Reading, Sending, and Searching Tweets Using Cable Television; Facebook Also Available
Gary here. Both Twitter and Facebook have been available via my tv for some time but never tried either one. Today, after reading about upgrade today on the Twitter portion of the service, I gave both services a try on my tv. Pretty coo and it's also an example of things to come. We will see a lot of social media (computers and mobile devices) in non traditional places in the coming year(s). And what about other content sources like eBooks, eMagazines music? Being able to purchase them and then read/list to them on via your television is likely.
Who is making the service I am using available? My cable tv provider, Verizon FiOS. If your cable or satellite service offers social media and other non-traditional content I would love to learn about it and add the info to this post.
UPDATE: Xbox LIVE from Microsoft is running tests to offer access to Twitter and Facebook
+ An easy way to toggle between tv programming and Twitter.
On a related note, default view for Twitter and Facebook divides the tv screen in half with the television picture on on one side of the screen and the Twitter/Facebook content on the other.
+ Tweets now auto refresh every 30 seconds.
Here's what you can do with the FiOS Twitter Widget:
+ Login to your account, read tweets. It's not possible to monitor multiple accounts at the same time
+ Set-up and monitor favorite topics using words and/or hashtags
+ View/Read trending topics
+ View/Read tweets on the current show your viewing (on the other half of the screen). Interesting idea.
+ Send tweets
+ Set-up a friends list
+ Review the tweets you've sent
It really works.
What Can You Do with the FiOS Facebook Widget?
Accessing the FiOS widget is easy. Login using the keyboard on the tv and your ready to go. Like Twitter the television screen is divided in half.
What can you do?
+ Switch between user accounts
You don't have to erase and then enter logins and passwords for the whole family. Each Facebook user can access their info.
+ View Your Profile
+ Receive status updates from your friends
+ View photo albums
+ See a list of all your friends, click and read/review what info your friends have made public
+ Post to Facebook by selecting "What's on Your Mind"
It will be interesting to see where these and other social media services can be accessed a year or two from now.
Note: For the geeks out there, of course, it's possible (on some televisions) to view your computer screen on your tv and view Facebook and Twitter that way. The point of this post is that a cable tv service are making two social networking services available directly on the television screen.
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