Social TV Startup Kwarter Raises $4 Million To Help Broadcasters And Brands Build Second-Screen Apps

TV viewers increasingly are using their mobile phones while watching TV, mostly ignoring commercials while doing so. As a result, a number of startups are emerging to try to get viewers’ attention during those times, instead of letting them play games or do email during ad breaks. To meet this demand for interactive experiences between the phone and TV, social TV startup Kwarter has raised $4 million from Deutsche Telekom venture arm T-Venture, as well as Kinetic Ventures, to help grow its platform and expand the number of partners it works with.

There are no shortage of social TV apps out there: Startups like Zeebox and GetGlue and Viggle are trying to change the way that viewers communicate with each other while watching TV, or at least to tap in on changing user behavior that is already occurring thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices and tablets in the living room.

To date, that’s mostly meant rolling out consumer-facing apps that use check-ins or built-in chat and messaging clients to lock users into discussing TV on their devices. But San Francisco-based Kwarter has a different approach to unlocking the second screen: Rather than try to build a B2C second-screen app on its own, it’s partnering with broadcasters and brands to enable them to reach their viewers and customers more directly.

That’s becoming ever-more important as those brands and broadcasters are seeing their main audience become distracted by email, Twitter, Angry Birds, and all the other things that users do on their mobile phones instead of watching commercials. It’s all about keeping viewers engaged, even if that means keeping them engaged on some sort of branded mobile app.

Kwarter’s value prop is in providing a platform that partners can use to quickly roll up and integrate with their existing broadcasts or advertising campaigns. Initial rollouts have been focused on sports, with user polls and in-app games, as well as built-in messaging. Users can accrue points across different apps, and then can cash them in for real-world rewards.

Partners include broadcasters like Turner Broadcasting, which leveraged Kwarter’s technology for its Social Dugout app, launched to coincide with the MLB playoffs last year. They also include brand marketers like Bud Light and InBev, which used Kwarter’s platform for its Bud Light Sports Fan app. As the official beer of the NFL, the Bud Light app launched to lure beer drinkers and football fans to take part in second-screen activities, but it will also be used during other sports that Bud Light sponsors.

Kwarter’s new funding brings total money raised to $5 million, including $1 million in convertible notes. The company was founded in 2011 and has nine employees. It expects to more than double that, ending 2013 with more than 20, as it goes after promising new deals with other brands and broadcasters.

Kwarter builds fun, social, and rewarding mobile experiences to engage viewers and celebrate TV’s most powerful moments.

› Learn more jQuery(function() { jQuery("#tabs-crunchbase").tabs(); });

Codecademy Is Making It Even Easier to Learn to Build Apps

CodecademyZach Sims, co-founder of Codecademy.

When building apps today, most programmers will be calling in data and tools from other services like Facebook and Twitter.

They do this through a collection of things that are called Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs. The result is being able to embed a YouTube video, or log in through Facebook for an app, or any other number of operations based on existing technology.

The goal, so to speak, is to not reinvent the wheel. When learning to program, deciphering the API landscape is a critical part of that — and can be daunting at first. That’s why Codecademy, a New York startup that builds Web apps that teach individuals to code, is trying to make that a little easier.

It’s adding a suite of tutorials and lessons on how to deploy APIs in basic code and applications. The idea is to more quickly build a working application that actually does something, which helps reinforce the learning process, said co-founder Zach Sims.

In the future, the goal is to enable any company with an API to build a lesson for Codecademy and teach even amateur programmers how to deploy their services.

We caught up with Sims to find out more about why this is a big deal for individuals looking to learn how to code.

WSJ: What’s the point of adding this?

Zach Sims: We’ve always tried to get people from zero to building something as fast as possible. It reinforces the learning process. Up until now the easiest thing to build is a Javascript game or website. But here’s always a long lead time before you feel that “a-ha” moment.

With APIs you can build something and see it immediately, you can build something on top of someone else’s stack.

WSJ: Can you give us some examples?

ZS: With Twilio, it’s really simple to build a program that calls your phone. I think the same applies with YouTube and a lot of other APIs and see the results directly. It’s a really awesome part of the learning process, and something that reinforces learning, you’re experimenting with tons of different technology.

WSJ: How many APIs are open to start?

ZS: We’re not creating these lessons in house, the ones creating the lessons know their APIs best. We kept this quiet so we can get all our ducks in a row and launch with a set of learners that we’re happy with. We’re soliciting anyone who wants to add their API. The goal is to build a platform where anyone can add a lesson for their API.

WSJ: Can you give us an update on your user numbers?

ZS: The number we’ve used for the past while is we have millions of users. The number is vague but keeps growing. I think at this point billions of lines of code have been written on Codecademy. We’re amassing a ton of data on what people are learning to do write.

WSJ: How many extra steps does it take from here to build a full-fledged app?

ZS: We have a ton of people that go through the site and build native apps with javascript or CSS. We’ve seen a lot of iOS apps come out. There’s one called Sorkit, they ported it to iOS and Android, it’s had a few hundred thousand downloads. It is something interesting for us to get people from zero to mobile app. I think thing with APIs is it’s a building block. You can call a phone and play a YouTube video on the phone.

WSJ: How hard is it to actually deploy an API?

ZS: Definitely not easy, but I think we made it pretty easy to understand. Actually integrating Facebook Connect as a log-in, it’s difficult. You have to deal with your own user tables and structure. A lot of the basic queries you can really do once you’ve learned the basics of JavaScript.

I think this is one step on the way of understanding it. Our mission has always been to create things and learn a skill to find a job through coding. It makes it easier for people to understand the basics and encourages them to go deeper and learn. Starting at the level of abstraction of APIs should make it easier for users to understand programming.

WSJ: How long does it take to go from knowing nothing to building aps?

ZS: You can start building a website in a couple hours. You can build a Javascript game in a couple hours. It’s a misnomer that it’s easy. It’s obviously not easy. It’s easy to get started. If you put the time and effort in you can be doing that in a month. The simple, build-a-website stuff, if you sit down on a Saturday morning and don’t get up until six in the evening, you can build a nice website. We just get rid of all the things that keep you from getting started. I don’t want to have to worry if Eclipse is a better text editor for writing code than TextEdit, I want to just dive into programming.