stefanwild

spoilr.tv is to something like that, but asynchronously. Your buddy is a week behind on Game of Thrones, but still sees your comments on the last episode, time-synced with his watching it (and you're going to be notified if he/she responds to them).

There's up- and downvoting and we use that to rate-limit comments that are being displayed as you go. Downvoted comments (like spoilers) get filtered out quickly, upvoted (or new) comments make it through the rate-limit. We're using a modified version of reddit's published scoring system.

Syncing is the single biggest technical issue and currently not easy since most platforms don't allow access to the point where we could really time-sync. Still looking at a few options, though.

The examples that I looked at were all aimed at live broadcast and then just stop making sense (e.g. AMC storysync). The statistics I have looked at for Game of Thrones show, within a week of the first airing < 25% of the views are live, the rest is already some form of delayed watching (DVR, re-run, on-demand).

I am confident that the trend away from broadcast towards on-demand is working in our favor.

Not sure if the attempts are comparable and if the same problems apply. Finding the integration (or other route) that helps generate enough traction is one of the top tasks on the business side of this.

They can, if they're watching at the same time. When testing, we did find ourselves checking back what other people's reaction was later on. App still needs notifications for this. Netflix/hulu/amazon are definitely interesting for partnerships/integration.

There definitely is some interest. I'm hoping, HN is also going to be an indication whether people want this.

Monetization can happen through partnerships with content creators/publishers (even white label solutions), timed advertising or affiliate links (think "I love the dress Claire is wearing – here's the link" or "Meet 'The Mountain' at ComicCon – link").

Project had been in hibernation mode since this HN thread, which already has some interesting discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7711961

For examples with some activity, check out House of Cards Season 2 or Game of Thrones Season 4.

It looks very promising. I like the fact that it doesn't only work for AWS environments.

Thanks for the link. Now I have to brush up on my non-existant Japanese skills.

That's interesting. Maybe we should try sports earlier than planned, then...

Right to the point. Soundcloud's way of doing the comments was of our inspirations.

We love you, too. Thank you.

Yes, there's upvoting and downvoting implemented in the beta, already and that will filter out spoilers pretty quickly. If we see anybody doing it on purpose, we'd block and eventually ban the user.

Eventually it's going to be up to the users to figure out what they like to use it with. We're just restricting the number of shows during the beta to keep things manageable.

Great to hear. Thanks for the tweet, too.

With the users we have in the beta we have noticed that it isn't for everyone and not everyone uses it the same (some are just reading, others comment a lot, and some wait for the perfect moment and then post the best joke) for every show. With the speed of Silicon Valley, for example, my wife isn't actively posting while she watches.

We thought about importing (and timecoding) twitter chatter during the first airing of the shows. And then we realized just how scattered and off-topic that chatter really is for the most part.

By the way, one of the shows that we already feature in the beta, is of course Silicon Valley. Be sure to check it out.

Thank you. We appreciate the feedback!

Thank you. I have a funny little anecdote how that came to be. Will save that for a stage appearance, though ;)

And they're really good at that, agreed. But they're not catering to the (at least) two thirds of people that don't watch live.

This number from some relatively recent Game of Thrones ratings that admitted on not counting a lot of on-demand (as well as pirating, of course)

That's great input. We were not aware of that site and feature. We have come across a few similar concepts, which were either split-screen for online video (as I understand niconico works) or not conversations (if they were 2nd screen).

Working on this and several other approaches to sync up. It's a challenge and won't happen in this phase of the beta, but it's doable.

Yes, we're focussing on Netflix and HBO shows at the moment to circumvent that. Working on several approaches for automatic syncing. Thanks for trying it out!

We've thought about that but felt that the interest in non-live sports is probably a little less. Will experiment with it (and reality and casting shows), though.