Is TV the next Facebook?

When this season’s Bachelor used national television to dump his bride-to-be for the runner-up, nearly every Bachelor-loving female reflected her disdain in a Facebook or Twitter status update. Think how much better that experience could have been if those women didn’t have to run to their PCs; they could’ve sent venomous sentiments to the other 15.45 million viewers right on their flat-screens. All right, so it’s a pretty inane example, but the next big push for IPTV providers could be nothing more than enabling this kind of back-and-forth banter on a consumer’s biggest screen.

Companies such as Integra5, with MediaFriends TV Chat, and MobUI’s VH1 partnership do offer this chat room–inspired functionality, but the services have only seen limited penetration so far. Microsoft’s Mediaroom middleware along with Ericsson’s recently unveiled platform also have the ability to let viewers invite friends to watch the same program and engage in voice chat or exchange text messages. To date, most of these services rely on the mobile phone to get the message across, and they haven’t yet taken off like social networking has on the PC and mobile phone.

According to Tracy Swedlow, CEO and analyst with Interactive TV Today, which is hosting a conference next week on the future of TV, social networking should be priority No. 1 for IPTV providers. She said that telcos should start with basics such as enabling live IM chats during popular TV shows — think American Idol, Lost, 24 or any number of prime-time programs — and eventually get deeper into social communication, including video conferencing. And, they should be doing this ASAP.

“If you don’t see social TV as one of your highest priority, you are going to get left behind,” Swedlow said. “The Internet is nothing but about communication. There are so many applications out there for free. If you provide people with some simple application that allows them to chat about their favorite shows, that’d be a great loyalty builder, and that would help drive subscriptions for the carriers.”

She said there are experiments around this going on today, but no IPTV providers are working aggressively to create viewing parties or integrate the Facebook or Twitter experience with the TV set. These services could at the very least be loyalty drivers and potentially even revenue generators if consumers take to a subscription model. “The IPTV industry should hard market social TV services to maintain their lead,” Swedlow added.

With all the new entrants crowding the TV market promising interactivity or personalization or boundless content, IPTV providers would be remiss not to consider a proven first step of social networking.

E-mail me at sreedy@telephonyonline.com.