Yap.tv, a social TV guide app for iOS was updated to version 3.0 on Wednesday, adding enhanced navigation, instant live chat and access to better social discovery tools.
What sets yap.TV apart from other mobile TV guide apps? It is designed to connect users with their friends and social circles. Not only can users share what they’re watching with friends and family, they can also chat with friends or with fellow show-fans within the app itself.
The new yap.TV 3.0 app has been redesigned for a better visual experience. The iPad version now can be browsed using a 100% picture-based guide or the traditional channel grid.
The app is now easier to navigate by category, time of day or day of week. The iPad version also includes a special movie-browsing mode. Yap.TV has also updated its programming infrastructure to support providers across the nation.
What I like about yap.TV as a TV guide is that you can easily arrange channel lineups and customize what types of channels you want to see.
Of course, the real distinguishing feature of yap.TV are its social features. Similar to BeeTV, the app lets users see what people are saying about a show on Twitter. Users can also follow stars and celebrities associated with a show within the app and send out tweets and retweets. In addition, viewers can browse through yap.TV polls, as well as create new polls for other yap.TV users to vote on.
For us, though, live chat has the most potential within the app. Each show has its own live chat room. You can chat with the yap.TV users watching that show (assuming others are online and in the app) or you can invite your friends to join a private party chat.
Of course, for live chat to work, the userbase needs to be of a sufficient size. Still, it’s a smart idea. We think a real-time live-chat element within the TV guide itself adds value to the application.
What is your favorite TV guide and listing app for the iPhone or iPad? Let us know in the comme
Brace yourself Bluth fans, the long-rumored Arrested Developmentmovie is actually going to happen. Actor Will Arnett, who starred as G.O.B. on the 2003 – 2006 Fox comedy series, claimed that the film is in the works and should be in theaters next year.
Arnett’s confirmation on a recent episode of the WTF with Marc Maron Podcast is just the latest in a series of rumors surrounding a film since the program went off the air in February 2006.
Never a hit on broadcast television, Arrested Development has always had a strong online fan community. Various fan campaigns like SaveOurBluths.com (now defunct) tried to rally support for the series.
Even today, the Facebook page for the show, has more than 1.2 million fans. The show is one of the most popular shows of all time on Hulu and is also available on Netflix.
Stars from the show including Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Michael Cera have gone on to far greater success in movies in the years since the series ended.
Arrested Development fans have been down this road of film promises in the past. Let’s just hope this time, it’s for real. After all, there’s always money in the banana stand.
Look alive Keenan and Kel fans, the TeenNick cable network is bringing back favorites from the 1990s to the airwaves beginning Monday.
TeenNick, one of many networks under the Nickelodeon brand name, will air four-hour blocks of “classic” (by generation Y standards) Nickelodeon original content between the hours of midnight and 4 am.
According to Brian Stelter at the New York Times, the programming block, called “The ’90s Are All That,” was a response to the numerous Facebook groups dedicated to bringing back this classic content.
Nickelodeon History 101
Here’s a refresher for those of you not fully versed in Nickelodeon history:
In 1990, Nickelodeon Studios opened at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. The flagship show at the time,Double Dare, was moved to the Orlando location. It also become the home for a slew of original live-action programs like Clarissa Explains it All and All That. In 1991, the first Nicktoons, Doug, Rugrats and The Ren & Stimpy Show, debuted on the network.
For the next decade or so, many of these programs made up the primary daytime blocks of programming on Nickelodeon. In 1992, a Saturday evening block, called SNICK (or Saturday Night Nickelodeon), debuted. For the next twelve years, that block of programming would air new episodes of its flagship original programming
For many of us who grew up in the early to mid-1990s, these shows represented an iconic part of pop culture. For years, fans have petitioned the network to re-air some of the more popular shows or release programs on DVD.
The Shows
As Nickelodeon fan site Nickutopia shares, this is the lineup of shows that TeenNick will be airing during “The ’90s Are All That”:
Aaahh!!! Real Monsters
The Adventures of Pete & Pete
All That
The Amanda Show
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
Catdog
Clarissa Explains it All
Double Dare
Doug
Hey Arnold!
Kenan & Kel
Legends of the Hidden Temple
Nickelodeon GUTS
The Ren & Stimpy Show
Rocket Power
Rocko’s Modern Life
Rugrats
Salute Your Shorts
The Secret World Of Alex Mack
In addition to these shows, “The ’90s are All That” will feature special appearances from popular Nickelodeon Stick Stickly. Frankly, I think I’m most excited about the return of Stick Stickly.
A Play on Nostalgia
Generation Y, my generation, is one that is obsessed with nostalgia. Witness our love for all things Betty White (even though most of us discovered The Golden Girls via reruns in the 1990s and not on Saturday nights in the 1980s), our affinity for retro and ironic t-shirts with branding from some time in the past when we probably weren’t even alive, and the fact that shows like Robot Chicken and Family Guy have basically made it their marquee to reference old programs or fads, just so the twenty-somethings in the audience can go, “Dude, I totally remember the MicroMachines guys, he was awesome!”
During the 1990s, Nickelodeon was the perennial kid brand. In a world before the term “tween” was actually used, it was a prime television destination portal aimed squarely at kids in elementary school and junior high.
Thus, it’s no surprise that as soon as we all started using Facebook in college (and if we’re honest, LiveJournal before that), talking about Nickelodeon shows and idealizing those shows as “ahead of their time” became a common activity.
In truth, the shows, for the most part, don’t actually hold up. I know this because this isn’t the first time that Nickelodeon has played on the nostalgia train, this is just its most engaged play. For the last decade, Nickelodeon has actually been recycling some of its ’90s-era content across many of its digital cable properties.
When the Noggin network debuted in 1999, it was dedicated to airing programs that were pulled from PBS and Nick Jr. Late at night, Noggin had a block of programming dedicated to Generation Xers that aired classic episodes of Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Ghost Writer and Square One. Subsequently, when the network transitioned to The N (before The N became its own network), many classic Nick shows from the 1990s would air in the afternoons.
Before being rebranded as TeenNick, The N often aired these programs late at night or in weekend blocks. Moreover, classic Nicktoons aired on the Nicktoons cable network during much of the 2000s, and the now shuttered Nickelodeon Games and Sports network (GAS) was basically dedicated to airing nothing but old episodes of Double Dare, Nick Arcade, GUTS and Legend of the Hidden Temple, with some Wild and Crazy Kids thrown in for good measure.
The difference with this campaign is that Nickeldoen is fuly embracing its audience’s desire for nostalgia. Even more interesting, many of the most vocal 1990s Nickelodeon fans were likely not even old enough to even remember the SNICK couch or when Clarissa was actually on TV. Instead, in true Gen-Y fashion, these fans are simply nostalgic about faint memories in front of the tube.
The fact that TeenNick will be taking programming cues from Facebook is interesting. Also interesting is its usage of AllThat and Keenan and Kel (and Good Burger) star Keenan Thompson, now a regular on Saturday Night Live, in some of its advertising promos.
Our only question is this: when is Hey Dude! going to air? I take that back. That show was horrible. Even my everlasting love of it in 1991 doesn’t change the fact that it was horrible.
Select cable subscribers will be able to access 24-hour live broadcast streams from CNN and HLN on CNN.com, the CNN App for iPad andCNN for iPhone, CNN has announced.
Right now, the live access to CNN is only available to AT&T, Comcast, Cox, DISH Network, Suddenlink and Verizon customers. That leaves out some of the major cable providers, like Time Warner Cable and Cablevision.
CNN, a Mashable content partner, is joining the ranks of other cable networks like ESPN in providing access to its live broadcast content on a multitude of devices and platforms. In the industry, this is widely known as TV Everywhere. For cable companies and networks, TV Everywhere is perhaps the most potent answer to online subscription streaming services like Netflix and Hulu Plus. The idea is to give cable subscribers additional platform options.
For content companies like CNN, it also means more potential eyeballs. In a statement, Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide said, “A principal goal for CNN is to make more of our content available to more people on more platforms, and CNN’s participation in the TV Everywhere initiative is another step forward in that effort.”
Last week, I spoke to Ron Frankel, the CEO of Synacor, a company that powers TV Everywhere portals for various ISPs, including Suddenlink. Frankel told me that TV Everywhere is already showing real promise with consumers.
“The response and uptake we’re seeing is phenomenal,” he said. “Thanks to HBO Go, millions of people are now familiar with entering in their account ID to access TV Everywhere content.”
HBO launched its TV Everywhere initiative, HBO Go in May, and the app has already been downloaded more than 3 million times.
With Netflix’s recent price hike announcement causing outrage from users, this could be TV Everywhere’s opportunity to get a foothold into a market that at one point seemed Netflix’s to lose.
What do you think about TV Everywhere, live streaming of television broadcasts online and the convergence of devices? Let us know in the comments.
Yap.tv, a social TV guide app for iOS was updated to version 3.0 on Wednesday, adding enhanced navigation, instant live chat and access to better social discovery tools.
Brace yourself Bluth fans, the long-rumored Arrested Developmentmovie is actually going to happen. Actor Will Arnett, who starred as G.O.B. on the 2003 – 2006 Fox comedy series, claimed that the film is in the works and should be in theaters next year.
Select cable subscribers will be able to access 24-hour live broadcast streams from CNN and HLN on CNN.com, the 
