spoilr.tv is to something like that, but asynchronously. Your buddy is a week behind on Game of Thrones, but still sees your comments on the last episode, time-synced with his watching it (and you're going to be notified if he/she responds to them).
There's up- and downvoting and we use that to rate-limit comments that are being displayed as you go. Downvoted comments (like spoilers) get filtered out quickly, upvoted (or new) comments make it through the rate-limit. We're using a modified version of reddit's published scoring system.
Syncing is the single biggest technical issue and currently not easy since most platforms don't allow access to the point where we could really time-sync. Still looking at a few options, though.
The examples that I looked at were all aimed at live broadcast and then just stop making sense (e.g. AMC storysync). The statistics I have looked at for Game of Thrones show, within a week of the first airing < 25% of the views are live, the rest is already some form of delayed watching (DVR, re-run, on-demand).
I am confident that the trend away from broadcast towards on-demand is working in our favor.
Not sure if the attempts are comparable and if the same problems apply. Finding the integration (or other route) that helps generate enough traction is one of the top tasks on the business side of this.
They can, if they're watching at the same time. When testing, we did find ourselves checking back what other people's reaction was later on. App still needs notifications for this. Netflix/hulu/amazon are definitely interesting for partnerships/integration.
There definitely is some interest. I'm hoping, HN is also going to be an indication whether people want this.
Monetization can happen through partnerships with content creators/publishers (even white label solutions), timed advertising or affiliate links (think "I love the dress Claire is wearing – here's the link" or "Meet 'The Mountain' at ComicCon – link").
Yes, there's upvoting and downvoting implemented in the beta, already and that will filter out spoilers pretty quickly. If we see anybody doing it on purpose, we'd block and eventually ban the user.
Eventually it's going to be up to the users to figure out what they like to use it with. We're just restricting the number of shows during the beta to keep things manageable.
With the users we have in the beta we have noticed that it isn't for everyone and not everyone uses it the same (some are just reading, others comment a lot, and some wait for the perfect moment and then post the best joke) for every show. With the speed of Silicon Valley, for example, my wife isn't actively posting while she watches.
We thought about importing (and timecoding) twitter chatter during the first airing of the shows. And then we realized just how scattered and off-topic that chatter really is for the most part.