Following up an effort from last fall, Comcast will again enable X1 customers to vote for finalists for NBC’s The Voice using their remote controls.

Starting with tonight’s episode of The Voice, at 8 p.m. ET on NBC (the show will air on Mondays and Tuesdays at that time), customers can cast votes with their X1 remotes, including remotes with integrated voice capabilities.

In a new twist, Cox Communications customers on the MSO’s new “Contour” set-top box platform, enabled through a syndication deal with Comcast’s X1 platform, will also have access to the TV-based voting feature.

RELATED: Cox: 1M Subs Now on X1-Powered ‘Contour’ TV Product

“X1 customers will also be able to cast up to ten votes per artist during the broadcast, on par with the show’s other voting methods,” Comcast’s Zane Vella, who joined the company via its acquisition of deep metadata company Watchwith, explained in this blog post.

RELATED: Going Deep With Metadata (subscription required)

“After a customer casts a vote (and/or votes) on X1, each interaction gets passed over to NBC’s official voting partner Telescope to ensure they’re tallied alongside votes from other platforms,” he added. 

Adding another interactive element to the TV mix, Comcast and NBC said customers on the MSO’s X1 platform can now use their remote controls to pull up ballots and cast votes for their favorite artists during live telecasts of The Voice. The feature for X1 debuts with tonight’s episode, which starts at 8 p.m. ET.

All X1 boxes will support the voting feature. Comcast's X1 customers can vote via the voice remote by saying, “Vote for The Voice,” into their X1 voice remotes, or by pressing the “info” button on any X1 remote.

The ballot, appearing on the right side of the TV screen, categorizes the artists by team, allowing viewers to cast a vote for their favorite performers. Viewers can cast one vote per artist on X1 during the live broadcast and up until on hour after the conclusion of that night’s show.

Comcast said X1 is currently the only partner of NBC’s The Voice to offer a TV-based voting option (Comcast owns NBC).

About 57% of Comcast’s residential pay TV subscriber base, which stood at 21.34 million at the end of Q3, is on X1. Comcast has deployed more than 17 million X1 voice remotes so far.

Comcast hasn’t announced when it will extend similar voting capabilities to other shows from NBC or other programmers, but it’s already using X1 to deliver interactive features like its sports app, as well as widgets for weather, horoscopes, news, traffic, and access to voice mail and the Xfinity My Account app.

“We look forward to amplifying the excitement of the live shows even more by giving fans of watching The Voice on X1 a new way to interact with the show this season,” Daniel Spinosa, vice president, entertainment services for Comcast Cable, said in a statement. We believe X1 offers customers the best in-home entertainment experience, and this is another great example of how we are partnering with networks to leverage the platform to create new interactive experiences.”

“The Voice has always been a show that leverages the digital space, and each season we continue to innovate on ways to engage fans across platforms,” added Rob Hayes, EVP, digital at NBC Entertainment. “The X1 partnership, which gives audiences a seamless interactive viewing experience, is a natural extension of The Voice’s brand as one of the most social shows on television.”

Layer3 TV, the Denver-based MVPD, has launched Shop by Remote, an interactive TV app from HSN.

They said the new capability lets Layer3 TV customers browse for and buy HSN products with the remote control. Those customers can choose size, color and quantity from more than 40,000 items that’s available on the app.

Layer3 TV customers can pay by remote using the credit card they have on file with their HSN account. Layer3 TV has more detail about that app posted here. 

Per HSN’s web site, several other MVPDs and co-ops support HSN’s Shop by Remote app, including AT&T/U-verse, Blue Ridge Communications, Comcast, Optimum (Altice USA), Hawaiian Telecom, Verizon, and the Palmetto Rural Telephone Cooperative, among others.

Layer3 TV said the Shop by Remote app joins other apps that have been integrated on its set-top box platform, including Xumo, iHeartRadio, Pandora and YouTube.

RELATED: Layer3 TV Expands OTT Slate With Xumo

Layer3 TV is available in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington D.C., Dallas/Ft. Worth, and Denver (Longmont), and has plans to launch in New York. It has not announced subscriber numbers. 

WinView, a startup that has built a free mobile app that lets users win cash prizes by making situational predictions during live TV sporting events, said it has raised a $12 million “B” round from a group that includes Graham Holdings, Discovery Communications, LionTree Partners, and Ted Leonsis’ Monumental Sports & Entertainment.

WinView said the funding round was led by former TiVo and NBC exec Tom Rogers, who is also executive chairman of WinView. With the new round factored in, WinView has raised about $20 million.

WinView said it will use the funding to drive further development and marketing of its skill-based mobile app for a wide range of pro sports, including baseball, basketball and football.

WinView Games, an ad-supported, free app, covers sporting contests via in a live studio by a team of producers based on what is happening in real time. As an example, users can predict outcomes of a football game, including propositions such as the opening coin toss, outcomes of field goals, and placing wagers (in the form of points) on whether a running back might fumble the ball during the current quarter.

“It’s an incredibly skill-oriented game,” Rogers told Multichannel News last year when WinView announced it had raised about $6.5 million, and a $3.4 million “A” round led by Rogers and former Cablevision Systems (now Altice USA) vice chairman Hank Ratner, who is now president and CEO of Independent Sports and Entertainment, a New York-based firm that represents more than 300 athletes across several major pro sports.

RELATED: Betting on the Future of Enhanced TV (subscription required)

WinView currently offers apps for iOS and Android. The company said it has a portfolio of 40 “foundational patents” covering the synchronization of the second-screen with TV broadcasts and commercials. 

The new investors “is a major validation of our live TV sports prediction platform and its upside potential to engage TV viewers in a new way to enjoy televised sports," Rogers said in a statement. "The WinView Games app fills a sports culture void by converting fans and TV viewers from spectators into play-along-live participants. Following last fall's successful start, these investments will enable us to take a significant step forward toward reaching our mobile, social and gaming business goals while capitalizing on fan excitement across virtually all professional sports including basketball, baseball and football. We also will strive to be part of the in-stadium experience, enabling fans to predict plays from their seats."

"WinView's products complement Discovery's goal to reach and engage our superfans around the world and across all screens,” added David Zaslav, Discovery’s president and CEO.

Marking its first launch on a video platform that is not powered by Ericsson Mediaroom, ZoneTV said it has integrated and debuted its first interactive app on DirecTV’s system.

That app, Santa Tracker, arrives amid the holiday season and is being integrated with DirecTV’s electronic program guide. The app supports several interactive elements and components, including a Christmas Countdown Calendar, Holiday-themed movies, “Rudolph Radio,” multiple games, and English- and Spanish-language read-along books and sign-alongs. On Christmas Eve, the app will also show a global map that children can use to tracks the Santa Claus’s progress.

“Combining elements of on-demand, interactivity into a very robust experience, kids can come back continuously,” Jeff Weber, ZoneTV’s CEO, said, hopeful that Santa Tracker is the first of many apps it will offer on the DirecTV platform.

RELATED: Jeff Weber Named CEO of ZoneTV

ZoneTV, a company formerly known as ES3, got its start by integrating apps with Mediaroom, the IPTV middleware platform that Ericsson acquired from Microsoft in the fall of 2013. In addition to AT&T U-verse TV, ZoneTV also has footholds on Mediaroom-powered video platforms from Telefónica, MTS, Hawaiian Telecom, Telus, Frontier Communications and CenturyLink.

ZoneTV, which notched a $4.1 million seed round led by Best Funds about a year ago, has been pushing ahead on a plan to expand beyond Mediaroom. Its launch on DirecTV, acquired by AT&T in July 2015, is its first launch outside of Mediaroom.

RELATED: AT&T Clinches DirecTV Deal

Weber, an exec who previously helped to lead the U-verse division at AT&T, said the Christmas-themed app can run on DirecTV’s HR44 receiver and above, giving it access to the bulk of the boxes/receivers that have been deployed by the satellite operator.

Weber said ZoneTV’s experience in porting “digital-first” apps and content to the set-top is transferable to a wide range of pay TV operator ecosystems.

ZoneTV hasn’t announced where it intends to land next, but possible candidates could include platforms such as TiVo, Comcast’s X1, as well as the next-gen video serving being developed and deployed by Charter Communications in partnership with ActiveVideo. AT&T is also working on a next-gen architecture (subscription required) that aims to bring unity to its IPTV and satellite TV platforms.

RELATED: Arris, Charter Close $135M ActiveVideo Acquisition

“We’ll be able to play in multiple operating systems,” Weber said. “We have really deep expertise in taking digital content into an operator’s environment,” he added, noting that ZoneTV is in talks with “some of the largest cable providers.”

ZoneTV is also moving ahead on a strategy to create “dynamic channels” that can be integrated with an MVPD’s set-top box-based programming guide. Weber said he expects to have more detail to share at CES 2017, which gets underway in January in Las Vegas. 

Interlude, a New York-based startup that develops interactive TV shows with a personal twist, said it has locked in a “strategic investment” from Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Studios.

The amount of MGM’s investment was not disclosed, but it was part of an $18.2 million round in Interlude by Warner Music Group, Samsung and returning investors that include Sequoia Capital and Intel Capital. Tied to the investment, MGM chairman and CEO Gary Barber has signed on a “board observer” at Interlude.

Interlude said it will use the funding to broaden content development in areas such as drama, comedy, pop culture, news and music.

Interlude adds interactive elements to the mix by letting users engage directly with programs, by answering polls and questions, selecting camera angles and making decision on the direction of the story being told. Speaking at the Next TV Summit in New York, Interlude president and COO Jim Spare said viewers spend an average of seven minutes clicking on different outcomes.

“We’re finding that young audiences love the idea of being able to talk to a video and interact with a video,” he said then. “It’s truly personal and it’s driving retention and engagement rates.”

“Though video has always been a very powerful storytelling medium, it has not, to date, been able to adjust and adapt from viewer to viewer,” Yoni Bloch, founder and CEO of Interlude, said in a statement about today’s funding announcement. “But we are aiming to allow filmmakers and content to form a unique connection with each viewer.  This has the potential to change the relationship between film and individual audience members.”

“MGM continues to expand its footprint by identifying innovative platforms and technologies, such as Interlude, to introduce new audiences to our creative content,” added Barber. 

MTV and BBC are among examples of programmers that have developed Interlude-powered content.

Comcast said it has tweaked and enhanced its set-top-based X1 Sports app for the  NFL and NCAA football seasons, promising it will feature more real-time data and visuals that sync up with the on-field action while also providing key pre- and post-game info.

Update: Some Comcast customers expected the new app to be ready for NCAA football action on Saturday, Sept. 5, but the operator confirmed that the X1 Sports app for College Football will live by next weekend's games (September 12).  Comcast noted that the update for the Extras app required a massive upgrade of stats and, given that there is no-preseason for NCAA, that it needed a full slate of games to complete its final testing. But Comcast acknowledged that it did get questions on social media about it over the weekend and said most subs were happy to hear it's on the way and excited about the upgrade.

Comcast and Philadelphia-based tech partner OneTwoSee launched the capability in July with “Baseball Extras,” a feature that illustrates info such as pitcher-hitter and team-to-team matchup info, tracks fantasy points and computes win probabilities. Comcast and OneTwoSee also did some similar work on some NFL games from last season, including post-season games. OneTwoSee’s platform, which can also work on mobile devices, takes data from sporting events and converts them into easy-to-understand visuals.

For football, the app will do that sort of thing, and more, Preston Smalley, executive director, product at Comcast Silicon Valley, explained in this blog post. The football-focused app will present pre-game player and team comparisons, injury reports, fantasy stats, win/loss probabilities, and post-game analysis, including a drive chart summary.

He said customers will also be able to keep the X1 Sports app on the TV screen and track their favorite teams regardless of what channel is tuned to.

While X1 Sports Extras is currently offered on the TV via X1, Smalley told Multichannel News earlier this year that Comcast also has interest to extend the same functionality to apps for tablets, smartphones and PCs.

Comcast is also working on revamped versions of the X1 Sports app for NASCAR and soccer, a spokesman noted.

Comcast is also testing a DVR In-Game Highlights feature that lets viewers jump to big plays in recorded football games and soccer matches, and recently added an option that extends live sporting event recordings in 30-minute increments when it’s detected that the game is running longer than its scheduled airtime.

X1 Sports Extras is “native” to the X1 guide, meaning it comes in over Comcast’s managed IP network, not via a public Internet connection.

Comcast has not announced how many customers are on X1, but the MSO has been deploying about 30,000 X1 boxes per day. 

Domino's Pizza's new marketing blast for multi-platform pizza ordering revives decades-old promises about ordering pizza via your interactive TV or online screen. A lot of dough has gone into ideas for interactive pizza purchases over the years. From '80s vintage ventures such as Prodigy and Qube to '90s ads on Oceanic Cable and EON, countless offers have been tossed around to entice viewers to order pizzas via whatever new system was available.  (Time Warner's Oceanic system in Hawaii still provides pizza ordering on Channel 998.)

I used to lump them all together as the "inevitable pizza screen," since such plans popped up in almost every launch of a new interactive venture.  Some ideas were downright laughable, although at the time they were fluffed up as totally innovative. My favorite (perhaps it came from a company called TV Answer) used the boxy alpha-geometric graphics of the day: As you clicked buttons, colorful lumps of something (representing pepperoni, peppers, onions, extra cheese, etc.) dropped onto a red circle, giving you the impression you were building your own pizza. Another "click," and it was ready for delivery (so long as you had set up an account with the pizzeria).

It seemed that everyone wanted a slice of the project, if not of the pie itself.

For the most part, the ancient pizza screens were pushed by technology vendors, presaging the era of e-commerce and hyping the capabilities -- such as they were -- of the interactive technology.

It was never clear that many (or even any) pizzas were actually peddled via all the attempts.

That's why last week's Domino's campaign launch rang such a nostalgic bell amongst interactive veterans who lived through the countless previous pizza promises. The global pizza purveyor Dominos began running TV commercials showing how to order pizza via Samsung Smart TV sets, texting, smart watches and Ford SYNC (also useful for drive-by pizza pickup).

The commercials feature actresses Eva Longoria (in pajamas watching her smart TV with empty Domino's boxes arrayed around her) and Sarah Hyland,  actor Clark Gregg (on an Android smart watch), the Seattle Seahawks' Richard Sherman and NASCAR driver Joey Logano, each touting the ease of ordering a pizza from various platforms. An online-only spot offers a glimpse of the entire campaign.  

Underlying the pizza pitch is the Domino's Anyware technology, which recognizes "Pizza Profile" members, i.e., customers who pre-register their preferences, delivery address and billing information.  Domino's introduced its digital intentions at the 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show. Visitors wondered at the time why the pizza chain was so visible at that venue, but in retrospect, the tactic worked: Domino's made contact with key platforms operators that are now part of the pizza plan. With nearly $9 billion in global sales last year, Domino's is in a position to cut deals.

In retrospect, the constant promises of on-screen pizza ordering served their function -- although the world was not hungry for such service at the time. Many of the '80s and '90s ventures envisioned the local pizzeria serving up the cheesy pies, even though such small shops then and now lack the technology to deliver such services. Domino's, along with Pizza Hut, Papa John's Pizza and other national chains, have provided online ordering for several years, especially as computer graphics improved and gimmicks declined. Managing big data has also been crucial to these efforts.

Perhaps the most valuable by-product of the new Domino's commercial campaign is that it recognizes the wide use of smart devices (TVs, watches, handsets) -- and is aimed at that likely and jumbo-sized demographic, which largely matches the pizza-buying audience.

For a lot of other delivery-dependent diners, there's a pizzeria magnet with a phone number stuck to the refrigerator door.  That small "device" has all the info they need to call in a pizza order now.

OneTwoSee, a Philadelphia-based multiscreen startup that specializes in interactive apps that sync up contextual data with live sports broadcasts, said it has inked a new multi-year deal to continue to produce interactive elements for FoxSports.com and Fox Sports’ coverage of a MLB, NBA, NCAA basketball and NHL games.

Financial terms were not disclosed. Under the new deal, OneTwoSee’s apps will continue to bring interactive enhancements to Fox Sports’ GameTrax product. Those apps, which include player trackers, win probability and momentum meters, team and player comparisons, and social media modules, are offered in pre-, live and post-game forms for every game of each sport.

OneTwoSee, a company founded in 2010 that has raised about $3 million so far, makes and licenses white-label products and apps that can present real-time data and stats pertaining to sporting events and presenting them on devices such as tablets, PCs and IP-connected set-tops and TVs.

Other OneTwoSee customers including Comcast, which is using the vendor’s platform for its Sports Extras app on the MSO’s X1 platform (subscription required), NBC Sports, Canada’s TSN, YES Network, Comcast SportsNet and LG Electronics, among others.

“Since its creation, FOX Sports has been known as the cutting-edge trendsetter in sports media,” said Chris Reynolds, co-founder and CEO of OneTwoSee, in a statement. “Since OneTwoSee is the pacesetter in developing fan engagement products, its makes for a great partnership to continue to develop and provide FOX with innovative and enhanced experiences for their GameTrax application.”

Microsoft is bringing self-service into the mix with the launch of  Bing Pulse 2.0, the latest version of a real-time voting platform that has been used by several major broadcasters and cable networks. 

With Bing Pulse 2.0, still in beta form, Microsoft hopes to expand the reach and diversify the size and scope of partners that can tap into an audience feedback technology that’s been used by customers such as CNN, Fox News, CNBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, and the Clinton Global Initiative, among others.

Microsoft said its new version can essentially scale up or down – from ten people at meeting to a group, to a 5,000 at a ballroom, to a national TV audience.

Using real-time polling and feedback, including an option for the viewer to agree or disagree as often as every five seconds, the platform can essentially check the shifting sentiment of an audience.  The system , which has already tabulated more than 35 million votes, according to Microsoft estimates, can also be used to ask polling questions. As data is collected anonymously, the system uses on-screen graphics to show how the audience is responding.

One aim is to keep TV audiences engaged using the same second screen devices that have historically done a good job at distracted them.

As for the new self-service element, interested parties just need to sign up on via the Bing Pulse Web interface, where Microsoft then sets up and hosts the event via its cloud-based Azure platform. Audience members are then directed where to go using their PCs or mobile devices and to answer a few non-identifiable screener questions (such as gender, education or affiliation) before they can start pulsing away.

Producers have the ability to customize their Bing Pulse events, integrate the feature into their social media handles, or embed it as an iFrame into an event Web page.

“It doesn’t require a lot of high-tech mechanics,” said Josh Gottheimer, general manager of corporate strategy at Microsoft. “We’ve been perfecting it for almost two years.”

To spur interest, Microsoft is offering the 2.0 version at no cost through Jan. 31, 2015, with set-up access initially limited to the U.S., the United Kingdom and India (anyone can participate so long as they have a Web-enabled device and a way to view the event).

Once the brief, free run ends, the Silver package (30 Pulse minutes, two poll questions and unlimited participants and votes) runs $200-plus, while Gold (60 Pulse minutes, five poll questions and unlimited participants and votes) fetches $500 or more. A Platinum level tier goes unlimited across the board, and sells for $1,000-plus.