zeebox Launches Augmented TV

LONDON, NEW YORK and SYDNEY, Dec. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- zeebox announced today a major upgrade to its award-winning social TV app that adds a layer of rich content around all things TV-related – zeebox's MyTV. 

"We've been listening to our users, and we've learned that their conscious engagement with TV goes far beyond the time they sit in front of the screen. They plan their viewing ahead, are hungry for news about the stars, and discuss what they watched after the show," said Ernesto Schmitt, CEO and co-founder, "With this release, fans can use zeebox as their round-the-clock TV world: helping them discover what to watch, giving them a great, interactive time when they're watching, offering them all the stories and feeds when they're not watching – and connecting them with a vibrant community who share their TV likes and loves. We call this 'augmented TV'."

The zeebox experience will now open with MyTV, a personalized content feed based on the shows a user follows, has watched, or set reminders for. MyTV then brings targeted recommendations, an individualized TV viewing schedule for the week and a feed of the latest stories and the best-related social posts.  Furthermore, it's now easier than ever to access favorite TV Rooms and join the conversation as it happens, and zeebox continues to lead the field in engaging audiences with synchronized show enhancements.

With the aim of bringing augmented TV to users whenever and wherever they may be, zeebox also announces the general availability of its syndicated TV Rooms and play-along experiences, which enable broadcasters, show producers and any TV-related websites to integrate the zeebox social conversation and synchronized interactivity around specific TV shows. 

"zeebox TV Rooms are increasingly becoming a primary hub for structured conversation around specific shows, and we decided to extend the reach of that community to any and all web destinations where TV fans congregate,"  said Max Bleyleben, COO and Head of Syndicated Products, "Our TV Rooms and widgets can be inserted into any website in a matter of minutes to extend the TV community or deliver lively interactive experiences synchronized with live broadcasts, such as prediction games, polls and quizzes."

Syndicated zeebox components are fully integrated with the zeebox content network, benefiting from all its unique features:

• seamless connection to the zeebox community – see your friends, connect with fans across zeebox or any syndication site;
• interactive games published in synch with the show's timecode; and
• simple point-click configuration via zeebox's web-based publishing tools already used by many broadcasters.

"zeebox is the destination app for TV, but just like Facebook's comments box and Twitter's tweet button are syndicated across the web, so we are making augmented TV available wherever fans congregate," said Max Bleyleben.

The new release of the zeebox app is initially available only for iPhone, iPad and iPad mini here (http://zeebox.com), and will be available for Android smartphones, Android tablets and Amazon Kindle later in January.

About zeebox

zeebox is augmented TV: a content network delivering social community, story feeds, and live interactivity to TV fans worldwide.

With zeebox, consumers follow shows to receive personalised TV news and gossip feeds, connect with communities in TV Rooms, and interact with shows live as they air on screen.  Broadcasters and content owners in the US, UK and Australia partner with zeebox to enhance their TV shows, engage their audiences, and monetize this new medium in sync with live TV.

zeebox was founded in 2011 by former iPlayer CTO Anthony Rose and EMI executive Ernesto Schmitt. The company is backed by Comcast, NBCUniversal, Viacom and BSkyB and is headquartered in London with offices in New York and Sydney. For more information, please visit www.zeebox.com.

SOURCE zeebox