Facebook acquires SportStream and strengthened in real time

By acquiring SportStream that aggregates and distributes content, Facebook shows that he has no intention of being left behind by Twitter in regard to real-time Social TV.

"Facebook seeks to improve the capacity of users to connect through their common interests. We are pleased to announce, in this context, the acquisition of SportStream. "Having raised 4 million dollars from Vulcan Ventures in 2012, the young shoot of San Francisco specializes in sports stream aggregation, filtering and disseminating data, including via Facebook. It is now for Menlo Park, to Facebook, it will continue to operate.

By acquiring this company, Facebook seeks to strengthen partnerships with major sporting events such as producers Fox Sports or ESPN and thus develop the real-time content that can be posted on its website. Meanwhile, the technologies developed by SportStream could be used for other types of partnerships not only for sporting events. This strategy has also been confirmed by one of the VP Facebook, Justin Ofosky, which pointed in a recent blog post: "If something interesting is happening, people are talking about on Facebook. Since emissions favorites to the TV news, these conversations happen on Facebook. "

This is what is now called the Social TV, interact increasingly important between television and social networks. A study by eMarketer showed that 15-17% of American viewers were engaged in real-time social networking watching television. The small window is therefore looks increasingly with a remote in one hand and a tablet or smartphone into each other to exchange impressions with members of its network. In this area, Twitter has undoubtedly ahead, particularly through its partnership audience.

Facebook can not let such an issue and redemption of SportStrream is a new realization of its desire not to leave an inch of ground to its competitor.