The “second screen” onslaught continues as DISH unveils a brand spanking new Explorer companion app to kick off their CES festivities. Available to Hopper owners tomorrow, the iPad app opens to “What’s Hot” as a launching point to social television discovery and DVR control. Of course, the requisite Twitter and Facebook interactivity is present. Interestingly, DISH has also licensed a variety of real time sports-related data to incorporate into the experience.
As this space shakes out, it’s interesting to see agnostic solutions like NextGuide and Zeebox take on carrier-specific offerings. As a TiVo aficionado, I frequently find myself in their app researching programming… yet have very little interest in sharing that experience online, where the Twitter conversations most frequently revolve around live TV. And now even TiVo has set their sites beyond TiVo-specific set-top solutions as they ramp up the Pique social television initiative to reach a broader audience. For me, also worth discussing is which of these two screens is actually “second” these days.
Looking forward to continuing the conversation at the 2nd Screen Summit here in Vegas with a variety of informed speakers including Alan Wolk of KIT digital and Microsoft, LG, CBS, and DISH reps.