Interactive
Vast Media Smart Screen Round-Up: Royal Wedding Firsts, a Chatbot for ‘Drag Race’
Story Highlights
Here’s a run-down of recent second screen-related entertainment items, via Berlin-based research and consulting company Vast Media.
• For the premiere of the 10thseason of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” VH1 added a dedicated Facebook Messenger chatbot for the show, allowing users to do a makeover challenge for themselves, using customized templates. The results can then be shared across social media.
• To help promote the second season of its successful — and controversial — teen drama series “13 Reasons Why,” Netflix launched a mobile web site that allows users to interact with characters from the show, with a chat feature and storylines from the second season.
The web site — TalkToTheReasons.com — takes users to a mock iPhone screen, where they’re navigated through the experience. FaceTime calls from select characters, Houseparty video chats and other apps are featured in the experience.
• Coverage of the May 19 royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle saw a unique offering from Sky News, with the help of UI Centric, Amazon Web Services and GrayMeta, with the companies delivering a cloud-based machine learning service that offered unique facts about attendees of the ceremonies.
The Sky News coverage included real-time updates and insights on celebrity guests via the live stream of the event, covering names, related biographical information and relations to the royal couple. The “Royal Wedding: Who’s Who Live” included a catch-up function and allowed viewers to search guests by name.
• In mid-May, NBC partnered with live trivia game app HQ to create a unique game centered around the talent show “The Voice,” ahead of the show’s season 14 finale. Players were given a chance to win $50,000 and a trip to the live taping of the finale, using the HQ Trivia app for iOS and Android devices.
The game included a dozen increasingly difficult questions related to “The Voice,” giving users 10 second to answer each one. Celebrity coaches from the show, including Kelly Clarkson and Blake Shelton, appeared in the game.
