We all hear the statistics: TV viewing is shifting from the TV to laptops, tablets and mobile devices. For instance, people who own tablets watch 30% more video than those on a laptop, we reported last year.
And about nine out of 10 people with a mobile device are on their phones while watching TV, according to Nielsen study last year.
To that end, it makes sense if you’re a video platform to broaden your audience by making your content available on mobile.
Spreecast, a social-video platform founded by Stubhub founder Jeff Fluhr, unveiled that it’s now accessible for free on an iPhone app, and in the browser of any iOS and Android device.
“We know people are accessing Spreecast on their mobile phones,” said Fluhr. “About 15% to 20% of Spreecast’s audience is trying to acess Spreecast that way.”
With the availability of Spreecast on mobile, Fluhr expects those numbers to get even larger.
Spreecast lets publishers (large ones such as LA Times, Wall Street Journal to any individual) create broadcasts with multiple people. It’s one way to beef up your live programming by having the audience interact with the participants.
While Fluhr wouldn’t say how many publishers are using Spreecast nor how many minutes are being viewed, he did say that some regular users are WSJ and the LA Times, and Warner Bros. ExtraTV. “Some of our partners create Spreecasts 10 to 20 times a week,” said Fluhr.
The first iPhone version will let users watch live or archived Spreecasts and to get involved using text-based chats. The next version will allow people to have a conversation with their mobile devices. Availability on Android and tablet apps is coming soon.
