One of the more obvious holes in the TV experience today is the lack of any metadata for what you’re watching. It’s easy to imagine watching a show and pulling up some supplemental info: social networking- discuss what’s happening or leave ironic comments for your friends, pull-up info on a commercial or product placement, look at the IMDb profiles for the actors who are currently on-screen, or even just check-in so you can remember where you’re at in a serial program.
I recently started watching Buffy on Netflix streaming and was reminded about how the old way of doing this: teen networks like the WB would do a “this episode featured music from” blurbs at the end of the episode, along with gratuitous, over-the-top name-drops for bands. Super-obvious product placement, but it definitely served its purpose. Nobody seems to do this anymore though.
In comes the technological stop-gaps: sound recognition apps. We’re probably all familiar with music ones like SoundHound or Shazam, but now things are branching out to actual TV programming recognition. IntoNow looks to be a useful tool until we actually overhaul TV to inherently provide metadata; check out their product site for more info on their SoundPrint recognition technology.
In comes the technological stop-gaps: sound recognition apps. We’re probably all familiar with music ones like SoundHound or Shazam, but now things are branching out to actual TV programming recognition. IntoNow looks to be a useful tool until we actually overhaul TV to inherently provide metadata; check out their product site for more info on their SoundPrint recognition technology.
*Update (2/10): I was watching Being Human last night and noticed they are providing extra content by way of Shazam. Also, ABC has an iPad app doing this for for specific programming. Looks like this is catching on!
