Applying listening logic to television content as Shazam has done for music, new startup IntoNow is launching its iOS application Monday that is capable of identifying 2.6 million broadcast airings, equating to 266 years of video.

The television companion application is designed to create an easy way for users to connect with friends around the shows that they love.

Select the TV icon from within the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch app and IntoNow listens to what you're watching on the boob tube or internet. In four to twelve seconds the application magically returns the exact episode, and correctly identifies whether the content is airing live or if it's a rebroadcast on the original network or a syndicate.







IntoNow provides users with show info, one-click access to IMDb, iTunes and Netflix, the latter of which provides users with a quick way to save episodes to their Instant Queue. In-app notifications alert users to activity and comments from friends, and the "Discover" tab presents a visually engaging way to explore content from curated lists like "Best Shows of the 90's" or "Movies Featuring San Francisco." . IntoNow users can optionally share what they're watching with friends on Twitter and Facebook. The application experience is also immensely social, so adding friends from those services is seamless, and engaging around the television content users have implicitly "checked in" to — the entertainment checkin experience as we know it is nonexistent, this is a listen-driven experience — works in a way that feels akin to an ever-present digital water cooler.







"People spend 62% of their leisure time watching television; it's the largest activity after work and sleep," says founder and CEO Adam Cahan citing Bureau of Labor Statistics from a 2009 surgery. "Television is an engaged topic," he says.

The natural engagement piece is why Cahan believes game mechanics employed by a growing crop of entertainment checkin applications are unnecessary. "This is not a consumer experience we understand," Cahan says of checkins, badges and rewards. "The act of sharing should be seamless; the act of connecting and engaging should be rewarding enough," he says.

Cahan speaks from years of experience in the entertainment industry. Before raising $11 million in Series B financing as the former CEO of video monetization company Auditude, Cahan was the Executive Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at MTV Networks.

Cahan now has eyes for the $80 billion television advertising business. "The entertainment industry," he says, "is one of largest advertisers on TV."

IntoNow, which uses its own patented SoundPrint audio-recognition technology, can rhythmically identify commercials as distinct from content, impressive technology the startup plans to put to good use in the monetization department in the months ahead.







In initial testing, IntoNow proved fail-proof, even from across the room with moderate to low audio volume. That's not to say the application won't fail to recognize television content. The content catalogue is unthinkably large but finite, and users may run into a wall if they're watching something older than five years that has not be rebroadcasted in that time.

Cahan and team have crafted a social and engaging entertainment experience around television content, bar none. The sophistication of the SoundPrint technology, coupled with the application's colorful design and rich feature set, have us anticipating a commercial success for IntoNow.

IntoNow has a bigger vision that supersedes its own mobile applications. The startup designs to make its SoundPrint technology the foundation of a larger audio platform and will soon release an API for that purpose. The company is also in talks with consumer electronics manufacturers to incorporate the technology inside television sets. Eventually, the startup will go down the measurement and metrics path à la Nielsen as well.

IntoNow Screenshots

IntoNow





Image based on a photo courtesy of Flickr, craig1black