Social media platforms are providing TV networks with new screens to program to drive even greater engagement and advertiser benefit. MTV and VH1 were two of the first brands that locked arms with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and as a result, we’ve seen the tremendous additive value that social media can provide in turning casual viewers into passionate superfan ambassadors for our shows and brands.

Today’s audiences do not distinguish content as either pure digital or television. They’re living in a hyperconnected world in which they are watching TV while simultaneously interacting via their smartphones, tablet devices and laptops. We regard social media as another screen to program, and just like with television, quality content is key to social success. We have grown our social graph tremendously by staying committed to continually creating compelling multiplatform content that propels fan interaction and sharing.

We know that social media can amplify the proverbial “watercooler” chatter into a real-time global conversation. However, you can’t rely solely on social media to drive this message. You have to create the ecosystem for the conversation to take place. We’ve embraced this behavior and have created cross-platform second screen co-viewing experiences MTV’s WatchWith and VH1’s CoStar. These provide an additive and complementary experience to the primary television viewing for series as well as tent-pole events. Unlike outside developers and platforms, when it comes to our shows and tent-poles, we’re armed with the knowledge of what happens next. Having this advantage enables us to tailor and program content to viewers in tandem with the storyline unfolding on television. The goal here is to turn each episode into a can’t-miss event where our co-viewing experiences are facilitating the conversation and information exchange, while simultaneously delighting the audience.

With larger tent-pole events like MTV Video Music Awards or VH1 Divas, we’ve designed more robust, full cross-platform takeover experiences that provide fans with multiple points of entry. For example, with this year’s VMAs, we produced an entire lean-forward second screen co-viewing platform across web and mobile where fans can activate their own experience including selecting their own camera angle, such as a backstage or audience view, to being part of the conversation via our Twitter Tracker. Additional lean-forward activities at the VMAs this year included providing fans the tools to share video content across their social graph, send congratulatory tweets to winners, and view a live map of artists tweeting from their seats. This isn’t cheap and takes investment at every level. The payoff, however, was huge as the event ranked as the most tweeted-about award show of all time, as well as MTV’s most watched broadcast ever.

As early pioneers, we’ve accrued a myriad of best-practice learnings that we eagerly share with our partners in order to help them grow their own social graph. We have been leaders in creating partner awareness and engagement across all platforms in the form of premium ad products. We’re now exploring ways in which to create an ad experience that syncs up across multiple screens to create a whole new level of partner awareness and engagement.

Measuring the correlation between ratings and social buzz is clearly top-of-mind. We’re encouraged to see social activity drive traffic to new platforms, and pleased at the recent reports that social buzz drives ratings. While it’s not an exact science by any means, it is infinitely clear is that social buzz delivers awareness and builds brand affinity. In such a crowded marketplace, that in itself is exciting and worth the continued investment. In the end, regardless of the platforms you build, or partnerships you make, you have to ensure you are producing high quality content. This is the only way to ensure your audience will continue to discover, interact and share with your brand with their social graph.

Kristin Frank is the general manager of MTV and VH1 Digital. 

Image courtesy of Flickr user Shawn Allen.

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Today marks a very special birthday for us over here at GigaOM’s NewTeeVee: It’s been exactly a year since we published the first episode of Cord Cutters, our web series about watching TV in new and interesting ways that don’t require a traditional pay TV subscription. Since then, we’ve published a total of 36 episodes, held a nationwide meetup, grown our presence on Twitter and Facebook. Most importantly, we learned a whole lot about how countless viewers  reinvent the way they watch television every day.

Here’s our very first episode of Cord Cutters, published on October 19 2010:

Hey you, how do you watch TV?

NewTeeVee has covered the future of video since late 2006. We often focus on the business aspects of reinventing television, simply because the story behind the ascent of companies like Netflix and Hulu – and their recent struggles – is fascinating.

Of course, we’ve also paid attention to the consumer side all along, covering new devices like the Roku, the Apple TV or the Boxee that bring online video content to the TV screen. However, we didn’t want to become yet another gadget blog. Instead, we wanted to get a sense of how people were actually using these devices, and what difference they were making in their everyday lives.

We briefly contemplated visiting people at their homes and taking tons of photos of their setups. But then we realized that it isn’t just about the boxes you stack under your TV and the cables you use to connect them – even though, for geeks like us, that can be a lot of fun as well.

No, there is something more fundamental going on, something that’s at least as disruptive as the introduction of the DVR in 1999. With online video maturing from cat videos to long-form content, people are watching TV on their own terms, liberating themselves not only from the schedule, but also from a single category of devices, and finally from a bunch of previously pretty much mandatory services. Some people watch whole movies on the iPad, others stream Hulu content to the Xbox, while others again rediscover over-the air-television as the best HD signal there is.

We’re a nation of Cord Cutters

A big part of this has been cord cutting — as the act of giving up your traditional pay TV subscription is now known. The economic crisis has forced many of us to take another look at monthly expenses and pay TV providers are starting to feel the consequences. Pay TV subscriptions were down for the first time ever in two quarters of 2010. There was a slight rebound earlier this year, but things aren’t looking too good for the rest of the year. Some predict that nine million households won’t have cable by 2016.

We decided to devote a whole show to this trend not because we hate cable companies (even though everyone else seems to), or because we don’t think that the traditional 0 a month cable bundle is a very good deal for consumers (which it isn’t).

We did it because because we noticed that those cord cutters were the very people who were at the forefront of reinventing television. The folks in the trenches, who take their TV viewing back into their own hands and experiment until they find a solution that works best for them – and not the one-size-fits all approach that’s still at the core of pay TV.

And there was something else we quickly noticed: Cord cutters are everywhere, including at GigaOM. Check out this video we did late last year with a number of our employees:

Here’s to the alpha geeks

Granted, not everyone is ready to cut the cord and give up on cable or other forms of pay TV. Most households probably never will be – and working on Cord Cutters has given us a lot of invaluable feedback on why people stick with Comcast or U-verse. Sports is still a big reason, falling in love with a certain show or network that aren’t available online is yet another.

However, cord cutting still matters. Not only financially, as pay TV providers see their slim growth margins breaking away, but also to innovation in this industry. Tim O’Reilly has long been talking about the alpha geeks –  the people who impact our collective future by inventing and crash-testing it today. Cord cutters are the TV world’s alpha geeks. Watch them watch TV, and you’ll get a sense of where all of our TV consumption is going.

Unfortunately, there’s a bit of a misconception, leading many people to believe that alpha geeks all work at some hot Silicon Valley startups. It’s true that folks in tech seem to be most vocal about cord cutting and many other tech trends. But if you look at the history of technology, it’s more often than not folks outside of the Valley that got the ball rolling.

Minorities, and not startup CEOs, were the first to really embrace cell phones in the U.S. Teenagers in Europe were getting blisters from texting long before mobile messaging became fashionable stateside. And farmers in rural Kenya have done mobile commerce long before you and I even heard about Google Wallet.

It’s not about geeks vs. have-nots

Why does this matter? Because with cord cutting, some industry insiders want to differentiate between the tech-savvy and the economically depressed, arguing that most people simply give up on pay TV when things are tough, only to sign up again once the economy recovers.

But at least judging by the feedback we’ve gotten from people of all ages and backgrounds who watch Cord Cutters, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Cord Cutters are general contractors, priests, politicians, retirees, teachers, students, liberals, conservatives and libertarians – and they’re all united by a desire to watch TV differently.

Helping our viewers to make that happen – and learn a whole lot about the future of TV in the process – has been the most satisfying part of producing Cord Cutters. We can’t wait to see what’s next.

Check the embed below for some of the more recent episodes of Cord Cutters, or visit the show page to browse our entire archive.

We would like to hear from you: What do you want to see on future episodes of Cord Cutters? What else should we do, or what should e do differently? Do you want more product demos, more tips & tricks, or more meetups? Let us know in the comments!

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Over the past year or so, Samsung has tried to reward app makers for building exciting new experiences on its connected TVs, by introducing Free the TV Challenge app developer contests in different regions around the world. So far, that strategy has helped grow its app store to include more than 900 choices. But now Samsung is looking to extend its influence beyond just the TV with a contest aimed at apps that create converged experiences between multiple devices.

The latest version of the Free the TV Challenge is focused on apps developed to bridge the divide between the TV and mobile phones, tablets and PCs. By doing so, Samsung hopes to tap into consumers’ increasing use of so-called second-screen devices while they are watching TV. So far, that activity has mostly been limited to sending text messages to friends or commenting on social networks like Twitter or Facebook. However, a growing number of interactive applications are creating real connections between the events on-screen and the applications on devices that users are holding in their hands.

Creating interactive second-screen apps is also one way to promote sales of other devices that Samsung makes. While the contest will be open to any mobile or computer operating system — whether it be Android or iOS, Windows or Mac — the Samsung is clearly hoping that some of these second-screen experiences will use the contest to create deeper experiences between its TVs and its own mobile and tablet devices.

In the same way that Apple’s introduction of AirPlay — which enables owners of both an iPad and Apple TV to stream content from their tablets to the big screen — has made a purchase of both products more compelling, Samsung believes that deeper integration between its products could give consumers more reason to buy not just a Samsung connected TV, but also an Android-based Samsung mobile handset or Samsung Galaxy Tab.

With the exception of Apple, however, very few CE manufacturers have been successful with such a strategy. Sony, for instance, tried for decades to convince consumers to buy across its ecosystem of TVs, laptops, handheld media players and the like, with little success. That said, Samsung is in a strong position, with solid mobile products and a leading TV product line, to offer a compelling cross-device solution.

Interestingly enough, Samsung has already had some notable converged applications from previous app developer contests. That includes MOVL’s WeDraw, which enables users to create images on their mobile devices that can be seen on the TV screen and was the winner of last year’s challenge. Since then MOVL has gone on to create similar apps for Google TV and PCs.

More than just reaching a big audience of Samsung connected TV owners, there’s a sizable cash prize for developers to compete for: First prize in the latest edition of Samsung’s app contest will win 0,000, as well as a 65″ TV priced at around ,000, a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and a spot at CES. Second and third price will win ,000 and ,000 respectively, as well as a 55″ TV valued at around ,500 and a Galaxy Tab 10.1 each.

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Do you enjoy watching tv? Right now, what would you say if I told you that I actually enjoy live television on my pc? Believe it. And one of the best products which makes this achievable is Satellite Direct.

Satellite Direct is one of the most preferred TV via the internet items. It makes it possible for its customers to enjoy their favored Television shows directly from their pcs – meaning if you have your own personal mobile computer or personal computer, you are going to be able to do your viewing just about anywhere you desire to.

Satellite Direct offers its customers an array of channels to pick from. Should you prefer a more precise amount, Satellite Direct offers a whole lot more compared with 3500 programs from all around the globe.

Today, it must be observed that inspite of the seemingly advanced technology that arrives with this particular item, you don’t need to be a computer nerd or genius in order to use it.

Having Satellite Direct, you no longer need to do any hardware installation or some needless attachments just to have great results. All you need is a computer as well as an internet connection. What you do would be to install the program to your Pc, register the product and that is it!

Contrary to regular cable firms, Satellite Direct does not have any hidden rates. It will not need you to pay set up fees, membership charges, along with other fees which might prove to be very costly over time.

The software and interface for Satellite Direct is also quite simple to use and comprehend. Searching for your preferred channels and shows is not problematic, because this merchandise is specifically made to be “user-friendly”.

If you love watching Series on the big screen, you may also attach your computer to your Tv. The channel quality of Satellite Direct is wonderful quality. If you need to be just like me, who watches live Television on my computer, then you must seriously take into consideration getting your own Satellite Direct software. If you do, your TV-viewing knowledge will not be exactly the same again.

I am going to speak for a few minutes about an intriguing promotion that is offered by one of the best bingo sites Jackpot Joy. This promotion comes along with one of their recently signed sponsorship deals, it is something that both parties will benefit from and is good news for both of them.

First of all they have signed a sponsorship deal with a program on Channel 4 in the UK called Deal Or No Deal. It is extremely popular, it is shown quite a few times every week. First of all this is a good thing for Jackpot Joy because they’re going to get lots of exposure.

It is a good deal however because of the promotion that it comes with, it is called Ad Break Bingo, and I am now going to discuss it. First of all this is a completely free promotion, all you need is an account at Jackpot Joy.

Every day expect Saturday, you just need to log into your account by 2pm and there you will find your daily ad break numbers. Then you need to watch Deal or No Deal, and pay attention during the ad breaks because the daily winning numbers will be revealed.

If your numbers are announced you will win a whopping £250,000, just for watching TV. People will be encouraged to both play at Jackpot Joy and watch Deal or No Deal which is why it is a good all round promotion.

There is no other sponsorship deal like this, but other sites will soon copy it no doubt because it is so good. If this promotion alone isn’t enough to convince you to play at Jackpot Joy then maybe the welcome bonus will.

It’s a 200% welcome bonus of up to £200, so if you deposit £100 you will get a £200 bonus which is the largest bonus amount I’ve seen. I would highly recommend visiting them, as they have lots of other jackpots and promotions running on a daily basis too.

High definition tv sets are the new forms of televisions becoming manufactured and sold to the public. In a nutshell, the a lot more detailed the moving image is, the clearer it is, and as such, the moving picture is thought to be to be of a high definition.

The term ‘high definition’ originates from the late 1930s where a brand new set of televisions had been manufactured to replace earlier systems that were standard technology that had rather small resolution – as small as 30 lines.

We all enjoy going towards the movies and with superior reason. Hollywood consistently finds techniques to whisk us away to other worlds. You might have heard that a lot more and additional folks are watching tv as compared to going towards the movies. Yet, the numbers of people consistently going to the movies in other age groups may well be dropping. You’ll find quite a few causes for this occurrence, let’s appear at a few.

As producers developed better technologies for plan makers to record moving images onto them, manufactures developed superior technologies that would receive the far better top quality moving images devoid of compromising the quality. In other words, the HDTV technologies now will probably be distinctive towards the HDTV technology in the decades to come.

HD television sets are permanent, and has replaced analogue televisions indeed! Manufacturers have phased out the production of analogue televisions mainly because they are obsolete. In fact, if you attempted to watch a tv show on an analogue television set in certain areas in the UK, you wouldn’t receive a signal, unless you could have had it adjusted for the ‘digital switchover’.

Cost

The rates of movie tickets do, in fact, just preserve going up and up. That expense carries with it far more than just a little sticker shock. Of course, this does not even factor in the high costs of concession snacks.

The digital switchover is when all televisions inside the UK switches over to a digital signal, meaning the transmission of the broadcast might be in digital, and no longer analogue. This suggests an analogue tv will not pick up the signal. If you could have an analogue television at property and would favor not to upgrade to a digital one, you are going to have to have to use a set-top box, which will then enable you to receive the digital broadcast signal. Unless purchasing a second-hand television, your new television are going to be digital! It becoming digital however, does not necessarily mean it can be a high definition television.

Please also learn more on Sennheiser Hd 595 Review and also Senheiser Headphones.