CBS-owned TV.com was redesigned earlier this year and the site has been taking steps to become not just another place to watch TV, but a full-fledged social community. They even beat Hulu with Facebook Connect integration earlier this summer.
Now the site is launching a new way to keep track of what shows you want to watch and even where you want to watch them, with its new TV.com WatchList feature.
I spoke with Anthony Soohoo, SVP and GM of Entertainment at CBS Interactive earlier this week, and he walked me through the feature and let me know some of the site's future plans for social integration.
The WatchList is really easy to use -- basically you just search or browse for shows and choose to add them to your list. From the list, you can see upcoming shows for the rest of the week (and when they will be airing locally on your regular TV), watch a preview of upcoming episodes if they are available, and go right to the show's page, which will provide clips, full-length episodes, reviews from the community, etc.
You can even record a show from your WatchList on your TiVo by connecting your TiVo account with TV.com. That way, you can choose to record an individual episode or get a Season Pass on your TiVo (if you have multiple devices you can just select what device you want to record to from a drop-down box) right from TV.com.
Because TV.com uses Facebook Connect, you can see which of your friends are watch the shows you watch and have seen or are planning to see the upcoming episode. Soon, you can share that you are planning on watching a show using Twitter, Facebook or MySpace.
Anthony told me that TV.com also plans to roll out a feature so that you can create virtual viewing parties for your favorite shows online, a la Hulu's Facebook app. He also stressed that TV.com isn't trying to be the only place you visit to watch TV shows online, instead, they want the site to act as sort of a central manager, making it easy for you to watch shows online, on regular TV or on other sites like NBC.com. Basically TV.com wants to be the TV Guide of the 21st century.
TV.com has always struck me as a site with two opposing identities -- the corporate, information-oriented side, and the community of fans who like to talk about shows. In the last few months, I have to say, TV.com has done an impressive job trying to fuse those two identities together, leveraging its corporate partnerships to enhance the overall community.
Only time will tell if these features will be enough to make TV.com more than just a dream domain name, but features like the WatchList and better social media integration are a great way at honing out a distinct niche in the vast space of TV portal sites.