ABC Family Teams with Lycos for Social TV

ABC Family recently teamed with Lycos to enable social TV services around the show, "The Secret Life of the American Teenager." Fans of the show were able to go to abcfamily.com or secretlife.lycos.com to participate in "online viewing parties" where they could watch episodes of the show while chatting about it in real time. Viewers could also host their own private viewing parties through Lycos's Watch & Interact platform, which allowed them to schedule private online screening rooms. The platform lets screening room hosts pause, rewind and fast- forward programs while discussing them with other participants. "By teaming with Lycos once again, we're able to continue to offer our communities of fans this unique, interactive viewing experience," Vickie Collier, VP of digital media at ABC Family, said in a prepared statement. "Viewers of ABC Family are a very social and tech-savvy group, and these online viewing parties are a great new way for them to enjoy our programming and share that experience with friends, even when they are not in the same room." Added Chuck Ball, VP of sales and marketing at Lycos: "Our experience in powering ABC Family viewing parties over the past year has proven fans have a strong desire to find new ways to interact with their favorite shows online. By providing simul-streamed viewing and interactivity across physical boundaries, ABC Family is giving their viewers a unique experience they can't find elsewhere."

Lycos originally launched its Watch & Interact technology as part of its Lycos Cinema service in 2006. It bills the service as a "community-focused video viewing platform." It relaunched Lycos Cinema in May, 2008, with both paid and free ad-supported viewing, and what it claims is expanded interactivity and scalability. According to Lycos, the service uses Adobe's Flash Server 3 technology to deliver H.264 streams with high video quality and enhanced security.