Media World: Social TV Guides

I was just reading through MediaWeek and came across this article:

Time Out prepares to launch online social TV guide

Arif Durrani, 25 January 2012, 8:30am

It's been almost 30 years since Time Out magazine sparked a revolution in a once closed TV listings market, and now the publisher is preparing to launch what it hopes will be the next generation of TV listings, by harnessing the power of social networks, Facebook and Twitter.

I think it sounds like an interesting idea. I'm often unaware of what's on when, especially when I'm on my Sky+ and I'm skipping promos and adverts for upcoming programmes. And I don't often flick through a TV guide. It could be a good way to make people more aware of programming on TV and divert them away from their routines in recording the same thing. It also brings people together when viewing. I usually open Facebook and come across posts from various people and you can tell they're viewing the same thing. Obviously, this wouldn't appeal to all TV viewers.

I then came across this US website: www.socialguide.com/about. It's a social app and website, listing what's popular on TV at the time, the channel it's on and you can see instant feeds from the viewers ("SocialGuide ranks all the shows on your TV based on real-time social activity and surfaces the shows that your friends are talking about, so you can find something worth watching - fast.."). They sell themselves as: "The smarter, social way to discover and watch TV!". I think it could be a pretty cool idea. And it could entice people to watch the programmes they want as they're being broadcast rather than time-shifted. But, there will always be downsides of course...