TriggerTV: exploiting social user journeys within an interactive TV system

In this paper we describe our experiences of developing and monitoring an Internet Television (IPTV) service in order to determine to what extent the system can provide useful hints (or triggers) that are exploitable by Content Distribution Networks (CDNs). Uniquely, our system integrates with social networking services and builds on the social graph to help form an understanding of user behaviour and potentially socially-motivated trends. By combining these attributes we are able to represent a social user journey for each user of the system which we seek to exploit for identifying potential trigger conditions. The paper concludes with an initial analysis of data collected during a five month trial of the service with staff and students of our University.