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Most Monday nights, Dynna Wilkerson joins 10,000 other superfans to play MTV's Backchannel, a multiplayer online game based on the hugely popular scripted reality soap The Hills.
Wilkerson, a 26-year-old administrative assistant from Baltimore, slings snarky barbs and cutesy one-liners for points in the game, which is designed to be played while The Hills airs. As the show's celebutants bicker and gossip on TV, users fire off comments in a web-based chat room (screenshot above).
The funnier — and often the meaner — the comments are, the higher the player's score: The more comical or cutting the jibe, the more likely other players are to click on it, earning the scribe points.
"I play Backchannel every chance I get," said Wilkerson in an e-mail exchange. "It's so exciting to win even though you don't get anything."
As television audiences migrate online, media companies are eyeing social networking as a possible killer app for hooking viewers through their laptops. From simple chat rooms to unique games, the race is on to develop content that complements traditional shows — the more creative and addictive the better.
"If all we were doing was regurgitating content from television online, I'd slit my wrists," said Anthony Soohoo, senior vice president of CBS' interactive division. "It's a connected experience that becomes very social."
With increasing broadband penetration, online video is in the midst of a boom: According to a May report, Americans watched 12 billion videos across sites like Hulu and YouTube even as TV's numbers continue to decline. Meanwhile, online communities like
Flickr and Facebook continue to snowball in size and popularity. The addition of social features to sites run by MTV, CBS and others seems like the next logical step.
But it's not enough to simply slap social features onto a video player.
If companies want audiences to come, they need to deliver the goods in the form of quality shows and videos that will capture viewers' fancy.
"If a video were even remotely lame, [users] would click away," said
David Burch, marketing manager at web-video analytic firm TubeMogul, which monitors about 20 online video sites, though not Hulu or CBS.
Social Viewing Plays:- CBS' Social Viewing Rooms: A high-def streaming video player screens shows like *Survivor *and CSI alongside live chat features, trivia and icons that let participants lob animated tomatoes or blow cartoon hearts at actors.
- Fan Pages: Fancast, Comcast's Hulu competitor, offers fan groups for TV shows that let users obsess over plot points and share favorite episodes. Powered by social networking site Plaxo, the feature is in beta.
- Watercooler: The developer behind popular Facebook apps Addicted to The Office and Addicted to Heroes partnered with Hulu to bring video to its popular TV-themed online communities.
- Lycos Cinema: An online screening room doubles as a virtual rowdy movie theater. Viewers pick something to watch, then chat with friends during movies and TV shows — sort of like a DIY Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew.
According to Burch, the firm's recent research reveals that online viewers have fickle habits.
For instance, viewers like to fast-forward through content and often surf multiple pages while on the web. "[Online viewing] is not like the traditional TV mind-set. Viewers have so many options," said Burch.
"CBS is trying to fight that and get you to stay in their environment."
Chuck Ball, chief of marketing and product innovation at Lycos, said he thinks at-home audiences want to watch movies and TV remotely — the key is capturing their attention.
"The challenge is matching the right content with the right audience," said Ball, who noted that indie films made up Lycos Cinema's most popular screenings. If a movie's director sits in virtually, interacting with viewers, the screenings prove particularly successful, he said.
Although CBS' Soohoo did not provide traffic numbers, he said early data is encouraging: "People are staying a little longer in the [social] viewing rooms than in a regular [viewing room] without people there."
Some analysts, like Kurt Scherf, vice president of digital media and consumer research at Park Associates, thinks the older set might find it difficult to retain focus on a drama-heavy show like *The Sopranos *or Lost if they're chatting or playing games.
"Given the rise of Facebook and MySpace among the younger consumer crowd, it's not surprising to see the appeal for this kind of interactive service," said Scherf. "I do think that there will be a finite line drawn between where entertainment ends and distractions begin."
Others, like James McQuivey, a media technology analyst with research firm Forrester, point out that the features are hardly new.
"Cool idea, but also not a new one," McQuivey wrote in a blog post. "I know of at least two others who have been testing this for two years now!"
Still, McQuivey says, social viewing has a lot of potential.
"Give it some time," he said, noting that before long, the tricky component to integrating online video and social networking will be reduced to figuring out which witticisms to type. "What would I possibly have to say via onscreen chat," he quipped. "'Pass the popcorn?'"
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