• CBS Testing Social Viewing Room: Watch Stuff With Strangers And Talk During The Show

    Michael Arrington

    J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970 in Huntington Beach, California) is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of TechCrunch, a blog covering startups and technology news. Arrington attended Claremont McKenna College (BA Economics, 1992) and Stanford Law School (JD, 1995) and practiced as a corporate and securities lawyer at two law firms: O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich... → Learn More

    Thursday, October 2nd, 2008



    CBS Labs
    , which has been testing new HD streaming products, has also rolled out a labs version of a new product called Social Viewing Room. The idea is that you show up to the site, pick a show that’s on right now, and watch it with your friends or whoever is there. You can comment, LOL or take quizzes for points.

    The link is live, but I’m not able to see any actual shows going on right now.

    Given how awesome on demand TV is, I don’t see this kind of thing being very popular. With one big exception: live broadcasts, which are by definition shown at a certain time and watched by everyone then. Apart from live content, it seems like asynchronous comments are a great way to go, as YouTube, Hulu and Joost have done.

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