While MTV has gotten some criticism for the fact that they don’t have a host for this year’s VMAs, they ramped up their second-screen and social media offerings for Sunday night’s show in some impressive and innovative ways.
“Our goal is always to create an additive experience, not distract, and capture that natural behavior in a live real-time environment,” according to Colin Helms, VP of Programming for MTV Digital. “Our experiences across all devices are more ubiquitous whether you have a laptop, iPhone or iPad,” he added. Here are three reasons why watching the VMAs tonight with the second screen app was a blast:
Tracking what every celebrity is tweeting about based on their seats in the theatre
Not having a host may prove to be irrelevant in the age on Twitter. They’ve launched an improved version of their highly successful Twitter Tracker from last year (pictured above from MTV’s WatchWith iPad app).
Along with the usual trending topics, MTV Digital worked with the seating director at the theatre of the show to figure out where each celebrity will be placed for the night. They built a seating map — with help from Stamen Design — that’s connected with each celeb’s Twitter account so you see in real-time when celebs comment on the show. There’s also a leaderboard to show who’s tweeting the most. This is a game changer for the mobile experience of a live event with hundreds of celebrities. If you’re a celebrity at the VMAs and not tweeting, you’re missing out in a big way.
Another new element of the Twitter Tracker is the “buzz” tab illustrating the most-shared photos of the night — and the avatars of people who retweeted them.
Share it first feature giving you access to video content right away
When Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift two years ago at the VMAs, users ran to YouTube to try and find the moment and share it. MTV is making a big push to be there first when the big moments happen, allowing uses to share via Facebook, Twitter and StumbleUpon. Helms explained that they’re “clipping up moments from the show and pushing them out to the audience in real-time as quick as we can.” When asked how long it will take to get a clip up he answered, “It really varies, 20 minutes after it happen, sometimes a half hour or a little longer. We’re pretty fast.”
If there are moments as big as Kanye’s interruption or Gaga’s meat dress from last year (hmm, were there?), MTV is in position to capture a huge amount of real-time traffic around the moment that piraters might have previously shared on YouTube.
You don’t need to download a new app
“You’ll be able to access the second screen features with mobile web, and people with the MTV News and WatchWith apps will be able to watch as all,” discussed Michael Scogin, the VP of Wireless at MTV Mobile. “We can build into our current apps,” he added, which is a big advantage for an event that happens once a year. MTV has been running promos for folks to download the WatchWith app for the VMAs.
Of course, MTV loves its on-screen hashtags, sporting #VMA through the broadcast — and on the MTV.com replay clips, as well. What other social elements of the show did you see?