Social viewing
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Social viewing (also known as Watch Party[1][2] or GroupWatch[3]) describes a recently developed practice revolving around the ability for multiple users to aggregate from multiple sources and view online videos together in a synchronized viewing experience.
Typically the experience also involves some form of instant messaging or communication to facilitate discussion pertaining to the common viewing experience.
History
[edit]The term in this context originated with the Toronto and Los Angeles-based company View2Gether[4] which has created proprietary technology for aggregating content from sources not controlled by the user for synchronized play and inclusion in common playlists by multiple participants with a commensurate instant messaging chat function. Other sites which provide similar functionality include Oortle (Photophlow),[5] SeeToo[6] and development of social viewing for existing portals such as Yahoo have recently been announced.[7]
The term has been used in some cases to describe online viewing within the framework of a social network,[8] however View2gether and similar sites have reconfigured the term to mean a common viewing experience as a social activity.
Social viewing has also been used in the past to describe activities such as gathering for the viewing of particular television programs, such as soap operas.[9]
Some examples of modern social viewing sites include Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Zoom, and Twitter.
It was also officially added as a built-in feature in some over-the-top media services in various names. While Amazon and Hulu both call it Watch Party,[1][2] Disney+ (which offers it only in some countries) calls it GroupWatch.[3]
Social viewing experience
[edit]Nowadays we can watch a video while interacting with other people thanks to social viewing and all the resources that it provide us. We can watch a movie while chatting with our friends or discus about a concrete scene.[10][11] One factor to improve could be the synchronization between users, to be sure that everyone is watching the same scene, so that no problem arises while discussing it.[12]
Notes and references
[edit]- ^ a b "Prime Video Watch Party: Stream TV & Movies With Friends". Amazon. Archived from the original on 2022-07-10. Retrieved 2022-07-10.
- ^ a b "Hulu Watch Party". Hulu. Archived from the original on 2022-07-10. Retrieved 2022-07-10.
- ^ a b "Disney+ adds a co-watching feature called GroupWatch". TechCrunch. 2020-09-29. Archived from the original on 2022-07-10. Retrieved 2022-07-10.
- ^ View2gether – Welcome to Social Viewing Archived 2007-12-13 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Oortle home page Archived 2008-04-29 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "SeeToo home page". Archived from the original on 2008-04-30. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
- ^ Zync from Yahoo! Research Berkeley Archived 2008-06-10 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Bebo Launches Open Media Platform for Social Viewing; 22 TV Partners". 13 November 2007. Archived from the original on 10 December 2009. Retrieved 5 November 2009.
- ^ Tager, M. (1 December 2004). "Soap opera viewing in a communal context: an ethnographic examination of the viewing experiences of black Zulu-speaking students living in university residences". Communicare: Journal for Communication Sciences in Southern Africa. 23 (2) (published December 2004): 1–20. Archived from the original on 31 August 2022. Retrieved 31 August 2022.
- ^ Rothe, Sylvia (2020). "Social viewing in cinematic virtual reality: a design space for social movie applications". Virtual Reality. 25 (3): 613–630. doi:10.1007/s10055-020-00472-4.
- ^ Boronat, Fernando (2021). "Wersync: A web platform for synchronized social viewing enabling interaction and collaboration". Journal of Network and Computer Applications. 175: 102939. doi:10.1016/j.jnca.2020.102939. hdl:10251/189731. ISSN 1084-8045. S2CID 230571472.
- ^ Marfil, Dani (2019). "Enhancing the Broadcasted TV Consumption Experience With Broadband Omnidirectional Video Content". IEEE Access. 7: 171864–171883. doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2956084. hdl:10251/156562. S2CID 209322718. Archived from the original on 2021-06-08. Retrieved 2021-06-08.
External links
[edit]- How to Host a Virtual Watch Party September 29, 2020 Wired article by Boone Ashworth