Zuckerberg's “Realtime Serendipity" - Facebook Verb Button - Watched. Social TV Startup Killer? Co-viewing on Netflix and Hulu - Not in USA

written by: Richard Kastelein

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Published on Friday, 23 September 2011 09:22

So now that Zuckerberg has messed with everyone's Facebook pages and created a massive uproar - there's more underneith the brouhaha that matters - in terms of how other changes will affect the Social TV landscape.

Despite Facebook now preaching the wonders of the New Timeline and  it's “Realtime Serendipity"  - I tend to agree with Blake Stimac, from IntoMobile,  that B2C plays like Getglue and MISO are now under pressure. Sharing one's life -  workouts, music, movies, TV shows, recipes, photos... your life... is now possible using applications based on Facebook's Open Graph. Facebook just nicked the big checkin'. No other checkins' will matter. Anywhere. It's all about integration now - competing for consumer eyeballs is futile.

And the new verb buttons are going to slice and dice the whole ecosystem in a new way for advertisers. 

On top of that, it appears some of the larger music and video content players - have cut exclusive deals with Facebook  which integrate deeply allowing for sharing (co-viewing and co-listening) - beyond what's available to all third party developers. So other smaller competitors and startups in those arenas also may face extinction.

Spotify, Rhapsody, and Vevo among others have teamed up with Facebook to build music applications that allow you to post what you're listening to and have your friends listen to it as well.  Netflix and Hulu contributed to video applications that let TV shows and movies be a shared experience on the new Facebook format. 

And what about the news that Facebook has done deals with Hulu and Netflix to allow video-sharing, but not in the USA?

Netflix on Thursday announced it is integrating its video streaming service with Facebook — allowing users to watch videos on either site and see what people on their friends lists are viewing.

It will be available in 44 countries except in Netflix’s biggest market -- the United States, because of the 1998 Video Privacy Protection Act that prohibits the disclosure of video sales or rental records, the company explained.

They don't even have Netflix in Europe. Or Asia. But are hoping to in 2012 - to go head to head with Amazon's acquisition Lovefilm - in what will likely be a  global VOD battle.

Interesting times. Kind of takes the wind out of Google+ Video Hangouts to boot.

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