Systems and methods for blending interactive applications with television programs

A method in a system for blending interactive applications with television programming, comprising:

• receiving, at a media device, a video program of a content stream comprising a plurality of video frames;
• detecting, by an application running on the media device, one or more objects of interest within the plurality of video frames, wherein the detecting, by the application running on the media device, one or more objects of interest within the plurality of video frames includes, for each video frame of a plurality of video frames:
• generating, by the media device, non-video object of interest data that:
• includes information that identifies where an object of interest is in the video frame;
• and
• includes information to identify the object of interest in a presented scene;
• outputting, by the media device, the video program for presentation on a presentation device;
• electronically communicating a prompt to the user regarding a reward available for selection of one or more objects of interest within the plurality of video frames;
• receiving, by the media device, input indicative of user selection corresponding to a selected location on a video frame of the video program being output by the media device;
• determining, by the media device, that geometric identifiers of the selected location on the video frame correspond to geometric identifiers identifying a location within the video frame of an object of interest in the video frame detected by the application running on the media device;
• determining, by the media device, that the input indicative of user selection is a selection of the object of interest in the video frame based on the determination that the geometric identifiers of the selected location within the video frame corresponds to geometric identifiers identifying a location within the video frame of an object of interest in the video frame;
• and
• in response to the determining that the input indicative of user selection is a selection of the object of interest in the video frame, electronically communicating object selection reward data.