AT&T Labs Research — Leading Invention, Driving Innovation

CollaboraTV takes the concept of social media and applies it to video viewing, so you can share thoughts and comments while you watch a video “with” others, each at your own web browser and at your own time.

It works like this. From a browser, select a video and audience members, and begin watching. You can watch simultaneously or at different times. At any point, type a comment using the keyboard or insert an emoticon or thumbs up or down from a menu. Comments and feedback will be seen in real time by viewers watching simultaneously and also saved where inserted for others to see later. The playbar lets you skip directly to each viewer insertion.

CollaboraTV works equally well for social interactions and work collaborations. Friends can “watch TV together” while exchanging jokes or opinions, making TV-viewing less of a solitary activity. And team members working with one another to create videos can easily request changes or make suggestions to refine the content.

The ability to directly insert comments into video, similar to the comment feature of file editing programs, fits a growing need as more information is dispersed through video rather than traditional documents.

CollaboraTV can also be used to elicit feedback from test audiences and evaluate viewer interest at any part of a video. An interest graph summarizes what is compelling to the audience, and lets viewers compare their interest level with that of others.

CollaboraTV is a mature research project with stable software for TV video; current work involves adding the ability to upload other video types and obtaining licensing permissions for programs on video. For information on licensing CollaboraTV, contact Steve Fusco