Wayin, a Denver-based startup co-founded by Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy, announced today it has purchased Buenos Aires-based Comenta TV, a social media analytics startup in South America. The price was not disclosed.
Wayin is a startup that collects social media postings from sites like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook and filters them according to criteria established by brands. The content is then displayed on a brand’s website or mobile app. Wayin also can display streams on broadcast TV screens or on large screens at events like scoreboards at football games, and the original social media can be paired with ads or content promoted by clients.
The company says it is able to collect, curate, and measure semantic data in real-time in a way that allows customers to identify the optimal moment to promote themselves “on any device, in any venue, from any site, and across any screen.”
McNealy and his team see a lot of potential and money in turning social media postings into branding opportunities and scouring them for useful data.
“The next wave of business-to-consumer innovation will be built upon the backbone of real-time social data,” McNealy, who is a Wayin board member, said in the release.
Wayin is targeting TV networks, big box retailers, automakers, professional sports teams, and media publishers, and its clients include Chevrolet, the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, and the NFL’s Denver Broncos.
Comenta TV was appealing to Wayin because of the tools it developed for measuring and acting upon Twitter activity, the release said. Comenta TV also has relationships with Latin American television networks and provides on-air Twitter integration for popular shows.
“We looked at a lot of options and found Comenta TV to be unique in providing television producers real-time intelligence into how audiences are engaging with their shows,” Wayin CEO Elaine Wood said. “Wayin sees this as an indispensable value to producers and networks in their quest to further engage their audiences while maintaining creative freedom.”
Wayin reportedly has 35 employees with the addition of Comenta’s staff. Both companies were founded in 2011.
