Social TV - Watercooler

Watercooler® gets the conversation started and keeps your Friends and Followers updated throughout the program, automatically sending messages as the program story unfolds, or teasing the next episode at just the right time.  Engage your viewers with social messaging; delivered at precisely the right moment.  With Watercooler™, media companies, broadcasters, cable, and content providers can generate social media events that are fully synchronized with on-air broadcast programs. 

Watercooler lets your Social TV or promotions staff access the user interface at any time on any computer on your network through a secure log-in.  On the Watercooler interface the user views the entire program schedule and associates messages with the traffic or automation playlist. They can see all the program clips, commercial spots, show bumpers or other content.  Watercooler knows the start time of each program, letting you set the exact moment your message is to be sent: Any time of day, before, during, or after any program segment or commercial, you set the timing of every social event.  Watercooler keeps track of everything it sends and provides you with a complete log of all events.

The user selects pre-defined rules, or creates new ones, selects message templates to edit or creates new ones, and assigns these to the program clip, segment or commercial spot. The created Watercooler event now appears on the Watercooler timeline precisely as assigned.  And, if your program schedule changes don’t worry, Watercooler will track it to the new time slot right along with all of your messages.  

When the conditions of the rules you define are met, such as, the Start of play for a particular segment or program, the Watercooler event will trigger the pre-determined social medial triggers. 

Watercooler Applications:

  Show reminders and "coming-ups":

• Make that show reminder timely and in context with the on-air promo.

• Alert fans via reminders about shows they are interested in or perhaps the season finale of a show and what time it airs that week.

• Post episode information for upcoming series prior to that episode airing with reminders at set times prior to the airing.

  Show “dialog sparks” - send messages to fans to prompt a dialog about a show or events in a show:

• “See Mike’s new girlfriend at 9:10 tonight…hot or not?”

• Send at 9:22 ET, “Did Wendy really just dis her?”

• Send at 9:24 ET, “Did you just see what Sam did...is that really justified?” 

  Product placements - Send hints to viewers about program product placements for contests/promos.


Coupons - send e-coupons for sponsored products at specific times of a show for viewers


Send Social Media messages that are synchronized with your commercial spot playback

Features and Benefits:

• Easy to install and operate.

• Social Messaging becomes part of your daily operations without impacting traditional broadcast processes.

• Triggers can be generated with time offsets from the start of the video clip, from the end of the video clip or anywhere in between.

• Automation playlist data extraction retrieves of information directly from the playlist including clip IDs (names) and scheduled times. The list can also be expanded to include custom metadata and tags including show names.

• Automation Sync - triggers always maintain their rules-based timing relationship to the programs or clips regardless of changes to the automation playlist. This includes delayed start times and event insertions or deletions.

• Staff Triggers – Triggers can be set automatically for “internal” Watercooler events that will alert production personnel, advertisers and program providers to the upcoming on-air content.

• Distributed, secure browser-based authoring and administrator user interfaces provides for these functions to be completed anywhere on the network, even from their home office. Access can be enabled or restricted based on user accounts. The user interface also provides for diagnostics and systems management.

• Maximum Look Ahead – Watercooler can see as far down the playlist as has been scheduled.

• Gets the conversation started and let’s your staff to focus on listening to conversations and providing creative responses.

• Can operate independently or in conjunction with manual social media campaigns.

• Watercooler events can be created well in advance of required air dates and applied simply by activating them.