Yap.TV launched in late 2010 in an effort to help capture the growing audience of users who tune in to TV with their iPads and mobile phones open in front of them. Since then, it’s held its own in a pretty crowded market of second-screen apps. But the latest version of the Yap.TV app could give it a boost, through a deep integration with Facebook that will allow users to see what TV shows their friends are watching and to connect with other users who share common interests.
Once users log in to Yap.TV via Facebook Connect, the app imports all their Facebook TV “likes” and those of their friends as well. They can then compare their interests in various TV shows with their friends from directly within the app, and create a favorites list with show times from their own likes. They can see how many comments and shares different pieces of content have gotten, and can share, comment, or like them as well.
One of the main new features in the app is a “feed” that is provided on the main level of the app, which provides users with a personalized stream of content related to shows that they’ve liked on Facebook. It also has been added to yap.TV show pages to display related content inside the app.
Another big new change is the ability to see which friends are currently online, either on the yap.TV app, or on Facebook, thanks to the new Facebook detection feature. They can also chat with those friends, directly from within the app itself.
Of course, Yap.TV still has a lot of competition, from the likes of apps like Miso, GetGlue, and a bunch of others. Plus then there’s Zeebox, from former BBC iPlayer CTO Anthony Rose, which hasn’t even launched in the U.S. yet. It’s still too early to declare a winner, but that just means that there’s still a whole lot of shakeout left for social TV and second-screen apps.