IntoNow Social Utility App

Yes, that’s right. You can now tag what you’re watching on T.V. with this cool social utility from IntoNow. The start-up has some amazing technology that makes it stand out from other check-in and tagging applications.

How Does It Work?

The company created a database and an efficient fingerprinting algorithm to allow indexing and searching to happen in real-time in massive quantities. IntoNow covers 130 paid/subscription channels with 5 years of back content, including syndicated material, resulting in something like 40-50 years of content.

Open the app, hold an iPhone to the T.V. and within 4-12 seconds (depending on ambient noise), the app will index over 140 million minutes of content and “tag” the show you’re watching. It gives the show, episode, season and description, and enables you to share socially.

Why Will It Work?

Although some may scoff at the idea of “tagging” the show you’re watching, there are larger ideas and behaviors that come into play, namely: sharing and connecting around what we’re watching. Many people are online at the same time they’re watching T.V. and often, they’re talking about the show on Twitter or Facebook with their friends. Additionally, IntoNow has an “On Air” tab that functions as a Tivo and Facebook mash-up to see friends’ behaviors and what’s currently on air.

A system that knows what you’re watching has many opportunities.

• For advertisers: Ads, viral connection, social element, connecting the media pieces of Facebook and Twitter, live events, etc.
• Your device is always with you: How often are you near a T.V. throughout the day?
• Content donors and rewarding users: Networks know if your loyal AND if you’re watching live. (IntoNow partnered with Jersey Shore – see their website for an example of this.)
• Gaming, polls and betting
• Live TV Shows with voting: could change/eliminate the time lapse needed to give voters.

In general, the time dimension is exciting for users, as are new experiences around content.

Stats

IntoNow has initial numbers they’ve shared which provide some insight:

• One million tags so far
• 20-25% of those one million tags shared to another social network.
• 40% of those social shares were commented on and/or liked.
• 7% of the first one million tags were of commercials.

Yes, that’s right. People tagged commercials. Think about the Superbowl and how it’s “cool” to watch commercials. Also, many people are really attached to their favorite brands (or strongly opposed to ones they don’t like) and will share a funny ad with friends. Now they can tag it as they’re watching it.

There are no guarantees that this will catch on, but this is a lot more than just another location-based app. There is good technology behind it and the owners, as seen in the video below, seem realistic about the business model. We’ll see how it goes – until then, you can get it free from the iTunes App Store.