HyperTV and Civolution Provide Social Media Gaming to Sky Italia

CANNES, France & ROME, Italy — MIPCOM 2012 — HyperTV, Europe’s leading 2nd screen interactive platform, and Civolution, the leading provider of technology and solutions for identifying, managing and monetizing content, today announce that TV broadcasters can now engage their audiences in compelling and innovative social gaming experiences related in real time to first screen content for entertainment and advertainment.

This innovative platform was recently chosen by Sky Italia to engage viewers with the first ever social media gaming experience related to X Factor 2012, the Syco owned top TV talent show created by Simon Cowell and produced or licensed by FremantleMedia.

“We’re excited to now offer broadcasters the tools to engage audiences simultaneously across multiple screens and devices with an unique gamification proposition with high and relevant social media involvement,” said Claudio Vaccarella, Founder and CEO of HyperTV. “HyperTV’s eXperience is the first 2nd Screen white label platform to provide a built-in social gaming engine. Designed with TV authors and creatives in mind, HyperTV eXperience allows programmers to easily define game mechanics to build engaging user experiences without writing any software code.”

HyperTV eXperience is the most advanced platform for developing and publishing TV companion apps for multiple screens and devices. User experiences can combine gamification, social network integration, content presentation and discovery, and geo-referencing functionality. By using the platform, broadcasters benefit from dramatically reduced development costs and deployment time, new monetization strategies such as micro-transactions, and optimisation of experiences by real time analysis of user behaviour.

The synchronization between TV and 2nd screen relies on Civolution’s multi-award winning SyncNow – 2nd Screen solution which is based on a powerful watermarking technology. It enables real-time identification and frame-accurate synchronization between broadcast, on-demand or recorded television content and interactive applications on companion devices – tablets, smartphones and laptops – to present compelling synchronized interactive user experiences. The real-time interactivity automatically handles distribution delays and supports time-shifted viewing.

“The growth of companion device adoption is phenomenal. Synchronization is booming and is now undoubtedly here to stay as consumers increasingly want more immersive TV experiences that bring them content in new and fresh ways,” said Alex Terpstra, CEO, Civolution. “We are very pleased to collaborate with HyperTV to help Sky Italia deliver the next generation of TV experiences. We can’t wait to see the impact on audience and show popularity.”