For many of us, watching TV is a social act, whether it is talking with the person next to you, tweeting and calling friends to tell them what just went down.  But television is going to become a social experience in a much broader sense, especially as you look at the upcoming devices debuting this week at CES.  There are already programs that allow you to vote on Twitter, or other services that experiment with other ways to gives viewers access to social networks while watching TV. GetGlue, an entertainment-based social networking website for TV check-in and mobile devices, is working on a way of using social with on-demand programming.

GetGlue announced a new round of funding, totaling $12 million, and also reached a milestone today boasting two million active users on its social network. The round of funding is led by RHO Ventures managing partner Habib Kairouz, who will now join GetGlue’s board of directors. The earlier round funding of $6 million in November 2010 was led by Time Warner, RRE Ventures, and Union Square Ventures.

GetGlue will be using the funding for international expansion and further development of its services. “International will inevitably lead us to the Spanish market in 2012,” said CEO Alex Iskold. “We’re also getting a strong push to do that from existing partners. That will be our next move: first in Latin America, and then Spanish-language channels in the U.S.”

GetGlue currently is working with 75 networks, covering more than 680 TV programs, making it one of the largest social media services of its kind.  It reports an annual growth rate of 1,000 percent and provides a database of 350 million check-ins, reviews and ratings. GetGlue recently updated their offerings with Tumblr integration, check-in widgets, and their latest social TV service FX Has The Movies.

“I think we’re firmly an advertising company,” said Iskold. “The revenue and monetization has not been our focus to date as we focus on defining and winning the market. But it is fair to say we already have interest in big brands like Gap, Coca Cola and HTC. The plan is to have more ad campaigns in 2012.”

A growing social niche

There are other social media companies looking to tie up with broadcasting companies, picking distribution and funding partners to enrich live viewing experiences for end users. Foursquare is likely to extend its check-ins to more TV programs, while Zeebox, another social entertainment company, last week raised funding and landed a partnership deal with the BSkyB broadcaster in the UK.

Once the pioneer of social networks, MySpace has recently turned to the social TV bandwagon and aims to recover the lost ground. The company promises to expand content for films, videos, news, sports and reality shows. A service interaction between the TV and social networks was announced on Tuesday in a partnership between MySpace and Panasonic at the CES 2012. MySpace TV – which will start operating in the second half of this year — will have a system that allows the viewer to share and comment on the programming they are watching in real time. The service will be available on the new generation of Panasonic’s Viera TVs.

Initially this will be about the music, to go along with the Myspace.com revamp. Then, they plan to expand into movies, sports and broadcast TV. The social activity will also be integrated with smartphone and tablet apps.