CSN Chicago, Arktan Launch Interactive Real-Time Social Product ‘Team Pulse’

Comcast SportsNet Chicago and Arktan announced a partnership around interactive real-time social experiences for fans of Chicago Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, and Bears, using ‘Team Pulse,’ CSN Chicago’s most social media-centric product to-date, powered by Arktan’s social modules and visualizations.

CSN Chicago’s team partners each have their own page powered by Team Pulse, where fans can engage in live chat, second-screen, and 24/7 social experiences. Fans can interact with the most relevant and highest quality curated real-time social content from players, bloggers and fans before, during, and after live telecast of games on TV.

Team Pulse incorporates dynamic, real-time visualizations and social web conversation from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram on the pages. Fans can interact with onsite real-time multimedia social content around their favorite teams, and share their comments back on Twitter and Facebook.

The real-time trending features give fans always the most up-to-date view of what players and topics are trending. Fans can use the trending features also as a discovery tool to explore deeper layers of social content. The curated Instagram photos along with dynamic, real-time pulse and bar graph visualizations further deepen the fan engagement by adding a visual dimension to the real-time social interaction.

“We did not want to build a social product solely for the sake of building a social product,” said Rick Racela, Program Manager of Social Media for NBC Sports Regional Networks.  “Our goal was to build a utility with an emphasis on user experience and allow fans to keep their finger on the entire pulse of their team in a meaningful way.”

Rahul Aggarwal, Arktan’s CEO and Co-Founder, said this: “CSN Chicago has added a whole new dimension to real-time social sports experiences in the industry with the introduction of Team Pulse. Arktan is proud to be partnering with CSN Chicago to realize the forward looking vision of Team Pulse.”

The successful strategic partnership between CSN Chicago and Arktan around Team Pulse showcases the two companies’ leading capabilities in bringing sports fans highly engaging and interactive real-time social experiences.

T.K. Gore, Senior Director of Digital Media, CSN Chicago: “We launched Pulse based on the groundswell of our fans desire to connect and interact via social technology during live sports telecasts. We’re thrilled to partner with Arktan in developing a cutting-edge product to serve and entertain the passionate viewers and fans of the Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox and Bears. We look forward to developing more social TV products with NBC Sports Group and our regional sports network colleagues around the country.”