Let’s pretend for a second that the writers weren’t on strike, and we had decent TV on.
Watching TV is enjoyable, right?
It’s also fun to watch it with others. In college, we’d always get together to watch the latest episode, talk about it, etc. A shared experience is always better than sitting alone on your couch. But nowadays, I come home from work, and by the time I’m done with the gym, dinner, etc, the last thing I’m going to do is haul over to a friend’s place.
TV Chatrooms is my idea.
That sounds so AOL 1.0, but hear me out.
You’d go on, select your show (off of TV Listings), and be put in a chatroom (or you can set up private ones with your friends). So while the show is running, you can talk with others who are watching the same show.
Have to have some kind of on-demand watching capability for DVR, web video, etc.
Monetization: Advertising. Media networks can use it as a live focus group on their shows. Could be used as a way of interacting with your viewers (you could have writers + actors watching with them).
It looks like TV listings aren’t a free dataset (WTF?).
Whaddya think?
Have you played with Joost? They have a chat widget which will sit on top of the video you’re playing and allow you to chat with the folks who are in the same channel.
Oh oh oh… you could use Twitter. A syntax like:
@tvshow I hope morimoto wins on Iron Chef.
I played with Joost a while back, but lost interest. If Joost picks up serious traction, that would be awesome.
My only problem with Twitter is all your followers who aren’t watching have to listen to your yammering 🙂
In regards to Joost, I don’t know whether it will be the future but I think it’s helping to show what the future could look like.
In regards to Twitter, that’s why you need to write a twitter tracking app like the guys who made twittertale.com or politweets.com
[…] while back I had posted my thoughts on the future of television. Other people, such as Jeff Pulver, have also had this in their […]