Looking to enhance its user experience with the power of YouTube (NASDAQ: GOOG), Sling Media has integrated a contextual overlay feature that delivers relevant video snippets to compliment whatever programming the user might be consuming at the time.
Sling Media, which offers the new feature in its high-end SlingTV device, describes how the new component works this way: "You might be watching a Cavs game and pull up a video of LeBron's career highlights during a timeout; you might be watching Jimmy Fallon do his Neil Young impression and pull up the last time he did it during a commercial; and so on. We like to call this 'video snacking' and it delivers a TV experience unlike anything else that's available.
Relevant YouTube videos appear on a horizontally displayed strip of thumbnails on the bottom third of the screen.
These videos are delivered with a technology similar to that used by social TV/music platform Shazam, with technology provided by Audio Magic matching the audio track to relevant content.
For more:
- read this Sling Media blog post
- read this Variety story
- read this Multichannel News story
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