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?