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Future of TV Spredfast

Exclusive: Spredfast launches 'Presenter' to allow broadcasters to better regulate on-air content

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By Natan Edelsburg | SVP

December 10, 2015 | 6 min read

Spredfast continues to be a powerful and widely used platform by TV. For example, they power Viacom's social TV ad offering, Viacom Velocity. Nearly two years ago, Spredfast merged with Mass Relevance and baked their on-air tools for broadcasters into their platform. Spredfast Experiences was born, which is now used by MTV, HBO, Pepsi, NASCAR, Fox Sports, P&G and more.

Today, Spredfast is announcing the launch of "Presenter," exclusively with Found Remote. According to the company, "presenter, hosts can directly regulate the content displayed on in-venue screens, live, deciding exactly which content is on-screen and for how long it stays there; preview the content on an iPad before displaying it on screen, switch between different pieces of content in real-time and-- in case a less-than-desirable piece of content does slip through-- quickly switch it out with a simple 'left-swipe.'"

The tool, as part of Experiences supports text, photo and video coming from all major social networks. Found Remote interviewed VP of Media Josh Rickel about the new tool.

Found Remote: Why did Spredfast decide to launch these tools now?

Josh Rickel: We’re always partnering with our customers to identify how to stay ahead of their needs. We built this in response to more of our broadcast customers using our social experiences on large displays in an on-set setting, with a live presenter interacting with the content--whether it's highlighting fan content, or doing a social Q&A. We wanted to give those presenters more editorial control of the content and visualization they were presenting. It also provides them some mental prep, so they can prepare how they’ll approach the next segment, instead of having to react to it coming in blind. It's almost like a teleprompter for social content.

FR: How long did it take to create them?

JR: It took about 2.5 months from first designs to go live.

FR: What did the Experiences product already have before this?

JR: Experiences was a true first for the industry. It was the first technology to allow media companies to integrate social content at scale with broadcast. As leaders in this space, our Experiences product has continued to lead the pack in innovation. Over the years, the product has evolved to support every major social network, grown to include more than 75 templates and moved far beyond purely displaying content. Today Experiences powers social command centers for sports leagues during major events, fuels live voting for television shows, and even drives purchase behavior for retailers with shoppable vizes. This is just another step in our innovation. Presenter offers flexibility for the control of social content between producers and on-air talent.

FR: Who do you think will use it more, producers or on-air talent?

JR: Presenter is intended for both. On TV, on-air talent can now interact with producer pre-approved content in real-time. It will allow for an even more organic interaction between on-air talent and the content they are connecting with on screen. At live in-venue events, like an NCAA basketball game, producers can be on the sidelines with an iPad, moving specific content to the jumbotron in real-time.

FR: Which social networks are Spredfast pulling in data for, for this?

JR: All the major networks— the same networks that are currently available in Experiences (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, RSS Feeds, other Internal Streams)

FR: "Dark Social" accounts for most content being shared, what advice does Spredfast have for broadcasters to deal with that when trying to pull insights for on-air?

JR: If you are referring to content on Facebook that is not public, we definitely see a benefit from aggregation of this data to further tell a more complete story. Facebook has done a great job evolving their APIs to accommodate the demand for these insights. We have worked closely with Facebook to develop new ways to provide media companies the tools necessary to tell a more complete story based on the conversation happening on the platform. Facebook has provided some basic tools for broadcasters to tap into their insights and we have developed more robust ways to do this alongside other social data.

FR: Anything else?

JR: Spredfast is at the forefront of the conversation about monetizing a social audience, we’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible for Social TV, this is just another example of us moving the needle for social and media. With the recent acquisition of Shoutlet, we have accelerated our capabilities to gather first party data through Promotions and are innovating around social profiles - which will be key in linking first party data to social conversation and data. With this, Spredfast continues to provide the only enterprise social software platform for media companies and sports organizations.

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