webRIOT

webRIOT was the first interactive television game to precisely synchronize online and television play. It was played by over 1,000,000 MTV viewers when it launched in November of 1999. Hosted by Ahmet Zappa, webRIOT allowed MTV viewers at home to compete against four in-studio contestants in a daily game of music trivia knowledge.

At its launch, webRIOT introduced a brand new concept to the fledgling interactive television industry -- two-screen interactivity with synchronized gameplay. Since that time, numerous other companies have turned to this method of iTV distribution because of its vastly larger audience reach than single-screen technologies in the United States. The proprietary "sync to broadcast" technology that made webRIOT possible was developed by Spiderdance, Inc.

webRIOT was a timed trivia game: the faster players (both at home and in-studio) answered a question correctly, the more points they received. Each day up to 50,000 online contestants (25,000 per coast) had the opportunity to play the downloadable, synchronized game. The top ten online players of each day saw their player names appear on the television screen at the end of each show. Top players over the course of the entire television season were awarded grand prizes including a Ford Focus.