Tweek Releases Major Update To Its Social iOS TV Guide For The UK and Germany

Even as Tivo’s stock languishes and its patent battles play out, the world of social, TV and touch screens are continuing to collide, and it’s fair to say that most of the most interesting innovation is coming form Internet-based startups, not the TV world. Today a new app we have been keeping an eye on breaks cover with a full refresh of its service which is aimed at the UK and Germany. Think of the Tweek iOS app as the potential Tivo of the future, bringing you recommendations for TV shows and socialising your viewing experience. It solves two main problems for the user: Which content is worth my time? Where can I get it now? [iTunes link]

Essentially Tweek pulls your interest and social data from you Facebook Open Graph and Interest Graph. This includes, for example, if a friend likes a movie on IMDB. Then Tweek matches this data to creative commons databases and gets the artwork, a trailer, description etc. Then it checks the APIs of iTunes and other services like Netflix to check if the shows is there. In Germany it syncs with data from Das Erste Mediathek, ZDF Mediathek, Zattoo and in the UK iTunes, NetFlix, Lovefilm, BBC iPlayer and Dailyme! Lastly, it cross references with licensed EPG data to check for live TV airing – so you can watch the show right now. Tweek’s main revenue model is the generation of leads to this content.

That means you get a social TV guide that suggests shows to you based on your interests, your friends and also what Tweek suggests via its algorithms and editorial picks. Users can also add content to their watch lists. Other new features include compatibility with IOS 6 and iPhone 5. You’ll basically find it hard to miss a show you want to watch with Tweek. A specific iPad version is out shortly which is going to even better suited to ‘second-screen’ TV watching, but it works just fine on the iPad already.

If this were in the U.S. it would be competing with Fanhattan and nextguide.

Marcel Düe, co-founder of Tweek says the app is working with over 8 million recommendations and growing rapidly. “Big data is becoming the key for your personal program.”

Tweek was started in 2011 by Sven Koerbitz, Klaus Hartl and Marcel Düe in Berlin and has seed investment from Media Investors, Euroserve Media and Catagonia Capital.