Social viewing (also known as Watch Party or GroupWatch) describes a recently developed practice revolving around the ability for multiple users to aggregate from multiple sources and view

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

s together in a synchronized viewing experience. Typically the experience also involves some form of

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

to facilitate discussion pertaining to the common viewing experience.

History

The term in this context originated with the

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

and

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

-based company View2Gether which has created proprietary technology for aggregating content from sources not controlled by the user for synchronized play and inclusion in common playlists by multiple participants with a commensurate instant messaging chat function. Other sites which provide similar functionality include Oortle (Photophlow), SeeToo and development of social viewing for existing portals such as Yahoo have recently been announced. The term has been used in some cases to describe online viewing within the framework of a social network, however View2gether and similar sites have reconfigured the term to mean a common viewing experience as a social activity. Social viewing has also been used in the past to describe activities such as gathering for the viewing of particular

television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, e ...

s, such as

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

s. Some examples of modern social viewing sites include

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YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

TikTok TikTok, known in China as Douyin (), is a short-form video hosting service owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which can range in duration from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok is an international version ...

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

Zoom Zoom may refer to: Technology Computing * Zoom (software), videoconferencing application * Page zooming, the ability to magnify or shrink a portion of a page on a computer display * Zooming user interface, a graphical interface allowing for image ...

, and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. It was also officially added as a built-in feature in some

over-the-top media service An over-the-top (OTT) media service is a media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms: the types of companies that traditionally act as controllers or distributors ...

s in various names. While Amazon and Hulu both call it Watch Party, Disney+ (which offers it only in some countries) calls it GroupWatch.

Social viewing experience

Nowadays we can watch a video while interacting with other people thanks to social viewing and all the resources that it provide us. We can watch a movie while chatting with our friends or discus about a concrete scene. One factor to improve could be the synchronization between users, to be sure that everyone is watching the same scene, so that no problem arises while discussing it.

Notes and references

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External links

How to Host a Virtual Watch Party
September 29, 2020

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article by Boone Ashworth Technology in society Video on demand