Social Television Networking

from the everyone-gather-round-now dept

While lots of media companies have been trying to figure out how the whole "social networking" phenomenon impacts their business, it looks like AOL is trying to take the concept to the next level while also being true to their plans of "convergence." They've patented the concept of buddy list TV sharing. The idea is that you could see what your friends were watching on TV and immediately tune in yourself. It's not too hard to see how this would work. Already, the latest version of Yahoo Messenger includes the ability to see what music your friends are listening to and immediately tuning in yourself. This idea tries to go a bit further. For instance, someone could set up a chat room around a particular TV show, and could then play that show, while everyone else could discuss it in real-time. To understand what you're watching, it would require a set-top box that would tie into your internet connection as well. Of course, it's unclear how such a system will work in an age of TiVo when no-one watches a show at the same time.

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