Sofanatics’ “You'll Never Watch Alone” – Event-based Social TV – Interview with CEO Toni Laturi

Posted by Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP in Writers on August 11, 2010  |  0 Comments More from this author  |    |  Follow Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter |

ReadWriteWeb has written on the rise of Event-based social networks (EBSNs) and we related EBSNs to the diffusion of Social TV.

Helsinki based Sofanatics is promising social TV for sport fans.
The company picked up an undisclosed amount of funding in its seed round, investors include Jaiku founders Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen, (Lifeline Ventures), and a Finnish football legend, former Crystal Palace midfielder Aki Riihilahti.

I had the chance to talk to Toni Laturi about Sofanatics, sports and Social TV.

What is Sofanatics exactly?
Sofanatics is a social TV service for sports fans. Sofanatics connects users with their Facebook friends while watching sports on TV. The video chat feature joins sports fans together in a new way: it's like having friends next to you on a sofa.

How did the concept of Sofanatics originated?
The concept was born from our personal needs. We have a families with small kids making it hard to join friends to watch sports. As you know, it is lame to watch sports alone. We started to think how to link sports fans online, and soon we realized that video chat would be a perfect solution.

What is the business model of Sofanatics?
We are considering a number of different business models. We will say that there are quite a few options available. Our aim is to come out of beta and launch monetization later this year.

Will the Facebook integration be enough to create and retain a loyal Sofanatics userbase?
We selected Facebook because it already contains a high quality social graph. The information about the connection between people is essential when building a social TV solution. It is lot easier to use the Facebook network than build a new one.In addition to social graph, the integration glues Sofanatics tightly with Facebook, making it possible to use Facebook as a communication channel.

Has Sofanatics incorporated game-mechanics (like badges on Foursquare and TVpoints on TVmoment)?
Sofanatics users are ranked based on the number of check-ins and the correct score guesses. Later, these features will be extended to game mechanics, including badges and rewards.

How was the World Cup Soccer for Sofanatics?
The FIFA world cup was amazing for us. We had users from more than 130 countries and the matches were very crowded. The user engagement was also very promising: the length of the visits were way above average and the number of the actions users made was significant.

What do you expect from the upcoming season of the major sports for Sofanatics?
Our idea is to expand incrementally to new sports and series based on the popularity of the teams and series. We will be starting by the teams having most fans on Sofanatics.

What's your view on the further evolution of Social TV?
The social media and social TV will change our viewing behavior completely. We will select the shows to watch based on the recommendations, and we will interact with our friends and other viewers while watching the program - the content of which is influenced by the viewers. The interaction continues after the show by rating, commenting and browsing the content created by the viewers. 

I see that the current solutions using plain Twitter or Facebook data will be replaced with more sophisticated solutions. The solutions might aggregate the Twitter data, they might add their own layer on the top of existing social media services or they could be stand alone. In addition to the generic solutions, we will see lots of program specific social television solutions. These solutions will both link the viewers together, and enrich the content of the television programs.

The user generated content on social television is very interesting. It will add a completely new layer of information on the top of the television content. Good example of such of a feature is a feature called Faith-O-Meter on Sofanatics. It sums up the faith of the fans of certain team, reflecting the game events and fan behaviour.

Do you think Event-based Social Networks -like Sofanatics- can further diffuse Social TV or will Social TV be a niche?
While the television programs - especially real time television, can be seen as events, the social television will diffuse to EBSN solutions. Or vice versa.

Toni Laturi is a seasoned internet professional. He left his position as the managing director of Valve, the most prosperous Finnish digital agency, to co-found Sofanatics. 

He loves watching sports and plays regularly floorball with his friends.