Comcast’s Tunerfish is opening to the public today; and debuting a deal with HBO for their show True Blood. Tunerfish, which was demoed at TechCrunch Disrupt a few weeks ago, was incubated by the Plaxo team (Comcast acquired Plaxo in 2008) and is led by former Plaxo VP of Marketing John McCrea.
Tunerfish allows people to share with a single click what they are watching, on their social network(s) of choice in real time. Much like Twitter does for tweets, Tunerfish also displays which TV shows are trending among your friends (in the last hour, 24 hours, etc.), which gives users a way to discover shows they are not yet familiar with. The site also encourages people to check-in to shows on both its web-based app and iPhone app, much like you would in Foursquare or Gowalla.
Using Tunerfish, True Blood’s fans will have the opportunity to earn “Truebie” and “Maker” badges by Tweeting on the site while they watch and influencing their friends to do the same. Tunerfish will use these check-ins to determine and reward loyal fans with the badges.
HBO’s is also launching a True Blood Twitter Microsite, which allows True Blood fans to Tweet and access live conversations about new episodes while watching them on TV. Called Bloodcopy.com, the site will feature weekly Twitter “hosts” that will live Tweet during each episode initiating conversations, interacting with fans and facilitating giveaways. The microsite was built using Twitter’s @anywhere technology.
