Hook Up with HBO Connect
I don’t know about you, but I’m a sucker (ha!) for new gadgets and fun things to do on the web. When I heard that HBO launched this new thing called HBO Connect I was curious, so I went to play. Now I’m hooked! What a fun way to chat up True Blood right now as the anticipation for the season 4 premiere revs up.
We will, of course, host the Live Chats during each episode beginning June 26th, but I hope you will also join us at HBO Connect as well. You can sign in using either your Twitter of Facebook login, and get started talking about the new poster, the DVDs for season 3, or anything and everything you love about True Blood.
When you first go to the website you see thumbnail images of HBO’s popular hit shows, and they are inflating and deflating as their various layers are accessed, measured per click in real-time. This is the ‘Pulse’ of the site. It includes quick links to other pages within the site. So cool!
Clicking on the “Feeds” link takes you to the live feeds from Twitter and Facebook all collected in one place. From there you can connect with your friends (and make new ones!) as you talk about the latest True Blood information. It keeps you up to date on trending topics, most popular topics of discussion, links to GetGlue, and the most popular by hashtags.
Visualizer is the coolest thing. Clicking on the link takes you to a microsite that includes “interactive, dynamic visualizations of trending topics, keywords and hashtags. These topics can be moved around the screen. Users can hover over Twitter avatars to see their tweets on those topics.” (CNN)Watch the blood drip down your screen with the latest conversations going on. Ew, but super sweet!
Click on the “Conversation” link to jump in on live chats with the stars and showrunners of HBO’s series’. Coming soon is a live chat with True Blood’s Janina Gavankar. Here is an opportunity for fans and stars to interact. What fun, huh? “What’s most compelling about these live commentaries and Q&A sessions is that they will be timed alongside replays of popular programming and archived for re-watching.
In other words, users that want to catch up on a Twitter commentary with a costume designer or writer from their favorite show can do that alongside a rerun, instead of having to interrupt the flow of the show the first time it debuts.” This could spark some really fun conversations of our own over in our forum.
Finally, the “Connections” link is where you’ll be able to find “fast links to blogs, Facebook and Twitter pages, GetGlue checkins, YouTube pages and more.”
HBO Connect is just getting started as I said in the beginning of this post, but they have plans for a lot more as fans try this out and give their feedback. One thing HBO knows how to do is listen to the fans’ ideas and get into the playground with them. I love that about them! It’s what sets them apart from any other cable or network company on television today.
More detailed information can be found at Mashable.com. So come on over with True-Blood.net and get connected!
