NM Incite, a social media analytics and research joint venture between Nielsen and McKinsey, just announced that it has acquired New York-based social TV startup SocialGuide.
SocialGuide’s tools supposedly capture social media data for more than 30,000 TV programs on 232 US TV channels in English and Spanish. In the press release announcing the acquisition, Nielsen says social TV is becoming an increasingly important, with 50 percent of North American viewers interacting with social media while watching TV.
The financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed. However, it sounds like Nielsen wants to use SocialGuide to measure the monetary value of social TV. The startup’s social TV measurement and engagement tools will be “integrated immediately” into NM Incite, Nielsen says, and the combined companies will try “to quantify the relationship between social TV and TV ratings to enable advertisers to maximize the impact of their spend, and provide new research metrics to understand social TV’s impact on consumer behavior and viewing habits.”
In the press release announcing the acquisition, Steve Hasker, Nielsen’s president of global media products and advertisers solutions, says:
The skyrocketing adoption and use of social media among consumers is transforming TV-watching into a more immediate and shared experience. As TV networks see this phenomenon unfold, they require understanding of the impact of social TV on their programming, ratings and advertising effectiveness.
SocialGuide raised $1.5 million in funding last year from various angels.
SocialGuide is a privately held company based in Brooklyn, NY that is the first real-time social guide for TV and social TV platform that makes every show across every network instantly social. SocialGuide mines, filters, displays and ranks the millions of discussions happening on the most popular social networks about TV as it airs, enabling users to discover new shows and interact with their friends, fellow fans and stars of their favorite shows.
Nielsen is a leading global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy. Nielsen is a information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and related properties. Nielsen has a presence in approximately 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA and Diemen, the Netherlands.
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