Dijit Media acquires Miso

After 3 years of building and pioneering experiences that make TV watching more social and more fun, we are excited to announce that Miso is being acquired by Dijit Media, the makers of NextGuide.  Over the last few years, we have innovated, experimented, and pushed forth the vision for the social TV and second screen markets.  We think back to introducing experiences like “check-in” to TV, pioneering synchronized “second screen” TV watching, we have been fortunate to work with such a vibrant community to make Miso a definitive brand in the “future of TV” industry. Thank you.

We’re so happy to have found a great home for Miso where our site, app, and community can continue to thrive.  Dijit will continue to maintain and operate Miso’s site, our apps, and SideShows.  We will be shutting down Quips.

We could never have made it this far without our amazing community.  There are a lot of people to be thankful for but it starts with you all – our users, our fans, and our advocates.  Thank you for tweeting and being with us from the very beginning.  We are excited to see what Dijit does with Miso and continue innovating.

Happy TV Watching,

Somrat & Tim

Co-founders, Miso

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Tune In to TV with SideShows

From the start, our vision at Miso was to make TV better. People love sharing what they’re watching but there’s a whole lot more to your favorite shows. We’re excited to share a new and fun way to watch TV: SideShows.

SideShows are interactive content experiences that play on your phone while you watch TV.

How many times have you wondered what song was playing on a show, or wanted to discuss who will win the Iron Chef Chairman Challenge? Maybe you’ve seen an actor before, but just can’t quite place where you’ve seen him. Or perhaps Phil Dunphy said something hilarious and you want to share it with your friends.

With SideShows, TV watching is simply better and more fun.

We’ve partnered with DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse so Miso can automatically find what you’re watching and sync it to your phone. Of course, SideShows work while you watch a show live or when you catch up on DVR: it doesn’t matter when or how you watch.

Here’s how it works:

We have created an open publishing platform that allows anybody to create a SideShow. Whether you’re the expert superfan, a TV blogger, comedian, celebrity or a network…Miso gives you a simple publishing platform to build your own second screen application. By giving access to everyone, we believe the best experiences will emerge. Not everyone can be on TV, but everyone can create a SideShow.

Find out more here.

Early networks that have created a SideShow include Showtime, FOX, Food Network, DIRECTV’s Audience Network, Halogen, Science Channel, and CBS Television Distribution. You can check out SideShows of some of your favorite programs like Dexter, Bones, Damages, The Next Iron Chef, and many more to come.

SideShows will be available in the next version of Miso, so stay tuned!

As always, we want to hear your thoughts. Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, or GoMiso.com.

Khosla Invests in Miso to Lead TV 2.0

It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come since January. We announced our Series A round, approached 100K users, announced a partnership with OWN and introduced the Miso API.

Now, we’re excited to announce that we’re bringing on Khosla Ventures as a new investor in Miso as a part of an additional $4M in financing. Khosla Ventures led the round with Google Ventures and Hearst Interactive Media, and to date we have raised $6M.

Khosla Ventures is known for its reputation for building great companies, such as Square and Meebo, and we’re excited to be a part of that same roster. We’re grateful for the rare opportunity to learn from Vinod Khosla, one of the greatest investors, product thinkers, team builders and entrepreneur over the last few decades.

“People are changing the way they watch television. They are also on their phones and tablets, and this creates new opportunities for innovation in the second screen space. We feel that Miso is leading the way.”    –Vinod Khosla

For the next year, we’re confident that with his leadership and working with the Khosla team we’ll grow our unique community of a quarter-million strong to tens of millions and much more.

Here’s a quick look back at the past year:

• We’ve continued to focus on deeper engagement and experiences that make TV watching better. We launched an app gallery, ratings, a chatter stream, and a user generated platform for people to create questions for each other.

• We’ve collaborated and innovated with key TV partners to deliver a true connected second screen experience. With partnerships from DIRECTV and AT&T U-Verse, our app communicates with the TV receiver to let you know what’s on your TV and where you are in the show. This makes the second screen experience more seamless and natural.

• We’ve provided a more extended experience to enrich TV. We’ve always believed a synchronized experience with your mobile devices and TV is a key part of Miso …and now it’s here. With Showtime’s Dexter as our first launch partner, now you can get interesting tidbits, facts, quotes, and more when you watch your show.

Quite a year for a team of twelve so far, and this doesn’t even cover the ability to synchronize Miso with the TV via audio, delivering social TV solutions on the TV, partnering with Facebook to make TV sharing even easier, and much more.

But we’re just scratching the surface. Stay tuned – we have a lot of new developments with the platform, partners and more coming. And we can’t wait to share them with you!

An Exciting Start to 2011

We’re thrilled to announce some amazing developments here at Miso.

• Google and Hearst Invest in Miso.  We are excited to announce that right at the end of 2010, we closed our Series A round, raising an additional $1.5M. The round was led by Google Ventures with Hearst Interactive Media also participating.  With this money, we plan to hire more engineers which will allow us to continue to innovate, build Miso, and improve our second screen platform.  While the last year was focused on building a ‘check-in’ foundation, in 2011, we will create more ways for people to engage around the second screen, secure more partnerships, and lead innovation around the intersection of social, TV, and the second screen.  We are 100% focused on making TV watching better by making it more social, more useful, and more fun.  In addition to the financing, Joe Kraus from Google Ventures and Scott Wolfgang from Hearst Interactive Media will be joining our board.  Joe, a Silicon Valley veteran, has been with us since our seed round and has been paramount in helping us to where we are today.  We’re excited to welcome Scott and Hearst Interactive Media to the Miso family.  Hearst, with its extensive media holdings, including ESPN, Lifetime Television, A&E Network, History and 29 local television stations, is certain to be a valuable partner for Miso to gain a deeper understanding of how we can provide more value to TV networks and TV content creators in addition to building a world-class second screen platform.

• Approaching 100K registered users & over 2M engagements. 2010 has been an exciting year for us.  In nine months, we have built presences on the iPhone, Android, iPad, and web and are quickly approaching 100K registered users with over 2M engagements to date.  In the last thirty days, we have seen over 400K engagements averaging about an engagement (including check-ins, comments, and ‘likes’) every 4 to 5 seconds.   We have a lot more to do to make Miso simpler, more social, and more fun, so look out for more in the coming months.  We are not even 1% of where we want to be.

• Introduction of Miso API. We have received hundreds of requests to create a Miso API, and it’s finally here!  With the the API, TV sites, TV manufacturers, set top boxes, or any developer can access Miso in the same way our applications work today.  Developers can develop new apps, integrate ‘check-in’ functionality into their own apps, and much more.  Widgets and RSS feeds will be coming soon as well!

• First partnership of 2011 with OWN. In 2010, we have delivered over a dozen network partnerships, and we are extremely excited to start 2011 by teaming up with OWN: the new Oprah Winfrey Network for a new reality series where ten contestants compete to get their very own show. Watch the premiere of Your OWN Show: Oprah’s Search for the Next TV Star on Friday at 9/8c on OWN to earn exclusive badges from Miso!

With CES starting tomorrow, new tablets being introduced, and new innovations on top of the TV, the opportunity to build an amazing second screen is now.  TVs are becoming internet enabled.  New guides, new remotes, more tablets – 2011 is the year we’ll see an incredible amount of innovation in the living room, and we are excited to be part of that revolution.

I wanted to personally thank the Miso community for being with us since day one and continuing to push us to think outside the box.  We have a lot more coming — some ideas might take off and some might fail — but we are maniacally focused on building something that will make TV watching better.  Stay tuned – no pun intended!

Somrat Niyogi
CEO
@sniyogi