Blog entries

Arktan Powers Fan Experiences for March Madness

Sirpa Aggarwal — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 06:16:38 +0100

NCAA March Madness is underway, and here’s what Arktan is powering for the fans.
Arktan customer, TBS, has a designated page for March Madness on the “Men at Work” site. The page launched with a “bracket challenge” inviting fans of the “Men at Work” to join the cast of the show to compete with them for the winning bracket with a chance to win a trip to the Final Four in 2014.
Arktan is powering the site’s fan conversation by extending curated real-time

Univision Shines at the Latin Social TV Awards

Sirpa Aggarwal — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 07:27:57 +0100

Our customer, Univision, had a successful Latin Social TV Awards at the Social TV Summit in Miami.Univision received awards in eight categories, including the Best Broadcast Network Latin Social TV Award. Univision’s digital network, UVideos, won two of the awards: The Best Online Video Latin Social TV Award, and the Best Mobile Phone, iPad or Tablet Latin Social TV Application Award. Arktan is proud to be powering UVideos’ social platform, including its real-time social conversation, and the site’s many innovative, industry-first features. One such feature is UVideos’ time-syncing feature that supports the DVR capability for live and on-demand video playbacks of Univision shows. When viewers watch videos of the shows after live programming, they are able to see all the social and on-site

TNT's Social Hub for "Dallas"

Sirpa Aggarwal — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 23:43:00 +0100

TNT launched last summer a remake of the hugely popular “Dallas” show that first aired in 1978. The original show was watched by a global audience over the many years it was on air. TNT’s remake of “Dallas” is engaging both the old fans and a new generation of fans with a new cast that includes the next generation of Ewings. TNT has built a social media presence around the show and its characters on Twitter and Facebook to drive fan engagement. The show has a designated Facebook page, and all the cast members have their own Twitter accounts.Fans can engage in second-screen social interaction around the show on TNT’s new social hub called “Southfork Social”.

Arktan SocialStreams is powering the site’s real-time social web content and conversation by extending curated content to the site from Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue, and other social networks.Fans can start participating in the conversation by logging in with their preferred social login. They can post comments on the site, and reply to

The Grammys Live Chat for Fans

Sirpa Aggarwal — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 08:26:47 +0100

The 55th Grammys on Sunday posted the second highest ratings in 20 years. Twitter saw over 14 million tweets about the Grammys, representing 29% increase from 2012, according to data. Arktan was proud to power the Grammys Live Chat hosted by CBS Local Los Angeles. The Live Chat started three hours before the live event, and continued throughout the event.

Arktan SocialStreams powered the Live Chat. SocialStreams extended curated talent tweets for fan interaction on the site. CBS Local Los Angeles used Arktan’s robust dashboard and APIs to curate and moderate the conversation to display only the most relevant and engaging content for fan interaction.

Fans were able to start participating in the Live Chat by logging in using their preferred social login. When they shared their comments made on the site back on Twitter and Facebook, they were driving more fans to participate in the Live Chat.
The Live Chat was a successful event, and saw a large a number of fans participating and enjoying the real-time social interaction. Approximately 80% of the curated content were

Hispanic Viewers Coming to Social TV

Sirpa Aggarwal — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 06:47:20 +0100

Our recent blog post talked about the rise in time-shifted viewing. This trend among others is increasingly driven by Hispanics, who have been emerging as a powerful U.S. demographic influencing brands across industries from mobile to digital to music to TV.Data from 2012 portrayed Hispanics as early adopters of new technology, eager to consume quality content on multiple platforms, especially on mobile, spending an estimated $500 million on mobile apps by the end of 2012. Meanwhile, Nielsen study projects Hispanics’ buying power to increase from $1 trillion in 2010 to $1.5 trillion in 2015.The rising influence of Hispanics has not gone unnoticed. Univision, the leading provider of Spanish-language programming for Hispanics, launched in late 2012 UVideos, the first bilingual digital network for Hispanic America, in partnership with Arktan that powered UVideos’ social platform. UVideos was launched to fill the need expressed by Hispanics for more engaging Spanish-language content available across multiple platforms and devices, especially mobile. Others in the broadcast industry are starting to follow suit, most recently CNN that just announced a new venture, CNN Latino, providing Spanish-language programming for Hispanics.The Social TV industry is also starting to take notice of Hispanic viewers. Social TV Summit, the leading industry event, will shine a spotlight on the Hispanic, Latin and South American markets at its next event in April. Univision will be the Platinum Sponsor of the event that will culminate in the Latin Social TV Awards ceremony.

Warner Music Nashville Launches Destination Site for Fans and Artists

Sirpa Aggarwal — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 07:25:34 +0100

Warner Music Nashville (WMN) has just announced the launch of WarnerMusicNashville.com as a destination site for WMN artists and their fans. The site’s engaging social experiences are designed to deepen fan engagement around WMN’s artists and their music. The site’s minimalist responsive design puts the focus on WMN’s artists’ news. The site’s content is optimized for viewing across multiple platforms, browsers, and devices, and its responsive design particularly optimized for mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets.WMN partnered with Arktan to power the site’s real-time social experiences. The site uses Arktan SocialStreams to curate artists’ and fans’ social media content and activities in a Pinterest-style mixed-media visualization.

Arktan SocialTrends is powering the site’s social media "buzz meter" that calculates and displays artists’ real-time reach and relevance on the social web based on

Time-Shifted Viewing on the Rise

Sirpa Aggarwal — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 02:46:55 +0100

Arktan and Univision announced yesterday in a Press Release their partnership around UVideos. While majority of viewers still like to watch live TV programming, a key component of UVideos’ success has been to allow viewers also watch shows on-demand, whenever and wherever convenient for them. Watching TV programming on-demand is part of a growing trend towards time-shifted viewing, where viewing choices are influenced by convenience.According to Nielsen study U.S. time-shifted viewing increased by 8.9% from 2011 to 2012, while data shows that the portion of DVR viewing has increased from 1.6% in 2006 to 8% in 2012.USA Today quoted Nielsen data showing that 44% of homes now have DVRs. In the meantime, 47% of viewing by young-adult DVR users was live, down from 61% four years earlier.The DVR penetration rate has been growing fastest among hispanic viewers, growing from 8.4% in early 2007 to 33.4% by early 2012, according to Nielsen data. Hispanic viewers are also the leading demographic watching videos on mobile phones.

Arktan Introduces Geo Visualization

Sirpa Aggarwal — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:50:24 +0100

We have extended the capabilities of our SocialStreams product with a new Geo feature that supports responsive design, and is optimized for mobile, including smartphones and tablets. Arktan Geo feature gives our customers the capability to visually display real-time social conversation taking place on the social web and on their sites, mobile apps, and TV, around sports, TV shows, events, political debates, etc. One example of customers using Arktan Geo visualization is around football games to highlight the geographic locations of real-time tweets around competing teams and their national fan bases. Arktan’s robust dashboard and API gives customers the ability to curate the social conversation on their sites and mobile apps, and display only tweets with designated hashtags.
Arktan SocialStreams extends curated real-time tweets for fans to engage with. Fans can add their own comments, and share them back on the social web using their preferred social login. Besides participating in the real-time fan conversation on the site before, during, and after each game, Arktan Geo visualization allows fans to see the leading geographic locations where tweets displayed on the Geo conversation map originate from.In addition, when hovering over icons representing their favorite teams, TV shows, or celebrities on the Geo conversation map, fans can read corresponding tweets, and reply, re

Arktan CEO and Co-Founder Speaker at Digital Hollywood NYC

Sirpa Aggarwal — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:44:59 +0100

The Social TV Strategy Summit at the Digital Hollywood in New York City featured a group of Social TV industry influencers, including Arktan CEO and Co-Founder, Rahul Aggarwal, and speakers from AT&T, MTV Networks, Hearst Television, JWT, and TAG Strategic.The presentations and panel discussion centered around innovation and emerging trends in the Social TV industry. One such trend is the use of second-screen apps as discovery tools. AT&T, for example, is building its second-screen apps as discovery tools for viewers to discover TV shows across various TV network platforms. The panel discussion brought out the importance of building interactive viewer experiences as a way for getting data that can be used for discovery, recommendations, and building brand loyalty among viewers. The panel discussion touched upon the ongoing discussion in the Social TV industry about how to measure ROI. The panel mentioned USA Network’s “Character Chatter” social hub as an example of a leading TV network that has been benefiting from its investment in building interactive viewer experiences. One measure of ROI is the site’s user base that had grown to one million users by July 2012 from the previous summer’s 300,000 users.Rahul Aggarwal said that the Social TV industry is seeing an evolution towards people wanting deeper interaction and richer experiences with content and conversation, deeper curation, more visualizations, and more social conversation experiences that include friends. Rahul gave Univision’s UVideos, whose social experiences are powered by Arktan, as an example of a digital platform doing just that for its users.

Univision Launches UVideos As The Bilingual Digital Network for Hispanic America

Sirpa Aggarwal — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 06:21:23 +0100

Univision just announced a launch of a new digital video product for Hispanic Americans with “one of the most fully integrated, comprehensive social experiences available in any language in the U.S.”, according to the company’s press release.Besides having many innovative features, the site allows viewers to watch Spanish-language content subtitled in English, and consume the content on multiple platforms, whenever convenient. UVideos will be available in Spanish and with English subtitles on UVideos.com, and on the companion iOS and Android mobile apps.
“UVideos offers a compelling new way for U.S. Hispanics to connect with Univision Networks and watch their favorite shows anytime, anywhere, while also creating new opportunities for advertisers and distributors,” said Kevin Conroy, president of Univision Interactive and Enterprise Development.The site’s launch was greatly influenced by the findings in the 2012 Hispanic Digital Study conducted by Nielsen. Among the key findings were need for more Spanish-language content, need for strong content selection deliverable across multiple platforms and devices, importance of ease of use, and ability to share video clips with friends on social media.Univision partnered with Arktan to power UVideos’ social experiences, including some highly innovative, industry-first features. One such feature is the site’s time-syncing feature. This feature supports the DVR capability for live and on-demand video playbacks of Univision shows. When viewers watch videos of the shows after live programming, they are able to see all the social and on-site comments played back to them as they occurred during the original live programming of the shows. This means that friends can experience shows together, even if they’re not watching them at the same time.Arktan SocialStreams is powering the site’s real-time social conversation, including the site’s live chat that allows viewers to post

Interscope Launches Groundbreaking Social Music Hub

Sirpa Aggarwal — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 07:47:33 +0100

Interscope just launched a groundbreaking new site, turning a traditional record label site to a real-time interactive social music hub for fans.The hub is designed to attract fans to come and experience deeper engagement around their favorite artists, and to discover new artists and music. The hub’s interactive content is displayed in an engaging Pinterest-style visualization, and organized around content labeled as Featured, Social, Music, Videos, and Photos. Artists’ social media content is mixed in with exclusive

Social TV's Global Expansion

Sirpa Aggarwal — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 06:04:13 +0100

Since its beginning few years ago, Social TV has been a predominantly American phenomenon. The first second-screen social experiences were built by American TV networks for American viewers. This is starting to change. It’s exciting to witness Social TV starting to take root in other global markets as well. Those markets are now going through the same early phases of Social TV adoption experienced by the U.S. Social TV industry pioneers. Canada is one such example. CTV there has launched a number of successful social chat experiences powered by Arktan, most recently a social chat hub in May around “American Idol”. The Next Web reported in June that Social TV is starting to gain a foothold in Brazil, with reported 43% of viewers engaged in dual-screen viewing during TV shows. In a country of 193 million people, this represents a sizable emerging Social TV market. French broadcasters are also starting to explore Social TV. Rapid TV News wrote about a recent example of TF1’s partnership with Trendrr to bring Social TV experiences to French viewers of “Dancing with the Stars”.Northern Europe has become the latest region in the global expansion of the industry. Lost Remote wrote last week about HBO’s venture into Scandinavia with HBO Nordic. The new launch has already created quite a stir on social media, especially Facebook and Twitter. HBO is a well-known brand in Scandinavia, along with its shows, and local fans are eagerly awaiting this new launch. While the population in Scandinavia is relatively small, the region is among the most wired and connected in the world, especially on mobile platforms.While the U.S. continues to lead the way in the Social TV industry with the biggest TV audience in the world, it’s promising to witness the growing expansion of the industry in other countries and continents as well.

Brands Talk About Digital Engagement at Ad Age Conference

Sirpa Aggarwal — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 03:43:45 +0100

Last week’s Ad Age Digital Conference in San Francisco featured leading brands talking about engagement in the digital era that is becoming increasingly social. These customer-centric brands have all integrated social in their efforts to deliver engaging quality content and experiences for customers. Here are some strategies shared by the brands during the day’s presentations.Many consumer brands have realized the power of humor to engage fans, among them beer brands. As Lesya Lysyj, CMO of Heineken USA, said: “Humor does work in the beer category”. Dos Equis ads featuring “The Most Interesting Man in the World” are examples of humor delivered via engaging videos that rank among top TV commercials. Heineken ads in the meantime have frequented Ad Age’s Viral Video Chart. Lenovo, the Chinese PC maker, has also explored use of humor in its latest innovative videos. This is part of Lenovo’s new efforts to improve the brand’s visibility, especially among younger people.Brands partnering around major sports and sports events is another venue to drive fan engagement. Heineken, for example, has partnered with UEFA Champions League soccer. Heineken provides also an example of a brand that is successfully using social networking sites to engage fans. The brand has amassed a loyal following on both Twitter and Facebook, using fan feedback from Facebook to understand what resonates with fans.British Airways is an example of a brand building customer engagement by improving the quality of its service. Since travel experiences are among the most-shared experiences among people, the airline has been striving to make those experiences positive for its passengers with the use of the airline’s “Know Me” program.The program is tapping into all the data collected about passengers traveling on British Airways to elevate the level of customer service before, during, and after flights. Use of relevant data at the right time has enabled the airline to tailor its service to match each individual passenger’s unique needs and preferences. The specialized attention has resulted in increased customer satisfaction. Simon Talling-Smith, EVP, The Americas at British Airways, said that improvement in service quality builds loyalty that is more valuable than product investments. The above were some examples of how brands are using digital tools to build engagement. Digital marketing has grown into the biggest channel in the $160 billion advertising market. Brands’ ability to integrate digital marketing with engaging content delivered across all platforms is now a new key success metric.

Social Success of #Pivotconchat

Administrator — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:07:35 +0100

The 2012 Pivot Conference is just around the corner. The annual event has become a key event for brands wanting to increase their visibility. The monthly #Pivotconchats serve as popular social platforms for brands and individuals to interact with speakers and industry professionals during the one-hour chats. Arktan is powering the chat on the Pivotcon site at http:2012.pivotcon.com/chat/.The September chat earlier this week was hosted by Kare Anderson, an award-winning former NBC and The Wall Street Journal reporter, and Co-Founder of Say It Better Center. The chat attracted 101 participants, who generated over 1,000 tweets. The topics included some in the minds of all brands and individuals wanting to cultivate a meaningful social media presence.Here are some thoughts extracted from the sea of over 1,000

The Emerging Trend of Live Chat

Administrator — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 04:15:03 +0100

Live chat is emerging as a trend across many industries from sports to music to brands to TV networks. Leading examples from the Social TV industry include TNT’s live chat hubs for the network’s “Falling Skies” and “Dallas” shows, powered by Arktan SocialStreams.TNT’s live chat experiences allow fans to participate in exclusive post-show native live chats with other fans. Fans can start participating after logging in using their preferred social login name. Facebook still remains by far as the most popular social login option chosen by 54% of the users according to data for Q1 2012 by Janrain, boasting a big jump from 42% in Q3 2011. Facebook reigns as the preferred social login also on mobile apps with 49% of the users.The season finale of “Falling Skies” earlier this week had record numbers of fans signing in to participate in the post-show native chat on “2nd Watch”, the designated site for the “Falling Skies” live chat hosted by Wil Wheaton. After the show’s finale had aired on TV, “2nd Watch” featured a 30-minute live video of Wil Wheaton interviewing the cast of the show, among them Noah Wyle, Maxim Knight, Connor Jessup, and Sarah Carter, and the live chat taking place at the same time on the site.

The live chat page refreshes automatically showing new comments in real time, visually highlighting each new comment as they get posted by fans, without requiring refreshing of the page. During peaks tens of thousands of fans came to watch the live video and chat on “2nd Watch”. SocialStreams’ social sharing feature allows fans chatting on the site to share their

Arktan's New Partnership With PeopleBrowsr

Administrator — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 04:54:49 +0100

Arktan and PeopleBrowsr announced last week the integration of PeopleBrowsr's influence measuring tool, Kred, with Arktan SocialStreams. The integration gives Arktan customers an additional tool for filtering Social Web conversation and discussion around events based on influence, and highlighting comments and replies based on influence.Arktan’s robust product portfolio continues to expand with Kred’s social curation tool now being the latest addition to it. Arktan SocialStreams is already powering social experiences for many leading brands in the Social TV and Social Music industries, and for an increasing number of Social Brands. The Kred API extends the value of Arktan’s social curation platform by allowing customers to identify influential people talking about their products on the Social Web, and then featuring the influencers’

WWE, A&E Networks, and Simplynew Share Benefits of White-Label Social TV Solutions at the ...

Administrator — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 04:58:20 +0100

The Social TV Summit Los Angeles featured a day-long round of presentations and panel discussions. This blog highlights key trends that emerged from the session titled “White-Label Social TV Company Solutions - Technology Solutions That Drive the Social TV Industry”.Arktan’s CEO and Co-Founder, Rahul Aggarwal, was the session keynote speaker and panel moderator. Panelists were Marc Scarpa, Executive Producer/Director, Simplynew, Jason Hoch, SVP of Digital, World Wrestling Entertainment, and Evan Silverman, SVP, Digital Media, A&E Networks.Rahul gave an introduction of the industry, including examples of white-label Social TV solutions powered by Arktan, among them “The X Factor USA” show, the WWE website, USA Network’s “Character Chatter”, TNT’s “Falling Skies” Social Connect, and TNT’s “Falling Skies” and “Dallas” social chats.
Rahul highlighted some emerging trends in the space, such as social trending, social timeline, live chat for events and TV shows, curated social hubs, superstar pages, and loyalty and rewards. Many of these trends were front and center also in the panel discussion.A&E’s Evan Silverman emphasized building branded sites around shows as a key to monetization, giving “Project Runway” as an example of a show powered by white-label Social TV solution. The show has been successful at increasing fan engagement and loyalty with rewards by giving cash awards to “Favorite Fans”, and allowing fans to select “Fan Favorites” among the designers in the show. L’Oreal Paris and Lexus are brand partners of the show.

Storytelling was a theme that surfaced time and again in the discussion as key driver of fan engagement. Marc Scarpa explained how stories built around “The X Factor USA’s” contestants have increased the level of engagement among fans. The show’s sponsor, Pepsi, has further driven the social buzz with social apps built around the show, including “Pepsi Sound Off”.“The X Factor USA” was the highest rated broadcast series in 2011. Marc attributed a major part of the show’s success to Arktan’s white-label Social TV product solution that is powering the second-screen fan conversation on the show’s site, and on the companion “Xtra Factor” iPad app. Marc said that Arktan’s technology has been unifying the conversation around the show across all platforms.

WWE’s Jason Hoch also talked about storytelling, and stories built around WWE’s “Superstars”, who are driving fan engagement by giving fans a feeling of being participants in the shows. Fans get a feeling that they are able to communicate with their favorite “Superstars”.
WWE has been very successful at keeping their fans engaged and entertained. Among some of the key metrics shared by Jason were 53% increase in pageviews from last year, average engagement time of 12 minutes on the WWE website, and 200% increase in traffic on WWE’s Facebook page.This Social TV Summit session highlighted benefits and opportunities for monetization in the white-label Social TV solution space. The pioneering brands and TV networks in the panel are already enjoying the many benefits, and leading the way for others to follow.

Arktan Introduces Language-Based Curation

Administrator — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 10:06:02 +0100

Arktan’s flagship product SocialStreams has been enhanced to include the ability to curate real-time Social Web and Blog content based on language. The new language filtering feature is powered by Arktan’s recently developed and highly scalable natural language processing (NLP) framework.
Our customers are using SocialStreams to extend curated real-time content and conversation from the Social Web to their sites, mobile apps, and TV, to build interactive experiences for users. Showtime is an example of a customer, who is using SocialStreams’ new natural language processing feature to curate relevant social content for their Social TV microsite called “Socialize”.The new language curation product feature allows customers to use the Arktan Dashboard to filter a broad set of Social Web and Blog content based on language. These include

Arktan’s Rahul Aggarwal Panel Moderator and Session Keynote Speaker at the Social TV Summit ...

Administrator — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 05:42:22 +0100

Arktan, a leading provider of innovative social curation and second-screen experiences in the Social TV industry, announced today that Rahul Aggarwal, CEO & Co-Founder of Arktan, will be a panel moderator and session keynote speaker at the July 18 Social TV Summit in Los Angeles.
Rahul Aggarwal will moderate the session titled “White Label Social TV Company Solutions - Technology Solutions That Drive the Social TV Industry”. The session features panelists, who are among industry influencers. They include Evan Silverman, SVP, Digital Media, A&E Networks, Greg Johnson, EVP, William Morris Endeavor, and Jason Hoch, SVP, Digital Operations, World Wrestling Entertainment.Menlo Park, CA (PRWEB) July 12, 2012
Arktan, a leading provider of innovative social curation and second-screen experiences in the Social TV industry, announced today that Rahul Aggarwal, CEO & Co-Founder of Arktan, will be a panel moderator and session keynote speaker at the July 18 Social TV Summit in Los Angeles.
Rahul Aggarwal will moderate the session titled “White Label Social TV Company Solutions - Technology Solutions That Drive the Social TV Industry”. The session features panelists, who are among industry influencers. They include Evan Silverman, SVP, Digital Media, A&E Networks, Greg Johnson, EVP, William Morris Endeavor, and Jason Hoch, SVP, Digital Operations, World Wrestling Entertainment.
Arktan has emerged as a thought-leader in the Social TV industry, and a growing number of leading brands are choosing Arktan’s cutting-edge product solution portfolio and the company as their preferred strategic partner.
About Arktan, Inc.
Arktan (http:www.arktan.com) is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution provider for enterprise-class companies across many industries. The company has built a reputation as a technology innovator, and provider of cutting-edge, customizable product solutions for a growing list of leading global brands. Arktan’s flagship product is SocialStreams. Brands are using SocialStreams to extend curated real-time content and conversation from the Social Web to their sites, mobile apps, and TV, to build interactive experiences for users. SocialStreams is helping companies build brand loyalty, boost site traffic, and increase revenue opportunities from advertising, product sales, and data capture. SocialStreams is powering many Social TV second-screen experiences for popular TV shows, including “The X Factor USA” and “Dancing With the Stars”. It is also being used to power many Social Music, Social News, and Social Sports experiences for brands like Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Jennifer Lopez, The Washington Post, and World Wrestling Entertainment.
About Social TV Summit
Social TV Summit (http:www.socialtvsummit.com) is an executive conference that focuses on how social media is affecting how we view content on: the big screen in the living room, on laptops, tablets, mobile and out of home. The Summits are run by digital and social media expert Andy Batkin and co-hosted by media maven Jack Myers. Since July of 2011 Social Summits, LLC has organized three sold out events in LA, NY and San Francisco. Future Social TV Summits will be organized in LA on July 18th and NY on November 14th. The Social TV Awards (http:www.socialtvawards.com) will award excellence in the Social TV space at a Black Tie Gala on the evening of July 17th with Billy Bush, Host of Access Hollywood as the Master of Ceremonies.

Arktan’s Rahul Aggarwal Panel Moderator and Session Keynote Speaker at the Social TV Summit ...

Administrator — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 07:43:15 +0100

Arktan’s Rahul Aggarwal Panel Moderator and Session Keynote Speaker at the Social TV Summit Los Angeles