A New Social Network Makes TV Viewing a Community

When the talk around the water cooler or in the school hallways is last night’s TV show, nobody wants to be on the outside of the conversation.

LOST: program finale

That’s why and average of 13.5 million viewers tuned in for the season finale of LOST. Sure, many had followed since the beginning but nobody wanted to be clueless around the lunch table the next day. Staying in the loop is about to get easier.

Tunerfish was announced at TechCrunch Disrupted in New York. It will be a new social network building community around TV viewing. Users post what they’re watching on television.

I tried to do that during LOST on Sunday with facebook. Some of my “friends” complained that they were DVR-ing and didn’t want me to be “the spoiler. I long for the days of my youth when I would sit among my 8 siblings watching a show. TV viewing was not a passive experience in our house. And your teens may like the idea because they’re coming of age in the digital/real-time world. They interact on everything.

This new social network will be both a web site and a mobile app. The application will track trends in viewing. In the world of adolescent angst, they will know if their friends are also watching and maybe what they think. The rebels will know who, if anyone is with them on the show nobody watches. Maybe the will have an easier time mobilizing to save a show set for extinction. I will finally find out if anyone watched “Ru Paul’s Drag Race”.

I have not seen it in action. Early reports say you can recommend shows to your friends, you can share material, through links to youtube, vimeo and my personal favorite, hulu. While there is nothing to see yet, you can go to the Tunerfish site and give them your email address and they’ll let you know when it’s up and running.

“Why?” you ask. I am a TV junkie. I suppose there are enough of us to make it worth doing. More than that, Tunerfish is developed by Plaxo. Plaxo is the online version of the rolodex, so they have basic online networking experience. More importantly, Plaxo is owned by Comcast, the cable, internet phone, television people. It’s a natural fit and potentially a way to get you to spend more money with them. I’m not saying they’ll charge you to join the social network. But don’t be surprised to get there and find they try to entice you to their pay-per-view, watch their shows, and contribute to their own ratings system. Perhaps the holy grail of social networking: gathering information about you so that they can turn it into money.

Readers know I am a big fan of a digital life. And I love a social network. As always, I throw up the caution flag. This gives you another chance to talk to your kids about what information they may want to share.   Blanket prohibitions won’t work with teens, like I have to tell you that.  Try out the site. Pay attention to privacy issues.  Then talk to your kids.

And maybe it’s time to re-evaluate the television watching rules at your house. The kids are getting older and the “No TV on a school night” rule is probably obsolete. The fact is, TV is not a box in the family room anymore. TV plays on their phone, the computer. And they are older. It’s more difficult to control. Perhaps a better course is to talk about the pitfalls and give them tools to make good decisions for themselves.

Some ideas of what to include in your house rules:
• Plug in the phones in a central location each night, away from the bedrooms. Be out of touch during sleep hours.

central location for cell phone charging

• Monitor balance of physical activity with time in front of any box: tv, computer, texting,etc.
• Manners are much the same in digital life as in real life. Don’t play with your phone when others think you are involved in a conversation with them, etc.

Good Manners never go out of Style.

And if you have a few minutes, check out Tech Crunch: for all the latest about what’s happening with technology standard-bearers as well as those breaking new ground. They have all gathered in the Big Apple to launch new tech companies and announce new ideas.
As for what I am watching on TV, I’ll let you know once we hook up on Tunerfish!