Jacked up with LiveCast

The latest evolution for sports media consumption seems only natural--letting the audience member personalize the viewing experience.

Sports Video Insider reports on a collaboration between the Big 10 Network and Jacked Inc. Jacked's technology allows viewers to "create their own online companion to complement a TV broadcast, synchronizing personalized online content with the live TV programming to define their own fan experience." (The New York Giants also began working with Jacked this season).

Once the game starts, fans build a 'dashboard' of their preferences, dropping and dragging choices from a menu that includes scoreboards, play-by-play, player profiles, news and photos, just to name a few. There's also the choice to incorporate video from YouTube as well as team-related products from Amazon.

This is a logical step in a media environment with hundreds of sports channels and fragmented viewing audiences. Apparently, it's also a successful one. Big 10 fans have spent an average of 40 minutes on the LiveCast platform--an incredible figure in an Internet world where the average time per page view is around :48 seconds. So look for more development in this growing area. In fact, according to Jacked, there are experiments underway to enable live streaming video and announcer interaction. ("Hey, Thom Brennaman ... why did Wisconsin go for it there on 4th and 3?").