Lets All Watch Together

Part of the problem of the moment is that as we all retreat to our private screens and sound systems, we lose the glue that conversation brings, that thing that creates community.  Remember movie theaters?  Remember how you went out for a drink with your friends afterwards and spoke about what you last saw.  How great was that!  How are we going to do that when are watching on our computer screens and HD monitors?

As much as I will always love going to the cinema and talking about films afterwards, we all have to recognize that most media will not be consumed that way.  Without that, how are we going to facilitate conversation and appreciation about cinema?  It can't all be after the fact blogging.  We need real time discussions.

I recently got to see a new technology that addressed this, that allowed multiple viewers to watch simultaneously the same thing, see their friends who were doing the same thing, and communicate in real time while they continued watching.  Okay, so its a little different than sitting in a big dark theater with beautiful projection and downing some coffee afterwards.

Facebook's Connect site browser is a step though in this direction.  BBC news ran an article on it and its got me thinking...

The built-in socialising tools on sites such as MySpace and Facebook will mean that friends can virtually gather, for instance, to watch a video via Hulu and chat about it all in the same place.