CollecTV intelligence: A 3-screen 'social search' system for TV and video queries

Abstract

Television and video consumption are growing rapidly worldwide, driving usage of second and third screens for related interactions and information. Since television has a proven impact on consumer purchase behaviors, there is commercial interest in technologies that model viewers' intent, interests and engagement. However, the ecosystem currently faces two challenges - audience fragmentation and a lack of integrated search features. Both have an impact on content providers' ability to track and profile their consumers and are thus critical to personalizing and monetizing content-related services. In this paper, we introduce CollecTV, a social search solution for TV and video queries that can mitigate these concerns by incentivizing the consumer to adopt consistent identities across three screens while also providing finer-grained attention and engagement analytics to content providers. We give an overview of the architecture and describe the evolution of the system from a TV-centric solution to a 3-screen model with native mobile and browser clients to maximize its usage and utility. We conclude by reviewing relevant research and outlining challenges and opportunities for further exploration in this space. © 2010 ICST.