweeting during a broadcast.)

The phenomenon of social media/television interaction has not gone unnoticed by advertisers. Along with the usual statistics, a new metric — social impression — is beginning to play a role in deciding where ad dollars go.

Social impressions are more than just the number of posts on Facebook and Twitter, according to Networked Insights. The company has developed a formula that includes conversation volume, page views, frequent visitors and the traits of the posters and forums where the discussions are happening. Media buyers can use such formulas to expand schedules by purchasing multiple shows with lower gross ratings points (GRPs), but with higher social impressions.

The more dedicated the fans of a show are, the more impact their social media presence has. Maureen Bosetti, EVP of broadcast and buying for Optimedia US, recently told Media Daily News that social media considerations allow “us to tap into sponsorship opportunities across multiple platforms and amplify our client’s message where consumers are most engaged.”

The social media effect is also showing up in the strategies of television stations. Gannett Broadcasting has done a number of marketing promotions on its NBC affiliates built around late-season entry, The Voice. The result? Most of those six Gannett stations in the top 25 markets are ranked either first or second in the time period during which the show airs. And latenight local programming, for virtually all of Gannett’s 11 NBC affiliates, has seen noticeable bumps in the ratings.

Can local television broadcasters take advantage of the social media/television interaction to directly benefit one of our greatest assets: local news?

Last year, Hearst Television commissioned a local TV news study from Frank N. Magid Associates. The study revealed that local television ranked highest among all news programming in driving purchases of products and services; furthermore, the study showed that viewers were far more engaged with advertisements on local television news than with ads in newspapers or on radio.

Imagine the possibilities of marrying those already high levels of engagement for local television news with the power of social media tools.

Jen Lee Reeves, new media director, KOMU Columbia-Jefferson, Mo, did just that when the devastating tornado hit nearby Joplin. As she reported on PBS.org’s Mediashift: “When the tornado hit, our Facebook fans knew they could trust us to coordinate and share important information…. Some of the conversations I had with our Facebook audience led to our morning show coverage…. It’s an example of how a commitment to social media can help encourage ongoing conversations between a newsroom and its community.”

Broadcast TV + local news + hyper-local social media — now there’s a killer app.

Source: TV NewsCheck

More and more shows are starting to integrate Twitter and Facebook campaigns to increase engagement, and get people talking.

Twitter and TV

Twitter has already experienced a lot of success in driving huge event TV. The Oscars, Royal Wedding, Grammys and SuperBowl are all high-profile events that have used Twitter to drive hype and ratings.

The most recent show to generate buzz around Twitter is The Voice. This show has integrated extensively with Twitter, which it attributes to its success. The show has 4 tweeting judges, tweeting contestants, on-screen hashtags, and selected Twitter messages from viewers will soon start appearing on the bottom of the screen during live episodes.

Facebook and Social TV

Facebook has started attending TV industry conferences, and raising the company’s social TV profile. Facebook’s head of International Business gave an interesting speech at MIPTV this year about how Facebook can be used as the “second screen” to enhance the TV experience and foster TV-based communities.

True Blood is a great example of a recent Facebook/TV integration. HBO’s True Blood has developed a Facebook app that capitalizes on the user’s personal social graph. The app pulls data from the user’s Facebook profile and generates a custom video starring the user, their friends, and True Blood characters. The involvement of their friends instantly makes the app more compelling, and acts as a neat marketing message.

TV Ratings

Of course, the most important question for TV executives is if social media integration translates into ratings (and more advertising revenue).

Interestingly findings presented at Mashable Connect by Christy Tanner from TVGuide.com and findings in the UK demonstrate the most social shows on TV aren’t necessarily those with the highest ratings.But despite this, each week more TV operators get on board with social media.

Essentially, regardless of its direct impact on viewing habits today social media still serves as an excellent way for viewers to engage with TV, and builds on the natural behavior that viewers are already exhibiting.

Without a doubt, social integration can help build interactivity, personalization, content discovery, and engagement into the TV experience- all essential differentiators for any TV operator.

Source: Technorati

The entry by dominant multinational companies normally heralds the coming of age for a field, and this appears to be happening now for multiscreen TV after major announcements by both Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent.
But a closer look reveals that both companies were already in the multiscreen field and were actually announcing partnerships to flesh out their portfolio, and make a large splash to show they really had arrived this time. Perhaps it is when the big boys make a loud noise that we can say a field is ready for lift off.

Cisco had already entered the multiplatform arena with its Videoscape system in January 2011, comprising hardware and software with four components. There was a back-office management system; a thin client for IP-enabled devices, gateways and set-tops; a device, content and rights-aware network software layer; and a reference distribution-architecture, which operators can implement using Cisco networking hardware.

But Cisco did not trumpet this too loudly because the platform lacked some features operators would expect to have to deploy a full blown multiscreen package, notably the tools for creating flexible and intuitive user interfaces and presentation graphics. A partnership with UK-based developer of multiplatform content products Red Bee Media was brewing, culminating in the follow up announcement last week of the RedPlayer service, combining Red Bee Media’s creative, digital content and media management services with key elements of the Cisco Videoscape platform for blending TV with Web content, personal media and social networking.

RedPlayer will include three Cisco Videoscape Media Suite modules, the Content Management System; Entitlement, which provides tools for configuring and enforcing content access rules; and Publisher, to produce comprehensive, multilevel content feeds and playlists. Also in the package are the Videoscape Soft Client, along with video streaming and download players for the PC and Mac.

Like Cisco, Alcatel-Lucent already had a multiscreen package with its Multiscreen Video Solution, and also like Cisco decided that help was needed to turn this into a compelling platform, in this case for IPTV and cable TV operators. The resulting combined platform has three components. Firstly there is a management tool, thePlatform’s mpx, which can be provided in both ‘cloud-based’ and self-hosted versions, enabling media and metadata management, rights enforcement and subscriber administration. Second, there is an operator-deployable content delivery network (CDN), based on Alcatel-Lucent’s Velocix. Thirdly there are customisable multiscreen applications for tablets, PCs and mobiles, to which both partners contributed. Alcatel-Lucent therefore needed the partnership for some of the higher-level content and customer, management facilities, rather like Cisco.

But Alcatel-Lucent’s partnership looks more comprehensive, since thePlatform is a subsidiary of Comcast, the largest U.S. cable operator with about 23 million customers. On the one hand this partnership may deter some of Comcast’s U.S. rivals from deploying the Alcatel-Lucent/thePlatform multiscreen solution. At the same time though, Comcast has become arguably the leading mover and shaker of the cable TV industry. Comcast has forged ahead of its rivals and vendors by developing CMAP (Converged Multimedia Access Platform) to enable coexistence between EdgeQAM transport and the CMTS (Cable Modem Termination System) based DOCSIS systems increasingly used to deliver unicast video services as well as broadband Internet within the HFC (Hybrid Fiber Coax) access layer.

CMAP will also provide a standard platform for connecting multigigabit IP/Ethernet backbone networks with any access infrastructure, including wireless, fiber and DSL, as well as HFC. Having been broadly embraced as a standard in Europe as well as the U.S., CMAP is therefore an important component for many cable operators’ multiscreen strategies. Even Comcast’s rivals have admitted that CMAP could play a vital role in seeing off competition from IPTV rivals operating in the same, more densely populated areas.

But there is another view that can be taken on the specific developments by Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco, which is that they are not going further than rival platforms already in place. Many significant vendors in the pay TV arena, such as Motorola, Ericsson, NDS and Irdeto, already offer some form of multiscreen platform. Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco argue that these platforms all lack one or more of the vital ingredients for multiplatform deployment, which include enabling technology for a cloud-based shared infrastructure to provide scalability and economies of scale; client-side software for video playback, support for innovative and intuitive user interfaces, CDN delivery, rights enforcement, and content management.

Yet even if this is true, there are a few players dedicated to the field, such as Brightcove, that really do boast a comprehensive multiscreen development platform with proven deployments covering all the main bases. Yet with so many operators still deliberating over their multiscreen strategies, there is all to play for, which is why so much noise is being made and perhaps not enough light shed.

Source: Broadcast Engineering

First there was scripted TV, then reality television became the “it” format. But now that’s getting old and stale, and the audience wants something new. The Voice delivers that, with a highly engaging and social co-viewing experience that’s earned it a spot as the top-rated new show this season. People are ready for a change in entertainment, and The Voice is providing a nice alternative.

If you’re not familiar with it, The Voice features musician coaches Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton, along with host Carson Daly. During “blind auditions,” singers performed one at a time, and if they caught the attention of one the judges — based on voice alone, as the judges were turned around — then they would join that coach’s team. Each team started with eight artists, then were whittled down to four. The coaches, all of whom have achieved success in the music industry, are grooming the artists and developing their voices and performance skills. Each week, a few artists are eliminated, and the last one standing will be crowned “The Voice.”

Mashable spoke with Nicolle Yaron, the show’s supervising producer, Andrew Adashek, the social media consultant, and Alison Haislip, the social media correspondent, about the show’s social media integration and why it’s effective.

Borrowing an Idea and Making it Bigger

The Voice isn’t exactly a new show — it was adapted from a Dutch television show called The Voice of Holland. During its first season, the show began trending on Twitter worldwide, and NBC executives realized that there was something to the format. Executive Producers Mark Burnett and Audrey Morrissey were passionate about the highly social program and “stood behind us” as the American crew adapted the show, says Yaron.

The Dutch set had screens with live tweets, a social media room, a social media correspondent and a website. Yaron says NBC’s challenge was to take the format from something that serves a small country the size of Rhode Island and make it work over multiple time zones, and also create much more noise and value and push the boundaries in American TV.

“From the very beginning, the social media and digital aspect of the show was very important to us,” says Yaron. She wanted to create active engagement and offer accessibility to the coaches to mirror how the show offers access to top stars. “We wanted to create a true, real-time co-viewing experience.”

The American version expanded the social aspect to include coach tweets, as well as fan tweets, and because of the massive audience, NBC had to create a filtering program to manage the volume (something the Dutch didn’t have to deal with). So while the idea derived from Holland, the U.S. crew had to develop an entire infrastructure to manage the social media content that would be generated each week.

But what separates The Voice from other social television shows is that NBC doesn’t use social media as an awareness and marketing tool — it is core to the show as a whole, so the digital integrations are very organic. “In this day and age, digital and social media for a successful television show can’t be an afterthought — it has to be established in pre-production and developed throughout the show,” Yaron says. She and Adashek laid out a three-stage digital strategy and spent countless hours figuring out the social media strategy and how the show would leverage the judges and the artists. “All the goals we set out have been reached or exceeded, and I think it’s only going to grow and grow as we go into next season. As digital and social media change, we will change too. We set the trends now and we will incorporate new technologies as they develop.”

Casting The Coaches

The show is called The Voice, and not surprisingly the four judges all have distinct radio voices — the raspy Cee Lo Green, the belting Christina Aguilera, the high tenor Adam Levine and the crooner Blake Shelton. Christina wasn’t even on Twitter when she joined the cast as a coach, but her effusive “you go girl” tweets and diva-stacked team have garnered her more than 440,000 followers since she joined — and she has only tweeted 47 times. While Christina’s not the most active tweeter, Yaron says her fans are the most dedicated, and on the show’s premiere day, the “bionic army” had #TeamXtina trending from 9 a.m. until the premiere.

Green had a Twitter account before the show, but wasn’t very active. Levine was moderately active and Shelton was very active on Twitter. But all four coaches had to step up their game for the show, since NBC pushed coach engagement. Since the show is about the artist’s journey under the leadership of the coaches, Yaron says she wanted the coaches to live-tweet the show and broadcast the feeds onscreen in real time “so we continue the storytelling and enhance the experience for the viewers” even when the coach is not on camera. One joke amongst the crew is the “bromance” between Shelton and Levine, which is unabashedly broadcast on Twitter and followed by many of the show’s fans.

Much of the digital integration onscreen in driven by Alison Haislip, who’s no stranger to digital and social media — she spent four years at tech and gaming site G4. Now she’s The Voice‘s “in-show and online correspondent” hanging out in the V-Room with the contestants and serving as “your direct digital connection to everything” related to The Voice.

Encourage Conversation

If you watch the show, you’ll notice that “#TheVoice” isn’t always on the screen reminding you to vote — it’s strategically placed onscreen at times when the producers feel the audience “would be compelled to talk about it.” And it’s an effective strategy. Yaron says that 70% of the tweets about the The Voice include the hashtag #TheVoice, a “phenomenal” rate that a Twitter spokesperson says is an “industry high.”

Last week, during the first of the live shows, tweets that used #TheVoice or the handle of the show, a coach name or an artist name appeared in the lower third section of the screen during parts of the live show. In the V-Room, Haislip is tasked with bridging the online and broadcast elements of the show, and encourages fans to take their dialogue to Facebook, Twitter, NBC Live and NBC.com. “Fans could tweet or post on our Facebook wall and then I could, on air, ask the artists the questions and fans can see the response,” says Haislip. “It really engages the viewers instead of letting them sit back — they become a part of the show.”

The challenge has been managing the sheer volume of tweets — during airtime, there are upwards of 3,000 tweets per minute. “Filtering tweets live has been really interesting because as the show is progressing, the conversation around the show really transforms,” says Adashek. “We have to make sure it fits within broadcast standards, and we want to keep the tweets super fresh and relevant to what the viewers are seeing on TV.” (In case you’re wondering, the West Coast sees a rebroadcast of the East Coast show, so the “live tweets” are taken from the initial airing. However, the West Coast viewers are activated in other ways, and Haislip encourages them to live tweet.)

NBC has been working closely with Twitter to master the live tweet process, and Adashek says Twitter has been very helpful and “really forthcoming with a lot of data and metrics,” which helps the show maximize the impact of its social media-centric platform and also measure its success.

And it is indeed successful. Adashek says that last week, during the show’s first live performances, every contestant, coach and team trended, as did song titles and “Jersey Girl” — an homage to contestant Raquel Castro, who starred in the 2004 movie of that name. “Everything trended last week, no matter how good or bad it was,” he says. “There was enough inertia that everyone was trending.”

“When we look at the graphs and data on Twitter, we can see the peaks and valleys around the calls-to-action — the tweets and the hashtags and the performances,” says Adashek. “It’s like watching The Matrix — we’re pulling massive amounts of data, and when you’re seeing that many tweets, you really can see [trends and sentiment] right way.”

“Twitter was a natural first because it’s very live and real-time, so it lends itself to events,” says Adashek. Facebook is also an important platform for The Voice, but Adashek says it’s more long-term, has different content and is building a fanbase and laying the groundwork for future seasons. Since the coaches have their own highly engaged Facebook Pages, The Voice has been able to reach out to those fans and pull them to the show’s Facebook hub. For instance, last week when Team Christina performed “Lady Marmalade,” the Page gained nearly 10,000 likes within a few minutes.

Nonstop Storytelling

The Voice is about a journey, and Yaron says the NBC.com homepage has been focusing on “24/7 storytelling and continuing all of the reality stories and experiences of the artists and the coaches and the rivalries between them.” By cultivating the story online and providing a look behind the scenes, The Voice is becoming more than just a weekly television show — it’s nonstop entertainment online, complemented by an hour or two of live performances every week.

“The artists are not sequestered, they’re encouraged to talk about the show as much as they can,” Haislip says. “Regardless of how they do on the show, they still will come out of the competition with something that is going to help them in the future, and they’re all getting a huge leap ahead of the competition.”

That “something” Haislip refers to is digital savvy and a strong fanbase. From the minute they landed in LA for blind auditions, artists were given training in blogging and Facebook Pages and handed Samsung Galaxy Tabs and cameras to document everything from team dinners to rehearsals with photo and video. Each artist has his own hub on the site that links to a blog, Facebook, Twitter, video and photos — viewers really have the opportunity to be heavily invested in the show and the artists, and that translates to better ratings and higher engagement. Giving the artists free reign has let their personalities flourish — Beverly McClellan has started a fake talk show called, “What’s Up With That?” and Jared Blake captured his new ink session on video.

“This is something that every other reality show has kind of shied away from, but we feel really strongly about it,” says Yaron. “We are giving the artists the same platform that real musicians have. We’re training them and mirroring the new ways in which the music industry works. We’re giving them the tools to be the next Lady Gaga. It will help them stay in the competition and become successful music stars. We felt that it was time for a reality show to do that.”

Innovative Voting

While traditional shows like American Idol — and even The Voice of Holland — rely on calls and texts (Idol only recently launched Facebook voting) to log votes for contestants, The Voice has emphasized digital. Of course there’s the old standard of voting by phone, but there’s also an NBC Live app, NBC.com and an iTunes-driven voting platform. Instead of texting to vote, you can vote with your wallet and purchase your favorite songs, available from Universal Republic Records. Viewers can vote up to 10 times with each method, so the show encourages cross-platform engagement.

“The iTunes component was a huge part of the digital strategy — it’s an active vote,” says Yaron.

Conclusion

“The story of The Voice is not just an hour or two every week,” Yaron says. “It lives online all day and all week long, and it will continue all year long. This is a living, breathing entity, it’s not just show-based.”

And it might just be the future of television.

Source: Mashable

It has now been a couple of years since I cut my cable and began exclusively watching Internet video on my home television. I still feel that it was one of the wiser decisions I’ve made with technology, saving me hundreds of dollars a year and countless headaches dealing with a cable company.

Was this just a move to be expected of a techie? Some have speculated that cutting the cable cord is simply a fad. But a new report issued on Wednesday suggests that if it is a fad, it’s one that’s moving into the mainstream.

The report, the result of a survey of 2,000 United States adult broadband users, found that people who use Netflix to stream Internet video to their televisions are twice as likely to cancel, or slim down, their cable television options as they were a year ago. The report comes from the Diffusion Group, a Dallas-based media research firm.

When the Diffusion Group surveyed Netflix members in 2010, they found that 16 percent of customers were planning to downgrade or cancel their cable television service. During the same survey this year, the number of customers planning to make that change had doubled to 32 percent.

The report also found that although the majority of those surveyed cited economic reasons and “the need to save money” as a rationale for canceling cable, 34 percent said a growing use of online video was the culprit, “two-thirds of which cite Netflix in particular as the primary perpetrator,” the report says.

Now, instead of having only the option to pay a cable company to deliver content, people have an array of choices and devices. Netflix clearly saw this trend coming, and over the past year has started offering its video content on mobile phones, tablets, computers, game consoles, or devices that hook up to a television, including Boxee and Apple TV. The company also began offering customers a streaming-only option late last year.

Source: The NY Times

Charlie Sheen’s meltdown took many forms: a cocaine-fueled rampage in a New York hotel room, an erratic radio rant, a vulgar one-man comedy tour. But his biggest contribution to current culture may have been more subtle.

With a simple Twitter phrase, #winning, known in the parlance of social media as a hashtag, Sheen underscored one of the newest ways technology has changed how we communicate.

Hashtags, words or phrases preceded by the # symbol, have been popularized on Twitter as a way for users to organize and search messages. So, for instance, people tweeting about Rep. Anthony D.

Weiner might add the hashtag #Weinergate to their messages, and those curious about the latest developments in the scandal could simply search for #Weinergate. Or Justin Bieber fans might use #Bieber to find fellow Beliebers.

But already, hashtags have transcended the 140-characters-or-less microblogging platform and have become a new cultural shorthand, finding their way into chat windows, email and face-to-face conversations.

This year on Super Bowl Sunday, Audi broadcast a new commercial featuring a hashtag, #ProgressIs, that flashed on the screen and urged viewers to complete the “Progress Is” prompt on Twitter for the chance to win a prize. Then, in Canada’s English-language federal election debate in April, Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party, set the Canadian Twitterverse aflame when he attacked Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s crime policies, calling them “a hashtag fail.”

And when Chris Messina, a developer advocate at Google, wanted to introduce two friends over email, he wrote #Introduction in the subject line. No need, he explained, for a long preamble when a quick, to-the-point hashtag would do.

Then again, Messina is no ordinary Twitter user. The self-described “hash godfather,” he officially invented the Twitter hashtag in August 2007, when he sent out a Twitter message suggesting that the pound symbol be used for organizing groups on Twitter. (For example, if attendees at the South by Southwest music and technology conference all add #sxsw to their messages, they can more easily search and sort themselves on Twitter.) Though the idea took awhile to catch on, it quickly snowballed – on Twitter and offline.

“At first, people who weren’t using Twitter were saying: ‘What’s this pound sign? Why am I seeing it?’ ” said Ginger Wilcox, a founder of the Social Media Marketing Institute. “I would say 2010 was really the year of the hashtag.”

Soon, people began using hashtags to add humor, context and interior monologues to their messages – and everyday conversation. As Susan Orlean wrote in a New Yorker blog post titled “Hash,” the symbol can be “a more sophisticated, verbal version of the dread winking emoticon that tweens use to signify that they’re joking.”

“Because you have a hashtag embedded in a short message with real language, it starts exhibiting other characteristics of natural language, which means basically that people start playing with it and manipulating it,” said Jacob Eisenstein, a postdoctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in computational linguistics. “You’ll see them used as humor, as sort of meta-commentary, where you’ll write a message and maybe you don’t really believe it, and what you really think is in the hashtag.”

So, for instance, a messages that reads “3 hour delay on Amtrak #StimulusDollarsAtWork,” likely implies that the user does not, in fact, think that their stimulus dollars are hard at work.

Hashtags then began popping up outside of Twitter, in emails, chat windows and text messages. When Adam Sharp was hired as Twitter’s Washington liaison, he said he received a number of emails wishing him well – and, of course, #congrats.

In a time-crunched world, the hashtag proved itself a useful shorthand. “If Twitter is a compression of ideas and a compression of expression, then hashtags are just an extension of that, so of course it bleeds over into other forms of communication , because our time is compressed, our thoughts are compressed and our space is compressed,” said Tracy Sefl, a Democratic strategist. “In Washington, it’s a very happy extension of an acronym-happy culture.”

Using a hashtag is also a way for someone to convey that they’re part of a certain scene. “You kind of have to be in-the-know,” Messina said. “So it’s one of those jokes where you’re like, ‘Oh, I see what you did there, because you’re on Twitter and I’m on Twitter.’ ”

To deftly deploy a hashtag, after all, you need to understand the culture, said Susan Herring, a professor of information science and linguistics at Indiana University-Bloomington.

“It’s initially used self-consciously in a way that says, ‘I’m on Twitter, I’m cool, I know that this is used on Twitter so I’m using this someplace else,’ so it’s conveying a meta-message that you are a Twitter-savvy person,” Herring said, adding that it’s “almost as if there are air quotes around it.”

This is not your father’s social media, hashtags seem to say. “If I was talking to my grandmother, I wouldn’t say, ‘I’m having a hashtag bad day’ because she wouldn’t understand,” said Matt Graves, a Twitter spokesman. “She’d be like, ‘Why is there a number there?’ My mom would be like, ‘I’m number winning.’ If my mom was trying to be hip, that’s the kind of thing that would happen.”

Hashtags have also made their way into the vernacular.

“Because of the use of hashtags, you can use one word to describe something, and it’s kind of a mental hashtag,” Wilcox said. “So it’s like, ‘Awkward!’ or ”Winning!’ And yes, definitely ‘Fail.’ For that one I often hear ‘Pound fail.’ ”

Jane Olson, the senior vice president of marketing and brand strategy for Oxygen Media, said her network began using hashtags in their advertising in late 2010. “It’s a nod to ‘we know you, and we live in your world,’ but it’s also a way to get a conversation started in our advertising,” she said, adding, “The other funny thing that’s been happening is that people around the office have started to talk in hashtags – ‘Hashtag sorry I’m late,’ or ‘Hashtag bad day.’ ”

There is also the unofficial Hashtag Mafia, people who flash one another the hashtag sign – crossing their index and middle finger of one hand over the same two fingers of their other hand to create a physical hashtag. #IronicGesture #WeHope

“I have pictures of people actually using the actual hashtag symbol, and it’s like they’re flashing a gang sign, but they’re doing a hashtag,” Wilcox said. “That gets really geeky.”

Messina takes a more philosophical, albeit lighthearted, view. “The great thing about hashtags is that anyone can join the Hashtag Mafia by using hashtags,” he said. “You’re not really in the mafia unless you do air hashtags.”

Many second-screen experiences these days are rather elementary — after all, we’re still in the early throes of social TV. But in collaboration with AttractTV, MTV.com served up a compelling second screen site that corresponded with the MTV Movie Awards.

The MTV VIP Pass was a feed of a variety of behind-the-scenes cameras with a picture-in-picture of the actual broadcast (the audio corresponded with the behind-the-scenes cams). Above, you’re seeing an aerial view of Reese Witherspoon accepting her 2011 MTV Generation Award. Then over the top, you could layer a social chat, live polls, MTV’s Instagr.ram photos and my favorite — a “share this first” window.

The “share this first” feature is ingenious. It highlights video clips from the broadcast shortly after they air, prompting users to share them on Facebook or Twitter. Above, a replay of the Foo Fighter’s live performance popped up over a behind-the-scenes cam of Justin Bateman, urging second-screen viewers to share it. Other clips included the “Breaking Dawn” trailer and an exclusive look at the upcoming Harry Potter movie. It’s a great way to kick-start content sharing right at the moment people care the most.

The social chat worked rather well — Facebook or Twitter — and a window across the top of the screen displayed tweet-like prompts from MTV. At times, it was a lot going on, but MTV is targeted to teens and 20-somethings who can juggle it. Plus, the windows were draggable, so you could position them (or close them) as you please. The only missing piece: MTV News’ iPad and iPhone apps only showed the behind-the-scenes feed, without the interactivity.

It’s all powered by AttractTV, which “adds a layer of interactivity to online video, live or on demand, with a self service web based authoring tool to manage and control the experience,” explains Guy Tomer, founder and CTO of Attractv. Called “Vidgets,” or video widgets, Attractv layers them over an existing media player.

Here’s the “Share this First” Vidget in the Attractv authoring tool. “Right now we have a fully functional Flash solution and HTML5 client is in its alpha phase,” he explains. “I expect the first commercial version to be out in a few weeks – this way iPad viewers could enjoy attracTV as well.”

Just like with the Video Music Awards, MTV brought back the Twitter Tracker, parsing a barrage of tweets in real-time to come up with the top trends of the event, from the top actors and actresses to the most-talked-about movies. Like last time, the Tracker design was powered by Stamen. Throughout the broadcast, MTV plugged various hashtags to correspond with the moment, with #MovieAwards being the predominate theme.

Source: Lost Remote – All About Social TV

Twitter Inc., which started as a short text-only service, on Wednesday said it will roll out a new way to directly share photos and videos in a tweet.

The San Francisco microblogging service also said it is revamping the way users can search for tweets, including through the Web address bar in the Firefox browser.

The announcements continued the company’s moves to expand the ways its 200 million registered members use Twitter – even though the moves put the firm in competition with some of the third-party developers that helped make Twitter popular.

It’s been a busy week for Twitter, and bringing photo sharing in-house is part of a strategy to prove the company can build a sustainable, profitable business.

“If you use a Twitter photo service, you’re staying within Twitter and its more activity and more page views that advertisers care about,” said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst with eMarketer Inc.

Twitter streams 140-character-or-less text messages, called tweets. But developers of apps like Twitpic and Yfrog made photo sharing via Twitter popular.

For example, the world learned of the 2009 miracle plane landing on the Hudson River through a photo tweeted through Twitpic. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., is embroiled in controversy over a photo reportedly tweeted using Yfrog.

But Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey – who tweeted a photo Wednesday using a third-party app called Instagram – announced the company over the next several weeks will roll out a new feature that links photos and video directly into a tweet, without the user having to leave the Twitter website or one of the company’s official mobile phone applications.

The service is a partnership with Denver’s Photobucket Corp., which is backed by media conglomerate News Corp. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In a blog post, Dorsey called it “140 characters, now worth 1,000 words.”

“For users without smart phones, we’re working with mobile carriers around the world so you can also send photos via text message,” he said.

However, Twitter spokeswoman Jodi Olsen said in an e-mail that the company will still support other photo services for users of mobile devices and desktop computers.

Twitter also is revamping its search functions, including the addition of a Firefox browser plug-in that lets users type a Twitter member’s name or a topic marked by a hashtag directly into the address bar.

“Not only will it deliver more relevant Tweets when you search for something or click on a trending topic, but it will also show you related photos and videos, right there on the results page,” Dorsey said.

On Tuesday, Twitter introduced a “Follow” button, which links to a particular Twitter account.

Like Facebook’s “Like” and “Share” or LinkedIn’s “InShare,” the new button is one more way of extending Twitter’s reach around the Web. The button can be found on more than 50 partner websites, including AOL, TV Guide and the Wall Street Journal.

Source: SF Gate

Mobile phones are the favorite multitasking distraction for TV watchers, according to a recent study, posing questions on how advertising to reach consumers may change in the future.

According to a study by video ad company YuMe and IPG Media Lab, 60 percent of TV watchers toyed with their cell phones while in front of the television. Another 33 percent watched TV with their laptops on, and 12 percent also used their tube time to “do work.” Only six percent watched TV distraction-free.

But while multitasking is nothing new in a culture where people sleep with their phones at arms’ length at night, phones may actually be able to pull viewers’ attentions completely away from TV in favor of data on their handsets. Sixty-three percent of TV ads were totally ignored in favor of phones, and just 25 percent could recall the ads they had seen unaided.

Considering the expense of TV advertising, the results may trouble businesses who have relied on the medium as the cornerstone of advertising campaigns. Companies will instead need to start recalibrating advertising strategies as mobile emerges as a larger platform, especially as phones and tablets emerge more and more as media devices on their own, often being used while TVs are on as well.

It is not just a matter of moving video advertising online, either — 46 percent of viewers were completely distracted by their phones, even while watching TV online.

Instead, companies may need to rethink mobile advertising interaction altogether to include features like high-engagement, complementary apps and social media. Some TV executives have already hooked into the synergy between TVs and auxiliary devices like phones and laptops, incorporating live tweeting from a show’s stars or producers during broadcast to create buzz on Twitter. Networks like HBO are also creating social media experiences like HBO Connect to draw in viewers during show broadcasts.

Companies may even be heartened to see that, despite the increasing amount of TV that can be watched online and in mobile settings, traditional TV watching remains central to home entertainment, for the time being. Media consumption may be shifting to a “multi-screen” model, in which devices function as “second screens” to what’s happening in the TV monitor instead of completely supplanting TVs themselves, despite the fact that slightly more people are eschewing TV ownership altogether.

Some advertising companies are already trying to leverage the “second screen” phenomenon: ad startup Second Screen Networks recently synced ads on the second screen with those that appeared during “American Idol” while mobile ad network IntoNow and other mobile app makers have also discussed running companion ads on mobile devices during other shows’ broadcasts.

The study’s results, while taken from a small sampling, show that media consumption is an increasingly fragmented experience. No doubt advertisers will soon find their way no matter where viewers direct their attention, whether it be on televisions, on phones, or on tablets.

Source: Mobiledia

When communicating over the internet people don’t feel the same pull towards social conformity as elsewhere. Online, people cast aside their inhibitions, worry less about the consequences of their actions and let it all hang out. Sometimes literally.

Psychologists call this the online disinhibition effect and its upshot can be seen everywhere.

For example, in online support groups people find they can discuss issues they would never broach face-to-face.
In blog posts and comments people spew invective on matters political, religious and personal. On social networking sites they list home numbers, friends, even add pictures of themselves blind drunk. Yet, meet them in person and they’d be reluctant to volunteer their own name.

For good or ill, people act more freely online.

Since 700 million people worldwide are now on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, what does this mean for our privacy, safety and for how we are viewed online?

What people disclose on Facebook

To make a start at answering these emerging questions, we examined how much Facebook users disclose and what types of people are likely to disclose the most.

The researchers examined a sample of 400 randomly selected Facebook users to see what types of information people displayed to all comers. Here are the percentages of people who disclosed information in some of the categories:

Poke: 99%
Mini-feed: 98%
Profile picture: 92% (although not always just of themselves)
Friends viewable: 88% (i.e. visitors can see who someone’s friends are)
Birthday: 88%
Wall: 83%
Photo albums: 70%
Relationship status: 63%
Sexual orientation: 55%
Favourite movies: 50%
…and from the bottom half of the table:

Email address: 43%
Favourite books: 41%
Job: 33%
About me: 31%
Degree: 9%
Mobile phone number: 5%
Former name: 5%
Home address: 4%
Land phone: 2%

Who discloses the most?

When the researchers analysed the demographics, they found that top of the online disclosing leagues were single people, who disclosed more sensitive information than those in a relationship or those who didn’t specify their relationship status.

This ties in with the finding that compared to face-to-face daters, online daters disclose more personal information, more quickly. The online disinhibition effect seems to accelerate disclosure between people.

They also found that younger people tended to disclose more online while older people were more cautious, as might be expected.

Finally, and somewhat surprisingly, men and women did not differ in the amount disclosed online. The research generally finds that women disclose freely to each other while men keep schtum about their private lives. Online, though, perhaps men feel less pressure to conform to social norms.

Privacy issues

The fact that people disclose so much information about themselves on Facebook shows the online disinhibition effect in action. What this research reveals is that young people and those looking for connections online are likely to disclose the most information.

Despite these debates often being couched in terms of fear of others and transgressions of privacy, what’s often forgotten is the simple fact that self-disclosure is the first step towards intimacy, something we all need. Still, it’s a potential vulnerability that relationship seekers might bear in mind.

Source: Psyblog

It’s pretty clear: TV is no longer about every family sitting down to watch “Ed Sullivan” at 7pm each night.

The lines between digital media are starting to blur: TV can be accessed anywhere, on any connected TV. Additionally, the amount of available TV content has exploded with the birth of OTT, VoD, catch up, and streaming media. Social TV is the natural child of this revolution: suddenly people are consuming content in new ways.

Social TV essentially makes everyone a curator, and empowers viewers to filter and recommend TV content themselves. By voicing their opinions on Twitter and Facebook, suddenly viewers have a much bigger say in how content is curated, and what shows rise to the top.

Social TV is still a growing and important trend. Key value is created by inviting everyone – not just the experts- to curate content, generating buzz and chatter. And socially curating content is becoming an increasingly popular activity – even if consumers don’t directly know they are doing it. And as a result, people are turning to Twitter and Facebook to find out what’s hot on TV that night.

However while many viewers are actively curating content with their Tweets and status updates, does it have the desired results?

Social TV…with a caveat

However, while social is the buzz word of the moment, there is some evidence that social networks are actually starting to lose some of their holds over the hearts and minds of consumers.

Surprisingly, the typical Facebook user doesn’t even know 20% of their friends, and the authority of peers has notably declined 4% since 2009. Instead, consumers have increasingly placed their trust in the advice of experts.

Social TV also doesn’t always operate the way we expect to it. According to new research presented by Christy Tanner from TVGuide.com, the most social shows on TV aren’t necessarily those with the highest Nielsen ratings:

Top 10 Most Social Shows of the 2010-2011 TV Season

1. NCIS
2. American Idol
3. Criminal Minds
4. Glee
5. House
6. Fringe
7. Bones
8. Castle
9. Smallville
10. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Although some of these shows, like NCIS and American Idol, are also extremely popular in the Nielsen ratings, most TV shows in the list buck the trend. Programs like Glee, which have huge social media followings and a great web presence, barely rank in Nielsen’s Top 40.

This means that while social TV may not be driving new viewers to the show, it’s a great measure of audience engagement. In particular, 27-33 year old women on Facebook are the most active sharers, and drive the highest conversion rates.

Unsurprisingly, Twitter beats Facebook when it comes to engagement while a show is airing. 50% of users said they tweet about the show they are watching, compared with only 35% who said they post to Facebook.

Content Curation is King

During Mashable Connect, Steve Rubel, EVP of Global Strategy and Insights for Edelman, took the stage to talk about how consumers are dealing with consumer overload.

According to Rubel, consumers use a variety of sources – not just their social networks- to discover what’s personally relevant.

So in an era of content overload, how can TV operators get attention?

It’s essential to remember that each viewer decides what to watch a little differently; while some viewers know exactly what they want, others are simply browsing for something new to watch. Rubel pointed to Richard Edelman’s “Media Cloverleaf” as a solution. The Media Cloverleaf features four distinct spheres of media which should all be utilized to engage the public on a regular basis.

In other words, multiplatform strategies that include social TV are essential. Viewers are already actively curating TV content whether operators like it or not. It looks like social TV behaviour is only set to grow- how TV operators capitalise and innovate around the trend will determine their success.

Source: World TVPC

Want to see how influential you are on Twitter? A new app called Sneak Peek not only does that; it also tells you how influential everyone else is.

Visibli, a web analytics firm, aims to be a “Compete for social sharing” with the app, which went live on May 17. Sneak Peek makes a couple of metrics publicly available: clicks on links and clicks on reshared links. The former are original links, while the latter are retweets, though Visibli CEO Saif Ajani says he avoided that term since many users don’t use the “RT” designation when they retweet.

For instance, a look at Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter stream over the past two weeks shows a big bump on May 11, when he retweeted Amazon’s announcement that the movie No Strings Attached (which he stars in) was available on Blu-ray and DVD. That retweet yielded 2,402 clicks.

A person’s Twitter stats can be found by typing in his or her handle. Ajani hopes to get ad agencies and marketers to sign up for the paid version of Visibli, which provides data from a much longer period. Right now, a look at the past 14 days is free without registration. Users must register to see stats from the past 30 days — or what’s happening in real time.

The app uses information compiled from Twitter’s API as well as APIs from Twitter apps like Bit.ly and TweetDeck, among others. Visibli is not the only firm to measure Twitter influence, of course. Klout, for one, does the same thing.

But Ajani’s plan is to offer the same visibility that Compete offers for website traffic (even though many dispute Compete’s numbers) for sharing in all of social media, including Facebook. “We’ve got some kickass analytics that track in real-time everything you share,” he says.

This app will set to rock how marketers gather information from users and use it to their advantages.

But will this compromise our accounts’ privacy?

Source: Mashable
Additional input by Ada

LinkedIn Corp.’s founder Reid Hoffman and its three top venture backers own a combined stake of about $5.14 billion after an eight-year wait for the first initial public offering by a major U.S. social-media site.

Venture capitalists have led more than $100 million in investments in Mountain View, California-based LinkedIn since 2003, with Sequoia Capital amassing a holding now worth $1.59 billion, and Greylock Partners, a $1.32 billion stake. Hoffman, LinkedIn’s chairman and biggest shareholder, holds $1.8 billion and Bessemer Venture Partners has a stake worth $431.5 million.

The almost decade-long wait for a LinkedIn windfall compares with less than five years for the biggest investors in Google Inc. and just a year for top backers of Yahoo! Inc. and EBay Inc. (EBAY) LinkedIn’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange today at $45 a share, or a valuation of about $4.25 billion, brightens prospects for the venture capital industry, which has lost money over the past 10 years amid a dearth of IPOs.

“Any solid returns like this are clearly a great thing and there’s been too few of them in the past decade,” said Eric Risley, founder of Architect Partners, a technology merger-and- acquisition advisory firm in Menlo Park, California. “This was not an overnight success by any means.”

LinkedIn more than doubled, rising $49.25 to $94.25 at 4 p.m. New York time, after earlier soaring as high as $122.70. At the stock’s closing price, LinkedIn’s market valuation is $8.91 billion.

LinkedIn was valued at about $15 million when Menlo Park, California-based Sequoia first invested in 2003, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Hoffman’s Plans

Venture investors are barred from selling shares during a so-called lockup period that lasts for six months after an IPO. Venture capital firms typically keep 20 percent to 30 percent of profit for their partners after portfolio companies get acquired or go public. They distribute the rest to the pension funds, endowments and foundations that invest in their funds.

Hoffman, a former PayPal Inc. executive, is selling less than 1 percent of his stake. Hani Durzy, a spokesman for LinkedIn, declined to comment, as did Mark Dempster, who heads marketing for Sequoia.

Venture capitalists are counting on gains from LinkedIn and other Web companies such as Pandora Media Inc. and HomeAway Inc. Social-media companies Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., Zynga Inc. and Groupon Inc. have yet to announce IPO plans, even with multibillion-dollar valuations on private markets.

Among the venture firms, Sequoia stands to be the biggest winner from the LinkedIn IPO. The firm led a $4.7 million investment in November 2003 and increased its funding later to accumulate a 21 percent stake.

Greylock, Bessemer

Mike Moritz, who led Sequoia’s early investments in Google, Yahoo and PayPal, joined LinkedIn’s board in January. He replaced Mark Kvamme, who left Sequoia for a job at the Ohio Department of Development.

Greylock Partners led the second round of funding, a $10 million investment, in 2004. Greylock’s David Sze, who’s also an investor in Facebook and Pandora, is a LinkedIn director. Hoffman joined Greylock as a partner in 2009.

Bessemer, a century-old firm that made an early bet on Skype Technologies SA, led a $12.8 million round in 2007.

Buyers of LinkedIn shares on the secondary markets are also poised to profit. A $1 million purchase of LinkedIn stock on Dec. 10, 2010, would now be worth more than $2.68 million, based on the median secondary bid price that day, according to a report today from Nyppex LLC, which specializes in secondary transactions.

‘Good Omen’

Nyppex, based in Rye Brook, New York, tracks the value of LinkedIn, Facebook, Zynga, Twitter and Groupon, which have surged in the past year as some early investors and employees sold equity. The valuations of leading consumer Internet companies surged by a combined 51 percent in the first quarter from the previous three months.

“The LinkedIn IPO valuation thus far is a good omen for secondary buyers in certain other privately held social-media companies,” Nyppex said.

LinkedIn trades under the ticker symbol LNKD. About 62 percent of the 7.84 million shares in the offering were sold by LinkedIn, which said it plans to use the proceeds to fund existing operations and to expand the business, possibly including buying other companies or technologies.

Source:Bloomberg

We are very excited to share that the BeyondTV team will be presenting today at TV of Tomorrow 2011 Show (TVOT) in San Francisco.

TVOT is an annual conference in San Francisco for global gathering of executives, technologists and creatives working in the Interactive and Multi platform Television industry/community.

The show will feature a mix of keynotes, panels, debates, general sessions, workshops, new technology/product presentations, and more.

Some of the issues to be explored include:

• Connected-TV app stores, over-the-top delivery of live and on-demand programming, the “open cable API,” “cable as an app,” and more: the rapidly evolving relationship between the pay-TV, consumer electronics and programming/content industries.
• Reports from the field: How tcommerce, interactive advertising, social TV, connected-TV apps and other interactive TV deployments are fairing in the real world, and what these deployments tell us about the business models for the TV of tomorrow.
• The economics of interactive TV: which interactive platforms and services are generating revenues today and how?
• The future of TV design: How to ensure that usability and high-quality design become a core element of the interactive TV user experience, and not just an afterthought; strategies for designing cross-platform interactive video experiences; making the business case for good design; and more.
• The significance of pay-TV operators’ and broadcasters’ embrace of the iPad and other companion devices.
• The extent to which the popularity of social TV could change the nature of television programming and the economics of television.
• Enabling broadcast-synchronized interactivity through connected-TV apps. Hybrid TV and its significance for pay-TV operators.
• How gestural control and touchscreen interfaces could alter the user experience of television. The impact of new interactive broadband video technologies (hotspotting, overlays, image tracking, etc.) on the interactive TV space.
• The relationship between interactive TV, data generation and targeted advertising: new opportunities for measurement, analysis and addressability that are made possible by the advent of a national interactive TV platform.
• How interactive TV will impact local broadcasters and their markets. How interactive technologies are giving rise to new forms of cross-platform storytelling and new narrative genres.
• Outreach and evangelism: how to drive consumer awareness and adoption of interactive TV.  Whether cable, satellite and telcos should work together on a united national interactive TV vision.

The TV of Tomorrow show will takes place for two days, May 17-18, 2011 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Source: TVOT 2011