After 2 years of development, a new communication service called Oshaberi TV went into Public Beta this month (Oshaberi means talkative in Japanese).

Oshaberi TV is not a TV station or program but a mix of a new technology reminiscent of Nico Nico Douga's super-successful "chat over video feed" function and community/forum. Essentially, Oshaberi enables a group of users to simultaneously comment on TV programs in real time. The service requires a software download.

If you change the TV channel, the software will change the chat room as well and you can start new conversations with fellow Oshaberi users who are watching the same TV program.

The users are represented by customizable avatars and can also write comments with ASCII art, which Japanese web surfers know from the ultra-popular BBS 2chan and Nico Nico Douga.

However, Oshaberi only works with the Japanese digital TV 1-Seg, which means that international users are unfortunately fenced out. It's a fascinating idea though: The fusion of TV programs and a real-time chatting/community function on one screen is quite an innovation, isn't it?

Author Information  Dr. Serkan Toto is a German based in Tokyo. Like us, he is passionate about introducing Japanese IT to the rest of the world. Full-time, Serkan works as an independent web industry consultant for hedge funds, venture capital companies and start-ups worldwide. He is also a writer for mega tech blog network TechCrunch, covering Japan-related technology and web trends. This is Serkan's website. Follow Serkan on Twitter here.

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