Understanding Social TV: a survey

In recent years social networking and social interactions have challenged old conceptions in the television landscape. Web applications that offer video content, networked television sets and set-top boxes, and online TV widgets are – or, will be – radically transforming how people watch and interact around television content. Since the wealth of existing solutions and approaches might be daunting to newcomers, this paper surveys previous and current efforts in the area of social television. The contribution of this paper is a framework that categorizes the most salient features of existing applications. The resulting framework is a valuable contribution for better understanding the present, and a useful tool for evaluating and analyzing future developments in the field. The final goal is to provide a structured categorization that helps research, industry and entrepreneurs in analyzing the current shift on how people socialize around television content.