I enjoyed an interesting seminar last week entitled "The age of the second screen" - hosted by +Designate as part of the Future Sessions series.

I'm sure Designate will be providing a more thorough synopsis, including video of the event on their own site but here's some of my take-outs:

• 70% of tablet owners use their tablet while watching TV.
• PC and Tablet behaviour is quite different, with PC users predominantly focused on search (with a purpose) and tablet users more likely to just be browsing in "dead-time".
• Coke's "Let's eat together" campaign in Romania, was a great example of a truly integrated Social Media and TV campaign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k1fvMmfJxs.
• Travelzoo advised that 33% of all their traffic is from mobile devices, and that is from a target market of generally over 50's.
• Travelzoo also stated that from the mobile user base, 75% of their customers ONLY buy from a brand they trust .
• Naomi Trickey from Brand watch encouraged us to look for "nuances" within data, as sometimes small data tells you more than BIG data. 
• Neil Mortensen from Think Box insightfully reminded us that "conversations" were going on well before Twitter and other SM channels were invented. We shouldn't, therefore, only focus on measuring twitter conversations and forget that most people will be talking about stuff at home, work and at the pub etc.
• The focus as adverstisers should be on creating something engaging and memorable - that might be shared on SM but also gets people taking beyond the SM space.
• Both programs and advertising drive multi-screen activity.
• There are 4 distinct activities for multi-screen users: Chat | Play | Discover | Buy
• Social Media interaction has a definite younger audience participation.
• 4 Now, Channel 4's new companion app for Channel 4 programs already has 9 million registered users and 60% of them are signed on when online.
• With all the talk of time-shifted TV (Sky+ etc), TV is still watched live over 90% of the time - and that becomes very important for advertisers looking to use interactive tools such as Shazam and 4 Now.