While there are still portions of the site where "VJs" can earn points from others in the room for spinning YouTube videos, its focus has shifted to social viewing of content from sites such as Hulu, Vevo, Livestream, Ustream and Justin.tv.
Now users can go to Chill.com in order to, for instance, watch Glee with company. While the show plays, their avatars can talk to others in the room through a public group chat or private chat.
"There's a lot in it for the publishers," Chill.com founder Brian Norgard says. "They want to get social...just posting it on YouTube isn't enough anymore."
Social screenings of Internet TV mean that a group of viewers need to start the video at the same time. To clear this hurdle, Chill.com has set up several viewing times a day for Hulu's television shows. Users can sign up to be reminded before a show starts. They can similarly sign up to be notified when upcoming live events start and can subscribe to be notified when their favorite live steaming hosts are broadcasting.
In Chill.com's heyday -- after its much buzzed about launch in August -- Norgard says that up to 4,000 VJs would be in a room at once. Pairing with a wider range of content sites expands Chill.com's revenue options, but will it also expand this audience?
One of the perks of watching television online is being able to do it on your own schedule. Adding specific watch times might not be appealing to the online TV crowd. On the other hand, viewers have long been clamoring for social TV, and live-streamed events run on a specific schedule regardless of whether there's an opportunity to chat with other viewers.
Norgard sees Chill.com becoming the social home for premium web content.
"There have been a lot of people doing interesting things around social TV, but what people really want is an integrated solutions."
