Watching Together but Apart: Shared Video Experiences During COVID-19 Outbreak

Watching television together in the living room is a joyful and social activity that most people can relate to. As a result of the ongoing COVID19 outbreak, many friends and family members are separated due to national lockdowns and quarantine. In this demo we show how a web application can support real-time socially based video-content by facilitating a virtual living room for friends and family where they can watch synchronized video content while interacting. Our prototype uses readily available web-technologies, allowing users to get started in just one click by logging in with their existing YouTube account. Data from the YouTube API are then fed into novel recommender algorithms that then suggest videos based on the user’s collective interests.
Info available at https://beta.letswatch.net