Innovation: TV networks to become social networks
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What will your TV look like infive years' time? The screenin your living room may be about to be transformed by the union of television broadcasting and onlinesocial networking.
This week, Google's chief Eric Schmidt announced that in the next month or so GoogleTV will go live in the US.
Google joins a host of other internet companies that wantto transform our viewing habits by integrating TVwith interactive web features. So far, all have failed. The troubleis, services like AppleTV and Roku tend to allow us only to stream stuff on-demand from the internet, but without any liveTV. Others, such as TiVo and Microsoft , provide live TV, but with only limited access to the web. Google claims it will bring together live TV and unfettered access to the web for the first time.
Yet many researchers and tech analysts say the most profound change to our TV habitswill come via technology that allows us to share and socialise via our screens. The winners ofthe battle for digital domination in our living rooms, they argue, will be those who work out how to draw on thesuccess of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. New Scientist has spoken to some of the activists of this potential social TV revolution to get aglimpse of what will be on thebox tomorrow.
Goal!
The premise of social TV is simple: allow people to easilyshare and discuss the shows they are watching, nomatter where they are – be it recommending the next episode of True Blood or participating in a goal celebration.
Some people think of TV viewing as a solitaryexperience. But, says Marie-José Montpetit atthe Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is developing an experimental social TV system called Nextream , ever since the birth of TV we have been talking to each other during broadcasts. And now we're using online social networks in the same way. "The Twitterservers were brought down by the World Cup because people were exchanging views aboutit," she says.
Social TV could soon usurp TV guides, because the huge number of channels is so overwhelming to navigate, says Greg Goldmanof Philo , a social TV application launched in July.
According to a 2008 study byconsultancy Parks Associates , basedin Dallas, Texas, 20 percent of peoplein the US want TV recommendations from friends and to chat with fellow viewers. What's more,a quarter of themare happy to share the stuff they watch.
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