Tag Archives: OVEE

Public Media Puts Social TV Front and Center at SXSW

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ITVS will unveil the tablet version of OVEE, a social screening platform developed for PBS and public television stations, at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival on Friday, March 8, 2013.

This Friday, ITVS’s social screening platform, OVEE, will be featured at SXSW! Our own Dennis Palmieri and software developer Christian Nelson of Carbon Five will present all the interactive wizardry and audience engagement OVEE has to offer. If you happen to be in Austin for the big event, their panel will light up the stage 5 p.m. Friday at the Austin Convention Center, Room 12AB. If you aren’t lucky enough to be in Austin, follow the insights and discussions around the panel on Twitter through the hashtag #OVEE.

The breakthrough social platform, which fuses the functionality of second screen apps with a high-quality video player, offers interactive features for 500+ audiences, including live chat, real-time emoticators, polls, quizzes, live webcam capabilities, and one-click audience metrics snapshots.

Now available on the iPad, “OVEE re-creates the dynamics and the feel of a live screening event in the online space,” says Dennis Palmieri, ITVS’s OVEE project lead. “It’s as close as you can come to sitting in a theater and watching a film or video program with a live audience.”

Along with headlining a panel on opening day of the SXSW Interactive Festival, OVEE will also be featured at the Integrated Media Association (iMA) conference, the premier showcase for transmedia and multiplatform work in the public media sector, on March 7th in Austin, TX. Stay tuned for more updates from the field!

Get to Know the Women Who Make History

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Women and Girls Lead ushers in Women’s History Month with the presentation of MAKERS: Women Who Make America, premiering February 26, 2013 at 8pm ET.


“I’m going to finish this race on my hands and my knees if I have to. If I don’t finish this race, then everybody is going to believe women can’t do it. I’ve got to finish this race.” – Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to register and run the Boston Marathon, in MAKERS

In the opening scene of MAKERS, Kathrine Switzer is nearly tackled to the ground by Boston Marathon director Jock Semple. At that time, women were not allowed to compete in the race and the mere sight of her incited such rage in Semple that he’d rather tackle her than see her complete her 26.2 miles. It seems hard to believe in 2013, a year that saw the highest number of women sworn in to the U.S. Congress and the ban on military women in combat lifted by the Pentagon. As Women and Girls Lead prepares to celebrate many of  these triumphs during Women’s History Month this March, MAKERS helps audiences see how far we’ve come–and how far we still have to go. Continue reading →

ITVS and Muftah.Org Present a Social Screening on Female Community Organizers in Egypt

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On February 6th, ITVS’s Diverse Muslim Voices is hosting an online film screening of Shayfeen.com: We’re Watching You. The screening is being presented in partnership with Muftah.org, an online magazine committed to providing a forum for discussion on arts, culture, and politics in the Middle East and North African regions. 

Ghada Shahbandar and another monitor from Shayfeen.com record the activities of Cairo’s polling.

The documentary provides an intimate look at the 2005 multi-party elections in Egypt through the eyes of three women working to assure the election’s legitimacy. The women provide unprecedented access to activists operating in and around the highest levels of both government and opposition groups. Providing excellent context for the organizing that was happening in Egypt before most of us tuned in years later during the Arab Spring, Shayfeen.com also shows how these women used the technology available to build their movement for justice – an early harbinger to how social media was used years later.

On the day of the screening, click the link from your computer and join the virtual screening room. Participants will be able to watch the film while interacting with other viewers. You can join anonymously if you want so log ins or passwords are not needed. Our free OVEE platform is a new innovative way to watch films in a way that promotes interaction with audience members and panelists through a simultaneous chat and other interactive features. For more information about OVEE, please click here. Continue reading →

KLRU Presents a Social Screening of When I Rise

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Join our friends over at KLRU for a very special screening of When I Rise, on Wednesday, January 30, at 7pm CT.  

Watch When I Rise – Promo on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

When I Rise profiles Barbara Smith Conrad, a gifted University of Texas music student, who finds herself at the epicenter of racial controversy, struggling against the odds and ultimately ascending to the heights of international opera. Director Mat Hames and executive producer Don Carleton will be on hand during the screening to answer questions and chat about their experiences making the film.

Participants can join for free by signing in with Facebook or directly on the site, interacting with other viewers and panelists in real-time, while watching the film. Viewers can comment, ask questions, take polls, and even express their feelings about what they’re watching through a variety of tools on the site. This is an entirely new way of experiencing documentary films and it is inherently social.

Don’t Miss the Upcoming Diverse Muslim Voices Social Screenings

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On January 30th and February 6th, Diverse Muslim Voices is hosting two online film screenings of Solar Mamas and Shayfeen.com: We’re Watching You. Both documentaries examine the role women play in creating change in their communities.

The film titles and links to the screenings are listed below. On the day of the screening, click the link from your computer and join the virtual room! You’ll be able to watch the film while interacting with other viewers. You can join anonymously if you want so logins or passwords are not needed.

Our free OVEE platform is a new innovative way to watch films in a way that promotes interaction with audiences through simultaneous chat and other interactive features. For more information about OVEE click here. Continue reading →

Social TV Makes Big Progress in 2013

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By Kelsey Savage, PBS Interactive 
Originally published on the PBS Station Products & Innovation Blog

Lounging around on your couch, clicker and blanket in tow, might not seem like the most overtly social activity. Yet, these days, even when we’re spending the evening parked in front of the television, we’re able to connect with our friends immediately about a show’s plot progression. In particular, Twitter has been leading the way for developing a strong social TV landscape.

In Nielsen’s annual “Station of The Media: The Social Media Report”, social TV demonstrated a growing user base. By June of 2012, over a third of Twitter users tweeted about a program on television, with the age 35-44 demographic being the most likely to comment on a TV show. In order to measure the power of social television, Nielsen will be working with Twitter to establish “a syndicate-standard metric around the reach of the TV conservation” by fall 2013. For the first time, broadcasters will be able to get an estimate of the number of people that participated or were exposed to an online conversation about their programming.

Public Media has also been capitalizing on the growth of social TV. Most notably, tech-savy, Downton Abbey lovers can check their Twitter feeds for instant feedback about the Dowager Countess’ latest sassy remark through the #DowntonPBS hashtag. PBS has also facilitated celebrity moderators, like Austenprose (@austenprose), The Daily Beast (@televisionary), Tom and Lorenzo (@tomandlorenzo) and Vulture (@vulture), to join the conversation. Their second-screen remarks add another dimension to the viewing experience. They make Downton feel like more than just TV show and more like a community. Continue reading →

ITVS Prepares for Beta Tests of Enhanced OVEE

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By Dru Sefton
Originally published on Current.org 

Web engagement tool provides platform for virtual dialogue

An infusion of CPB funding is allowing the Independent Television Service to add more features to OVEE, the online engagement tool that ITVS calls “the world’s first fully functional social screening platform.”

The latest version of OVEE features a customizable strip with a “Donate” button for stations. “Imagine a Downton Abbey screening with [creator] Julian Fellowes online,” said Dennis Palmieri of ITVS. “OVEE can do that.”

“No other media outlet has this,” said Dennis Palmieri, director of innovation and media strategy for San Francisco–based ITVS. The Online Video Engagement Experience platform, a freestanding web application that synchs up multiple streams on the PBS COVE website, allows online viewers to interact in real time around content by signing on through the platform or via Facebook.

Pilot tests of OVEE by five pubTV stations and producers at Frontline and PBS NewsHour received positive responses. For the next pilot round, five pubradio stations will be among the beta group of 25 test sites.

“There’s an enormous amount of interest” from the radio side, Palmieri said. In markets with separate PBS and NPR member stations, “OVEE offers real opportunities for joint engagement.”

ITVS is considering both pubTV and radio stations as well as groups such as the National Federation of Community Broadcasters for the beta tests, Palmieri said. Each participant will receive grants of $5,000, and testing will commence in January 2013. OVEE’s official release is set for next spring.

A $575,000 grant approved in June boosted CPB’s aid to a total of $1.5 million. The latest grant backs more work by OVEE’s developer to fix bugs in the system and install snazzy new features. Continue reading →

Women and Girls Lead Presents Social Screening of Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

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Join us for the third and final film in the Women and Girls Lead Online Film Festival social screening series this Wednesday, March 28 at 1PM PT/4PM ET.

Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes filmmaker Byron Hurt

The event, which takes place exclusively online, will feature special guests Jimmie Briggs, founder and director of Man Up, and Dr. Kaila Story, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at University of Louisville.

Participants can join for free by signing in with Facebook or directly on the site, interacting with other viewers and panelists in real-time, while watching the film. Viewers can comment, ask questions, take polls, and even express their feelings about what they’re watching through a variety of tools on the site. This is an entirely new way of experiencing documentary films and it is inherently social. Continue reading →