More than one-third of people who use social networking desire to extend their network access to their televisions, according to a new report from ABI Research.
The report, “Social Network TV,” found that 36 percent say they would like to access their social media networks from their TVs. The desire is consistent with other consumer behavior, such as accessing video entertainment across different video screens, according to ABI Research senior analyst Jason Blackwell.
“We’ve seen that consumers find increased value through shared entertainment experiences and want to explore and deepen these experiences through communities of interest, and that’s what social TV will ultimately do,” he said.
Interest in social networking TV applications varied somewhat by age. Chat and messaging were of most interest to younger consumers. Middle-aged consumers desired more passive social networking. For those over 50 years of age, seeing what their friends were watching on television was the aspect of TV social networking most desired. Overall, the extension of Web 2.0 technologies to the living room will push growth of social networking via the TV, according to Blackwell.