Tumblr’s genius founder, 25-year-old David Karp also loves TV. In an interview he gave Inc. just a year ago he described his viewing preferences and favorite shows:

I spend a lot of time with people who work at Tumblr, but I make a very poor effort to hang out with other people in my life. I’m trying to do a better job of that. But, honestly, I love quiet nights at home. My girlfriend is a spectacular chef. She usually cooks dinner for us two or three nights out of the week. And then we wind down by watching TV. We use Apple TV to watch television shows from iTunes. We both love Futurama. I recently got her into Top Gear, a car show on the BBC.

We spoke with Rachel Webber, Tumblr’s Director of Partnership Development who joined the NYC-based company in November after working at Fox Television Studios. She gave Lost Remote an extremely detailed interview and inside look on how Tumblr fits into the social TV ecosystem, networks doing a great job on Tumblr and best practices for launching and succeeding on the platform.

Lost Remote: How does Tumblr partner with TV networks?

Rachel Webber: In all of our partnerships people in creative industries, including those in media, fashion, art, design and storytellers of all kinds, we are always focused on empowering their full expression and supporting their participation in the robust Tumblr community.

We work closely with TV networks (and others in the TV industry—producers, studios, writers, directors, talent) on how they can best express themselves through the theme they choose or design, the style of content they share, their approach to interacting with their fans and diving into the conversation going on in the Tumblr community. Basically, we just want to help them translate the really great things they do every day and the stories they want to tell to a form that resonates with the Tumblr audience.

For networks and shows that want to amplify what their blog is doing and bring it to a wider Tumblr audience, our new paid Tumblr Sponsors program enables brands on Tumblr to highlight their great work to the entire Tumblr network.

LR: What are some examples of TV network Tumblr that have been successful?

Webber: Well, it’s not TV, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t start by talking about what Lionsgate recently created on Tumblr for The Hunger Games.  CapitolCouture.PN is immersive storytelling at its best — a fashion magazine from the Capitol of Panem, the fictional nation of The Hunger Games Trilogy.  The Lionsgate team mixed first-look imagery of the characters and fashions from the film (in photos and GIFs), real-world interviews with the costume designers and “District Style Challenges” for fans to participate.  Capitol Couture launched in the lead-up to the first film, and outperformed the studio’s wildest expectations.  The site will remain a hub of fan engagement throughout the film franchise.

A very different — yet also enormously successful — use of Tumblr is BBC America’s Doctor Who blog. The blog uses Tumblr’s simple, yet immensely powerful, “Reblog” button to celebrate the show’s fans. The team at BBC America mines the Tumblr-verse for amazing creations from the show’s fans and honors that work by reposting it, which spreads it throughout Tumblr’s massive community and adds a seal of approval directly from the show itself. And of course they mix up the reblogging with some special original content and other fun features.

Both of these examples demonstrate why Tumblr is the perfect platform for both content creators and the fans. There’s so much love going both ways—the content owners fueling the fanbase with new original work and honoring the audience, and the fans playing a big role in spreading the network’s content and showcasing their love for the shows through creations and conversations of their own.

Others worth noting are HBO’s Game of Thrones blog which is 100% dedicated to fan art.  Anyone can submit a GOT-inspired creation and the network publishes a handful a day. A few brilliant examples of networks embracing the culture on Tumblr are the Paul Scheer-created (but network and studio backed) project for Breaking Bad—Breaking GIFs, Nickelodeon’s 90s Are All That, Hulu and IFC’s blogs speaking in the community’s language, and MTV’s blog fully embracing “Fuck Yeah” fandom.

I also love the Degrassi writers room blog which gives its fans an opportunity to interact directly with the writing staff.  And the team at Comedy Central does a really great job with their network’s official Tumblr that shares new content, hosts Q&As with stand-up talent and reblogs hilarious fan material from the community. Comedy Central also has some great show-specific blogs, such as The Daily Show’s Election Center blog and Workaholics, that allow for a deeper interaction with that content and talent.

LR: How should TV networks be using Tumblr?

Webber: I think the beauty of Tumblr is that there’s no one right answer to that.  One of our mottos is “share anything, customize everything;” I think that speaks to the endless possibilities on the platform, especially for television networks.

That being said, here are some general rules to live by…

1)  This is not your typical ‘blog’
The Tumblr platform is super flexible on purpose… Think about the stories you want to tell and then think about what would be the absolute coolest way to tell them — then design that world on Tumblr!  You can introduce stories of your characters, explore new narrative styles, show off the aesthetic of the world you are creating, pay homage to what inspires you, and of course, build your brand and drive awareness to your work.

2)  Be conversational
The Tumblr platform is also super social on purpose…  In addition to being an excellent blogging platform, Tumblr is a vibrant social network. You will build up a community of engaged followers here; the best way to relate to them is to interact.  Reblog their work and add some commentary, “like “your fans’ posts, respond to questions and submissions.  And most importantly develop a voice.  The community responds best to personal, peer-to-peer connections; embrace that, but do it in a way that is consistent with your unique brand and voice.

3)  Dive into the culture
Explore what your fans are creating and how they are expressing themselves.  Check out the topics in our Explore section, and the blogs we showcase in Spotlight.  Also, search for anything in the “search tags” field on the right side of your Dashboard.  Remember Tumblr is a visual and design-driven medium, so look for compelling imagery to tell your story.

4)  Be smart about getting noticed
Sharing great content is the first step to getting noticed, as inspiring or beautiful or amusing things have the best chance of getting spread across the network. Make sure to tag every post with relevant words like “television” or “funny” or your name or an actor’s name.  These tags will help you get seen by people who aren’t already following you.

Showcase your blog on any other online or offline spaces you can. We’ve recently  made it even easier to share every Tumblr post to Facebook and Twitter; use that to tie your Tumblr blog into those networks.  And following other blogs, and reblogging and liking posts, will send messages to the community that you’re there.

5)  Start as early as you can
Fans love “behind the scenes” stories.  Whether it’s shots from the set, notes on a script or just an inspiring song, the more you showcase your full creative process, the more the community will respond.

6)  Make your life easier
Use the Tumblr Queue to schedule posts so that you can prepare a bunch of content beforehand. Also, download our mobile app for posting and browsing your Dashboard from wherever you are.  For curation, use our Bookmarklet (find it at our Goodies page) to easily excerpt content from other Websites into your Tumblr.

7)  Integrate Tumblr content into your other Web hubs
One last thing I want to recommend here is to integrate your Tumblr content on your other distribution platforms. The Daily Show is a good example of a site incorporating their Tumblr content into their main web hub—see the Election Center section. And check out Beyonce.com, where her Tumblr is embedded at iam.beyonce.com. All the information you need on our API and share tools is available here.

LR: How is Tumblr making TV more social?

Webber: As I mentioned earlier, Tumblr is a hub of immense and intense fandom—“fuckyeah” is our battlecry.  I think that’s become of the actual product functionality—Tumblr provides an amazing set of tools to express what you care about and to connect with others that share your passions.  So I think Tumblr is definitely propelling fandom culture forward by making it so easy for fans to express their obsessions — by creating whole blogs dedicated to their favorite characters, mashing up visuals, writing fan-fic, creating role-play games and more.  And then also making fandom culture more social by allowing those fans to connect to each other, share each others’ work, riff off each others’ work and meet up in real life.  (As a side note, we see more than 300 Tumblr meetups organized every month, and many of them have a entertainment-focused theme.)

I highly recommend taking a peek into fan culture on Tumblr by searching for tag words related to any television show (type any word in the search box on the right-hand side of the Dashboard), checking out the community-curated “Television” tag and also by checking out the blogs we showcase in the Television Spotlight section.

LR: How will Tumblr work with TV brands in the future?

Webber: We’re really excited to continue working closely with people in the TV industry to help them find and grow their fan bases in the Tumblr community, to help them use the Tumblr platform in insanely innovative ways to showcase and to enable the community to be able to really connect with their favorite shows and talent. We have a lot of fun stuff in the works so stay tuned!!

How are the social TV data companies approaching Tumblr:

To understand the importance of Tumblr even further, we spoke with the backbone of the social TV industry, the leading data companies who all described that they’re definitely considering plugging into Tumblr if they’re not already listening to the unique subculture of TV engagement that has emerged on Tumblr. We asked each if they use Tumblr as a data source and if they think Tumblr is important to social TV. Here are there answers.

Mark Ghuneim of Trendrr:

Yes. We have long wanted the Tumblr firehose and now that it is available and real-time it should fit nicely in the social tv landscape. It is specifically valuable because it is a creative platform at its core. Blog data  has been around a long time but it was not a natural fit with the way we view social tv. It was for longer form expressions which has huge value but in a different way than real-time expressions that are in sync with the air. Where as I like more thoughtful blog pieces for understanding engagement and annotating future plays after initial air

Sean Reckwerdt of Networked Insights:

We do include Tumblr as part of our data feed and include it because we believe in the individual value every social channel offers in the process of informing a client’s media spend. While not all the content that is published on Tumblr is appropriately tagged or easy to activate, it is however as essential to SocialTV as any of the other niche/fringe communities like the Slash Fic ones, the DevianArt ones, or even the Miso slideshares because they are channels in which fans are expressing themselves. An individual’s Tumblr feed also informs us of the other brands, shows, musicians, etc. that they’re interested and those insights help our clients better engage with those individuals. With display ads coming soon to Tumblr we’re going to see more big brand attention on tumblr now that they’ve got an easier way to reach that audience, and how that influences TV fans and what they’re producing  we’ll just have to wait and see.

Tom Thai of Bluefin Labs:

We currently don’t use Tumblr — their API just recently became available. But of course we’re always evaluating all major social media data sources as they: (a) reach meaningful scale, and (b) make their data available via an API.

Sean Casey of SocialGuide:

We are continually evaluating other data sources based on a few factors: volume of comments, quality of comments, accessibility to the data, and the ability for the comments to be actionable for our clients. We’re evaluating Tumblr and other potential social tv data sources on these factors.

Serge Billiouw of StatsForce.TV:

At the moment Tumblr is not included in our analysis. As measuring social TV is all about measuring Live Comments/Interactions, the best medium for this is still Twitter. Facebook is coming in as a very close second because of people posting live comments on the wall of the show, but all other blogs are more individual opinions about the shows, after they have aired. It is interesting to include them in the future, but then more as a reference to be able to link other subjects/brands to the show and create correlations between the two.

NM Incite confirmed that they do look at Tumblr, but no one was available to comment.

For the new season, the network is ramping up its social TV strategy with a few key activations that include integrating a major reveal from last season. They released the “Pretty Little Puzzle Hunt“, a rebus puzzle game that unfolds across multiple web sites and a new music video to amplify the buzz leading up to the new season. We spoke with ABC Family’s Senior Vice President and Creative Director Michelle Walenz and Vice President of Marketing Danielle Mullin.

(A scene from this summer’s season premiere of PLL)

Lost Remote: Tell me about the music video that is being launched to coincide with the new season? Are there any social elements?

Michelle Walenz: The “Pretty Little Liars” music video (below) we’ve produced to help launch the summer season features a new song from emerging artist ZZ Ward.  The song is called, “When the Casket Drops.”  While that title may sound a bit ominous, the song is actually very romantic and filled with passion and a strong sense of loyalty to those you love, so it’s perfect for the story of our “Pretty Little Liars.”  We know that our viewers devour any new clues about the incredible mystery and heightened suspense our show producers have created, so we really wanted to highlight new clues for them that we think will generate posts, tweets and blogs.  At the same time, we want to remind viewers of some critical story points that have happened throughout the previous episodes that may play a role in upcoming episodes.  It’s about finding a balance of both.  

With one of the most social audiences in television, our viewers are eager to know the answers to questions like – whose empty grave is Emily standing above?  Why does Mona become so enraged, she upends an entire table?  What does that necklace say and who is it from?  Our #Agame hash tag is included in the music video to help generate tweets.   ZZ Ward’s music is generating a lot of buzz as well, so we’re really excited about the social conversation that’s happening and the anticipation that this new music video is generating.

LR: What’s ABC Family’s social TV strategy for the new season?

Danielle Mullin: Our strategy for the new season has been to keep the momentum going from the spring finale to the summer premiere, not letting a day go by without giving fans more content to be excited about. We revealed that Mona was “A” in the season finale, but we’ve been actively messaging via ABCFamily.com, Twitter and Facebook that the reveal of A was just the tip of the iceberg, and we don’t think “A” is gone forever.  In fact, the tagline for the new season is “Time to Bring Your A Game” and the #AGame graphic is being featured in our on-air launch campaign.  We’re having a lot of fun with “A” in the social space!

We’ve even created the Pretty Little Puzzle Hunt which is an online “game” that “A” has created for fans—ultimately providing them with a riddle they must answer in order to unlock an exclusive sneak peek at the summer premiere.   In addition to being really rich content experience, it’s a great way to extend the social experience beyond our own platforms and on to other sites that reach our core audience, hopefully bringing new fans into the mix.

LR: How do you plan on outdoing the success of last season?

Mullin: The drama is just getting started on the show with more plot twists than ever, so naturally fans will be speculating about what happens next.  Buzz-worthy shows come from expert storytelling with jaw-dropping cliffhangers and unanswered questions that leave fans dying to find out what happens next.  Our team develops creative assets – videos, games, blogs – that incorporate mini-cliffhangers and tantalizing teases, which we then use in the social media space to amplify the conversation and take it to the next level.

LR: How does the Pretty Little Puzzle Hunt Game work? What partners did you work with to develop it? Will there be any linear TV integrations?

Mullin: The Pretty Little Puzzle Hunt is an online game that “A” has created for fans.  She has been “the voice” of several of our online engagement activities and they have been tremendously successful so it makes sense for us to continue to evolve that strategy.

This time around, “A” is offering fans a sneak peek at the summer premiere, but only if they play her game!  Every few days “A” will put a rebus puzzle piece on one of 15 websites participating in the game.  “A” will be giving fans hints on abcfamily.com so they know where to find the puzzle pieces.  Once all the pieces are assembled in the right order, they will form a riddle, and on June 1st, the answer to that riddle will unlock the sneak peek on abcfamily.com/prettylittlepuzzlehunt.

LR: How involved are cast members in social outreach?

Mullin: The cast and crew, including Executive Producer Marlene King, are all extremely passionate about social media.  They tweet everyday from the set, sharing behind-the-scenes photos that generate an enormous amount of viral conversation in the social space.  Once talent shares their photos, we’ll share them with our entire Facebook community to amplify the buzz.   Our cast and crew also interact with fans on Twitter, creating a tremendous amount of excitement among our fans.  They’re also a marketing dream-come-true—always reminding fans to tune-in and actively supporting all of our marketing initiatives related to the show.  The cast and crew even came up with their own social media campaign that we are going to implement on the day of the premiere.  We’ll be encouraging fans to change their Twitter icons to something red to tie-in to a storyline related to a red trench coast.

One of the interesting integrations for this year’s competition came via a second screen experience that Amsterdam-based Angry Bytes created for Dutch broadcaster TROS which aired the competition in the Netherlands. The web app allowed you to rate in real-time the singing, song and clothing that the contestants were wearing.

“It’s a WebApp running in the Amazon Cloud,” Marc Veuger Angry Byte’s owner told Lost Remote. ”We’re clicking along with TV, because it’s a live program,” he added. We asked him how the app was making the broadcast more social and he told us that, “you can judge the acts and see what your social friends and the rest of the nation are thinking about the acts,” and that, “you can also play a Europe game if you’re not interested in judging.”

We spoke with Jarmo Siim the Switzerland-based Communications Coordinator for Eurovision Family of Events for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) who told us about the competition’s strategy with social. “Our social media strategy has been concentrating on expanding our presence in places where our fans are and showing what a great TV show we have all over the world,” Siim told Lost Remote. “We also want to give the fans an opportunity to be involved more with the contest and have thus asked for their input more and more,” he explained.

We asked about the social platforms the competition is using. “We work with all major platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, VK, Odnoklassniki, YouTube and our very own MyEurovision,” he explained. “Our social media presence has increased over 60% on a yearly basis to about 1,000,000 people.” Sweden’s Loreen, who won this year’s competition has nearly 25,000 followers on Twitter but doesn’t have a verified account.

When we asked Siim if the competition trended at all and the impact it has as a major social TV event. “We believe the Eurovision Song Contest is the best TV show on earth and believe it’s also behind our growing social media success,” he explained. “We’ve also stressed more and more the importance of being in touch with our audience to keep the success of both the TV show and our social media presence,” he added. “We have fans and viewers from all over the world – for example, we had viewers even from the Vatican city on Eurovision.tv.” He also told us that, “Eurovision Song Contest and related topics were trending in all platforms we’re using – from Twitter to Google+. And we’re truly grateful to our fans, viewers and partner for this!”

Starcom MediaVest Group London tracked the global buzz on Twitter via this infographic:

Beginning today, fans who tweet their question with the hashtag #AskMissUSA will be considered. “We wanted to add an element of suspense by integrating social media into the Final Question portion. It will all come down to one contestant, one fan and 140 characters,” said Barry Adelman, executive producer.

#AskMissUSA Is cosmetic surgery in pageant competition an unfair advantage similar to steroids or human grown hormones in sports?

— Lex Librea (@bostonvancouver) May 30, 2012

A quick search of Twitter shows some interesting questions, for sure.

The live broadcast (Sunday 9 p.m. ET on NBC) will also showcase live tweets during the swimsuit and evening gown sections of the competition. And fans can vote online for their favorite contestant for an automatic spot in the semifinals.

Tweet-based voting is becoming a must for any awards ceremony, competition show, or live TV production in general. A few examples from the past year include CBC’s Cover Me Canada, The X Factor working with Twitter for DM-based voting and Fox News and Twitter using #answer and #dodge for a debate. Back in 2008, the cofounders of the Shorty Awards (the ceremony I produce) pioneered this idea by creating an entire awards ceremony, platform and voting algorithm, with tweet-based voting at it’s core.

Here are the major announcements from MTV:

– A first-of-its kind social voting Twitter experience that allows fans to vote for their favorite “Real Hero” (new category) via Twitter hashtag. Voting will begin on Tuesday, May 29th and will continue through the live Movie Awards show with updates shown real time through the night (a first for Twitter).
– Completely reimagined Twitter Tracker visualization that launch in tandem with social voting on Tuesday and continue throughout the live show pulling moments bubbling up in real-time into the feed.
– All Access Livestream that will complement the linear viewing experience with 6 camera feeds and also have some new features like a celebrity red carpet gif flipbook.
– Lastly we’ll be testing a new visualization with Facebook that will be post memorable moments, winners and all the other outrageous activity on MTV’s Facebook page to track likes, shares and comments to showcase the most memorable and popular moments from fans.

Lost Remote: What are the social TV elements for the Movie Awards?

Colin Helms: We have a full 360-degree experience around the Movie Awards designed to connect the audience before, during and after the TV broadcast. All of the experiences we’ve created are social and enhance the social TV experience.

These include an updated version of our Twitter Tracker presented by Sprint; All-Access Live multi-camera behind-the-scenes co-viewing experience, accompanied by socially-enabled chat; and “Watch & Share” functionality that encourages the audience to re-watch and share their favorite show moments shortly after they happen in the TV broadcast. In addition, we’ll feature live, real-time editorial coverage of the Movie Awards weekend that manifests across a half dozen blogs, our Facebook and Twitter accounts, Tumblr, Foursquare, and others.

LR: How are you getting talent involved?

Helms: We engage with talent via our social platforms to help activate fan voting and show tune-in before and during the show. Talent is featured prominently in all of our behind-the-scenes camera views – you’re able to see talent getting ready, in moments before they go onstage, etc. Talent will be able to create animated gifs of themselves on the red carpet which we’ll distribute across our sites and tumblr in a special gif gallery.

LR: What do you think the relationship is between social TV and promoting films to TV audiences?

Helms: Movies – like music or TV shows – are important currency to our audience. It’s something they connect with emotionally, and the way they celebrate their favorite movies are to share and discuss them socially. They want to feel connected to the stars of these movies, and they want to feel connected to other fans of these films – all is what we do with the social TV experience we create around the Movie Awards and the movies that the show celebrates.

Lost Remote: How does social voting work?

Michael Scogin: We’re excited to launch the first-ever live social voting category BEST HERO presented by Sprint, Beginning today through to the live show, fans can vote and track the nominees for the official new category BEST HERO via Twitter using associated hashtags, including: Harry Potter (Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Pt 2, #votepotter), Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games, #votekatniss), Thor (Thor, #votethor), Captain America (Captain America, #votecaptain) and Jenko (21 Jump Street, #votejenko).

Fans will be able to view the results in real time and then mobilize accordingly to ensure their “hero” ends up on top. The winner will be presented with the Golden Popcorn statue during the “2012 MTV Movie Awards.”

LR: What are the updates to the Twitter Tracker?

Scogin: The Twitter Tracker will once again measure social buzz on Twitter and provide an eye-popping visualization. However, this go-around we’re placing the emphasis on show moments. Fans will be able to click on individual moments via a timeline to see how many tweets per minute the moment is generating, read a sampling of tweets, and share images of the moment across their social graph.

“We’re not scheduling our shows based on social media, but we certainly look at the popularity of our shows streaming online and their popularity on social media as part of how we measure their success,” Rick Haskins EVP of Marketing and Digital Programs for The CW told Lost Remote. “Launching in October lets us premiere our shows after most fall premieres and also will let us run through to December without long stretches of reruns,” he continued.

The tight schedule without long stretches of reruns with also allow the network to hold onto their digitally charged fans and demographic that doesn’t have patience to wait long periods of time for their favorite shows to come back . The social web among others things, has proven short attention spans. Knowing that a show will be returning each week, will allow the fan base to boil without scheduling or DVR confusion.

The study aims to show that Shazam, IntoNow, GetGlue and any other app that might require any actions besides staring at your smartphone might be counterproductive to an advertiser’s goal. The study continues that, “when we put an ad on the mobile phone people were looking at, their recall of the TV content was still lower compared to the no-phone-at-all scenario, but their preference rates went back almost all the way up,” to when they weren’t using a second screen at all.

“The main highlight from the study was that if the consumer is seeing an ad on TV and a different ad on smartphone, both the spot and the digital ad are less effective,” Seth Tapper, CEO of SecondScreen Networks told Lost Remote. ”When both ads are in sync in real-time, however, they are most effective,” he added.

“For us, it means a couple of things,” Ilya Vedrashko, SVP of R&D at Hill Holliday told Lost Remote. “One is that TV advertisers will be looking for ways to compensate for the drop in TV ad effectiveness caused by TV-mobile multitasking,” he described.  He added that, “secondly, ads that invite viewers to engage with a smartphone right away – shazam it! scan this QR code! – might be ruining it for the next ad in the pod by encouraging viewers to tune out the TV.” Social TV book author and Hill Holliday SVP Mike Proulx added that, “the one absolutely critical thing that has yet to be figured out on the second screen is what content will actually draw audiences of scale to these apps.”

I’m skeptical that any multitasking with tablets, while actually watching TV and not just having it on in the background will ever be more than a tweet or glance at your email.

The Viggle integration for Pitbull included rewarded users with points for playing along with Pitbull, answering questions and polls along the way. We spoke to Ryan Osborn, Senior Director of Digital Media at NBC News about their creative use of #hashtags on screen, Viggle and how they continue to provide added value to the series’ sponsor, Toyota.

Lost Remote: What’s NBC New doing differently with social TV for your morning summer concerts?

Ryan Osborn: As social TV continues to mature so has our strategy. There are three different audiences for the concerts: people watching TV at home, crowd watching live on Rockefeller Plaza and also the audience that will watch on-demand clips on TODAY.com. Each group uses social media in a different way and I think this year we have taken a much more holistic view of integrating each.

LR: How are you using #Hashtags differently?

Osborn: Hashtags have become a core part of our messaging. From the moment TODAY Senior Producer Melissa Lonner booked the artists, hashtags have been seen in on-air promos, on our sites and on the day of the concert can be seen in the upper left corner of the television screen.

LR: How are you using Viggle for the first time? How will you be judging success?

Osborn: Every year, we like to try something new and experiment with a platform that seems to offer a unique value. This year for a few concerts, we’re testing a synched second screen experience with Viggle that allows users to unlock real-life rewards.

LR: What have you learned from social TV experiences in the past?

Osborn: Artists are more engaged than ever before. Each year have watched them get more social media savvy. When a performer uses our hashtags and help share our content within social media it can really drive the experience.

Anything else?

Osborn: Our sales team has made clear that Toyota is a great partner. As we continue to activate audiences on new platforms, we aim to drive value for our advertisers in new ways.

HISTORY’s site for the campaign features a pre-populated tweet to encourage you to tweet with #thankavet. The network will be “promoting this via all the HISTORY property Twitter accounts as well as the HISTORY fan page (America’s VetDogs will be promoting via their social channels as well.),” a HISTORY spokesperson told Lost Remote. “No other sponsors are involved, solely America’s VetDogs, the donation recipient identified by our Corporate Outreach group,” the spokesperson added.

According to HashTracking.com in the past 24-hours, “947 tweets generated 1,213,237 impressions, reaching an audience of 557,225 followers.” Twitter activations like this should be a no-brainer for every network to execute on a constant basis. If you’re not already familiar with ClickToTweet.com, it’s the easiest way to pre-generate a tweet for someone with a custom hyperlink.

To demonstrate the new platform, Yahoo launched a companion mobile app (above) that lets you navigate Yahoo’s connected TV apps from your Android phone using touch and gestures. Much better than arrowing up/down/around with your remote control.

Meanwhile, Google has rolled out its out connected TV platform, Google TV, that also has the capability to link second screen Android apps with the TV set. LG is rolling out a new TV line this month running on the Google TV platform.

All this adds up to the other challenge of connected TV apps: convincing developers that there’s enough scale to justify building them on these different platforms in the first place. Android may help even the field — and all eyes are on Apple — but in the meantime, we’ll look for innovative examples of second screen apps that tie to connected TVs.

Even though the program doesn’t premiere until July 8th, the network is investing in what Facebook’s Kay Madati described as the “before” social TV strategy. This particular show taps into a popular summer activity – theme parks and roller coasters. We spoke with Ross Babbit, SVP of Programming & Production for the Travel Channel about the project and those passionate coaster fans.

Lost Remote: How does the voting work?

Ross Babbit: From May 7th until June 1st, the Travel Channel community will vote on a total of 24 roller coasters representing six different categories: G-Force Giants, Hang’em High, Splintering Speedsters, Wrong Way Up, Extreme Heights and Speed Demons. Each category, featuring four roller coasters each, also represents the name of the episodes that are set to air beginning Sunday, July 8 on Travel Channel. At the end of each episode, the coaster that received the greatest number of votes by the Travel Channel community will be revealed as the “Best” of the G-Force Giants, Hang ‘em High, etc. And on Aug 12, the one-hour season finale will count down the top ten coasters with the most votes.

LR: How will it make TV more social?

Babbit: Travel Channel is seeking to engage its viewers on a much deeper level across multiple platforms.  We are able to develop stronger connectivity between the program and the viewer be creating dialogue through social media by asking them to help determine the outcome of individual episodes.  By going online and participating in the conversation and entering their vote they are creating a very engaging & social dialogue with our programming and our brand.

Moreover, how do you answer the question, ‘Which is the best coaster?’  It’s so subjective.  Travel Channel has always had many coaster enthusiasts as viewers and in many ways Travel is the best place to go for Coasters and Water Parks and general amusement.  What better way to determine the best coaster than to ask the Travel Channel community.  It’s perfect.

LR: What partners are you working with?

Babbit: Voices Heard Media is working with us on the poll/voting system, and Indigo Films in San Francisco is the production company producing the series for Travel Channel.

LR: What are the traditional TV components? / How is this social TV activation being integrated on air?

Babbit: The series is a competition to find the best coaster and the viewer voting determines the winner, which will be revealed on-air at the end of each episode. It culminates in a special one-hour season finale that counts down the ten coasters that received the most votes. You’ll have to tune in every week to watch and see who wins.

LR: Anything else?

Babbit: It’s been exciting and rather surprising to see just how involved so many people are getting when it comes to ‘Insane Coaster Wars.’  Folks are so dedicated to their favorite coasters and are not at all afraid to share their opinions.  Viewers will be treated to a coaster show the likes of which has never been seen.  It really is a coaster show for the 21st century.  They’ll see a G-force meter, real time, as it measures the Gs riders are experiencing during the ride.  They’ll see a heart rate monitor hooked up to a rider and watch her beats-per-minute go through the roof as the adrenaline starts pumping when the cars scream around the track.  We used a bunch of new technology to capture POV angles that make the viewer feel like they are actually riding the rides.

Apple should sell the world’s first non-TV TV. Instead of selling a replacement for the TV you just bought, Apple should convince millions of Apple fans that they need a new screen in their lives. Call it the iHub, a 32-inch screen with touch, gesture, voice, and iPad control that can be hung on the wall wherever the family congregates for planning, talking, or eating — in more and more US homes, that room is the dining room or eat-in kitchen. By pushing developers to create apps that serve as the hub of family life — complete with shared calendars, photo and video viewers, and FaceTime for chatting with grandma — this non-TV TV could take off, ultimately positioning Apple to replace your 60-inch set once it’s ready to retire.

In other words, turn a TV into a utility device that doubles as an entertainment vehicle.

Of course, who knows what Apple’s working on, but this idea breaks out of the TV mold (and the seven year upgrade cycle) with a truly interactive device that many people would crave. “I want this so bad I can almost taste it,” McQuivey says. Would you buy it?

For viewers, that sounds like nirvana. For the networks, it sounds illegal. FOX sued for copyright infringement and breach of contract “because of their surprising move to market a product with the clear goal of violating copyrights and destroying the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television ecosystem,” explains a FOX statement published by Hollywood Reporter.

In response, Dish has asked a judge to rule that there’s no copyright infringement and the feature “remains in compliance” with Dish’s network agreements.

You may remember Replay TV from years ago — I still have the remote somewhere — that detected commercial breaks in DVR playback and skipped ahead automatically. Replay TV went out of business in the middle of a similar legal fight, which was never resolved.

Dish is taking it a step further by enabling subscribers to record all the broadcast network primetime schedules automatically, then wiping them of commercials. So Fox may have more to work with in this lawsuit. Clearly one to watch.

Not surprisingly, the peak in comments occurred after Philip Phillips was announced as the winner of season 11. With competition rising from NBC’s The Voice and Fox’s X Factor, it will be tough for Idol to continue to break records. In fact, last night’s show was the lowest-rated finale in Idol history.

On the flip side, building a fan-base over eleven seasons can really help keep the show in the social spotlight. How many more seasons do you think Idol will last? Will social buzz play a big role in determining that?

The app offers a very clean, simple weather forecast (powered by Accuweather) as well as a few short news updates. “The Alarm Clock app is ideal for the growing numbers who turn to the small screens of an iPhone or an iPod touch first thing in the morning for news and information,” explains Carla Carpenter, SVP of Digital Media for the ABC Owned Television Stations Group.

We noticed the app was filed in the “utility” category in the App Store, so I asked Carpenter about the strategy to create a utility instead of another news app:

“As a long time news director, I’m always up for creating spaces for news but we felt our next step should be in something that is useful beyond the information an app can provide. An alarm app represents the perfect marriage of news content (which includes weather and traffic) and usefulness. Members of the ABC OTV Digital group saw examples everywhere, including in their own lives, of the viability of a news app that offered an alarm for wake ups. We think of this as another level of service that we can offer our users.”

KTRK-TV’s “ABC13 Houston Alarm Clock” is now available for download, with the other seven ABC-owned TV stations rolling out in the next few weeks.