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?
Serkan Toto