Less than a month after Dijit Media announced it was acquiring GoMiso, Inc, the makers of the Miso, SideShows, and Quips social TV products, the company has revealed a new partnership with Watchwith to bring real-time, synced second-screen TV experiences to users of its NextGuide app.
Just to recap, Dijit Media is the company behind NextGuide (US and Canada only), a personalized TV listings iPad app which recently received a big update that gives its users access to more than 18,000 TV clips from Hulu. Calling it NextGuide Clips, it allows users to watch part of an episode without needing a Hulu subscription.
Its first app, however, was Dijit Remote which lets users control all their multimedia devices, and it too recently got a big update to support iOS 6, integration with NextGuide, and a “record to DVR” option.
Watchwith, on the other hand, calls itself “the leader in related content syndication”, giving content creators, owners and app developers a way to unlock new value through creating a layer of time-based related content events and contextual advertising around film, TV shows and commercials.
Dijit meets Watchwith
Through this tie-up, NextGuide essentially gains Watchwith functionality through its API and serves up so-called “sync-to-broadcast experiences,” for a range of TV shows from Fox and other networks.
In real terms, the Watchwith API lets NextGuide access related content from broadcasters, which will then highlight TV shows with sync-to-broadcast features which can be viewed as a “second screen” when the show’s being aired live. For example, if a TV show is inviting viewers to participate in a live poll, quiz or other real-time interactive event, NextGuide can facilitate this.
“Our customers love using NextGuide to find great things to watch on live TV and streaming sources,” says Jeremy Toeman, CEO of Dijit Media. “By adding high-value, synchronized experiences from leading programmers, our users can not only discover new things to watch, but use NextGuide as a companion to their favorite shows.”
“The industry is recognizing that programmers hold the keys to high-value, advertiser-friendly, premium content experiences, and that consumer experiences like NextGuide are important for reach and scale,” continues Zane Vella, Watchwith CEO. “Programmers deliver the content, NextGuide delivers the eyeballs.”
Based in San Francisco, Dijit Media is venture-backed and is headed by a team of entrepreneurs including TV technology industry veterans Jeremy Toeman and Adam Burg, as well as Stanford alum Thomas Quinto.
Disclosure: This article contains an affiliate link. While we only ever write about products we think deserve to be on the pages of our site, The Next Web may earn a small commission if you click through and buy the product in question. For more information, please see our Terms of Service.
Feature Image Credit – Thinkstock
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.