Never.no and Vizrt to be partners

Over the past two years and especially during the current presidential race there has been a growing trend of integrating social media into live television. Viewers can tweet everything from questions for a political debate to comments about a live broadcast with the chance of it showing up on television screens across the nation. I'm sure a few of you, like myself have wondered exactly how this is done. As it turns out the system is much more complex than I first thought. Apparently television channels like the BBC and NBC out source this function to a variety of companies offering various options for creating an interactive environment for viewers by integrating  social media and mobile phone applications with live television. On top of the company who develops the technology to make this happen an entirely separate group of companies are hired to design the real time 3-D graphics you see on the screen. According to braodcastnewsroom.com two of the leading companies on both ends of this new technology have just announced a partnership that will not only be lucrative for them, but also has potential to make getting access to this technology a lot easier for clients. The website quotes the CEO of never.no (one of the companies involved in the partnership) as saying "Vizrt is the world leader in real-time 3D graphics, and never.no is the world leader in social TV solutions. Together we bring to the market an unmatched end-to-end solution to connect the audience directly to the action on TV." So, will we be seeing more and more social media on our television screens over the next couple of years? My guess it yes. Let's at least hope they come up with some good looking graphics to go with it!