VH1 introduces "co-viewing" app for iPad

I am intrigued by this growing trend of "co-viewing" or "second screen" mobile apps. These are apps designed to be used while you're watching or doing something else, either something like enjoying a live concert or watching a movie or TV show. We've seen a few of these before, but VH1 has released an app called VH1 Co-Star that's designed exactly for this type of experience.

Mashable has a pretty good write-up -- while you watch the show itself, the app feeds you tweets and other information that goes along with what you're watching. There's even a "DVR" feature where you can get information streamed as if it were live from shows that you're not watching live.

The app's free, of course, and you probably don't have any reason to download it unless you're a big VH1 fan. But as I said, this trend of using mobile apps to expand a viewing experience is intriguing -- more and more people are using their mobile devices, especially the iPad, while some other media is playing in the background, and apps like this both increase engagement and provide a deeper experience for the viewer. [They also motivate viewers to watch the event live, rather than DVRing and time-shifting, which means better ratings and more ad impressions for the channels. –Ed.]

I suspect we'll see much more of this in the future -- sports specifically seems like a big field (so to speak) for growth on this one. We have seen sports organizations like MLB and ESPN take advantage of Apple's iOS store, but I think this is a prime area for them to try and implement soon.