Brooklyn-based Social Guide, the social TV data startup that raised $1.5 million this past summer, is set to begin rolling out an analytics platform this month. “I think it’s going to be very different than what Trendrr and Bluefin have,” says Founder/CEO Sean Casey, who added that “networks need to start recognizing and rewarding,” based on the linear programming they’re already using.
The company, whose data focuses “mostly on Twitter,” received a nice shout out from Twitter themselves in the new guide for Producers for TV they published. Their approach to social TV data differs from Trendrr, Bluefin Labs and Networked Insights because they track social solely against Electronic Program Guide (EPG) data the company licenses from Tribune Media Services.
Social Guide’s progress thus far:
Casey says the company has matched “over 30,000 unique TV shows” and said, “we look at social TV, two hours before, during air and an hour after – we want to focus on linear TV and that’s where highest and most relevant occur.” Also, their editorial team plays an important effect on the data they provide. Their editors do things like match the official #hashtags of shows with the EPG and he says the number of shows they still need to “editorially program,” is “getting smaller and smaller.”
Partnerships and movies
Very recently they’ve started a partnership with Tribune Media’s Zap2it to provide their Social TV ratings via a “module” on the site for which shows have been talked about on Twitter and public data from Facebook. They also have a “Movies” product that’s in beta (above) and matches with Tribune’s “theatrical data set,” according to Casey. With movies he is excited about the “intention to see statistic,” which he describes as “how many people are expressing actual intention.” Casey is excited about the potential because “the percent ‘intending to see’ first total buzz can be indicative of how a movie is going to do.
It seems Nielsen should be worried since their TV ratings haven’t innovated since 2009 when they added +1 and +7 stats for the age of the DVR. NM Incite (a Nielsen and McKinsey joint venture) has recently been upping their game on social TV data but for now they seem to be competing more with Trendrr and Bluefin.