Second Screen?
Remember the good old days when you were asked to "silence your cell phone" at the movies?
It's going to get harder and harder to convince people to shut down their "second screen."
That's because we rely on that handy little mobile device to answer question, settle debates, and get extra information about that "first screen" content we're consuming.
I admit it, I do it all the time. The other night I was watching an episode of True Blood, and I could not name the actor who was playing Grandpa Stackhouse. It was driving me crazy. Out comes second screen (well, second screen two; second screen one is my cell phone, second screen two is my iPad; second screen three would be the first of my laptops - you get the picture). Riddle solved.
And as long as I'm not talking to someone at the movies, am I really going to bother anyone if I look up an actor's other credits? Well, maybe I will. But I'll leave the courtesy issue for another time.
The first time I actually used a "second screen" was to interact with fellow fans about a tv show. We played a game of "best line of the night" with our favorite series. That was true "social television," the way I'm sure the makers of the series, and probably the advertisers, are dreaming we'll all be using our second screens.
There was a big push, and to the best of my knowledge it continues to this day, to get users to interact with the content of a program by offering exclusive content if you go to the website now, or text something now. And I'll admit, I'm not a sports fan, so I can't attest to the success of such ploys with sports programming, though I'm told it's more successful with that kind of "who's going to win" programming than it is with storylines, where you're mostly going for behind the scenes, or cut scenes, or that sort of thing.
What all of the second screen offering does, of course, is engage the viewers more with the content, ideally with the advertising if there is any, and convince the producers that the whole venture is worth the effort - people aren't just watching, they're watching and involved.
What I need to know, though, is if I have several people in my living room, we're all watching a favorite show, and we're all checking out second screen information on our various mobile devices, how do we name them all? A point to be pondered.
It's going to get harder and harder to convince people to shut down their "second screen."
That's because we rely on that handy little mobile device to answer question, settle debates, and get extra information about that "first screen" content we're consuming.
I admit it, I do it all the time. The other night I was watching an episode of True Blood, and I could not name the actor who was playing Grandpa Stackhouse. It was driving me crazy. Out comes second screen (well, second screen two; second screen one is my cell phone, second screen two is my iPad; second screen three would be the first of my laptops - you get the picture). Riddle solved.
And as long as I'm not talking to someone at the movies, am I really going to bother anyone if I look up an actor's other credits? Well, maybe I will. But I'll leave the courtesy issue for another time.
The first time I actually used a "second screen" was to interact with fellow fans about a tv show. We played a game of "best line of the night" with our favorite series. That was true "social television," the way I'm sure the makers of the series, and probably the advertisers, are dreaming we'll all be using our second screens.
There was a big push, and to the best of my knowledge it continues to this day, to get users to interact with the content of a program by offering exclusive content if you go to the website now, or text something now. And I'll admit, I'm not a sports fan, so I can't attest to the success of such ploys with sports programming, though I'm told it's more successful with that kind of "who's going to win" programming than it is with storylines, where you're mostly going for behind the scenes, or cut scenes, or that sort of thing.
What all of the second screen offering does, of course, is engage the viewers more with the content, ideally with the advertising if there is any, and convince the producers that the whole venture is worth the effort - people aren't just watching, they're watching and involved.
What I need to know, though, is if I have several people in my living room, we're all watching a favorite show, and we're all checking out second screen information on our various mobile devices, how do we name them all? A point to be pondered.
Comments