New technologies focusing on the convergence of TV and community continue to turn watching TV into a social activity. The connected TV experience is aimed at providing remote users with a joint viewing experience – chat, vote, comment, or just watch your favorite shows with other fans or distant friends.

The idea of transforming an experience that is traditionally isolating and turning it into a social activity works for me. I’m not saying that gone are the days of inviting friends over to watch the American Idol finale or the Sunday games. But, what if your friends just can’t make it or are in another country or state? If joint viewing was available during the heyday of 90210, my friends and I would have had a blast commenting on whether Dylan was going to choose Brenda or Kelly. Now we can share thoughts on the presidential debates (or Audrina’s poor choice in boyfriends on the Hills). It’s only natural for fans of shows to share.

The connected viewing experience is not linked to a specific architecture. It is happening on the PC, internet-enabled TV and the set-top box. Within both original and premium content, we are witnessing broadband platforms for social viewing, where community elements are built in to the experience. Viewers share, vote and provide feedback on content.
TV content has long been driving online communities. A Grunwald Associates study showed that 64% of kids and 49% of teens report going online while watching TV, 50% of teens visit websites they see on TV even as they continue to watch and 45% have sent IMs or e-mail to friends watching the same TV show.

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An interesting new development happened yesterday in the telematics space. Microsoft and Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group entered into a long-term agreement to co-develop next-generation in-car infotainment systems based on the Microsoft Auto software platform. What will be particularly interesting is what will come of the Microsoft and Ford “Sync” alliance. Presumably the work being done in this new co-development alliance with H-K will leverage the knowledge that has been gained through the “Sync” experiment. Also, questions remain about what involvement or sharing of technologies will come out of the Hyundai Autonet MediaZen collaboration that has developed voice controlled interfaces.

The first product from this union, which provides voice-controlled connectivity between mobile devices and car entertainment systems, will be introduced in the North American market in 2010. It will further apply to Asian and European markets, and expand into multimedia and navigation devices.

Clay Shirky, author of the Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, has a fascinating post on his blog about the sheer amount of brain power invested in television and, in specific, the amount of time we spend watching advertisements. According to Shirky, Americans spend the same amount of brain power watching television advertisements every weekend as it took to create Wikipedia. All in all, Americans spend the equivalent of 2,000 Wikipedia projects each year watching television. And all of this is because of a cognitive surplus caused by the increasingly ease of modern life.

Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan’s Island where they almost got off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don’t? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up. And every half-hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn’t posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list. Now, I had an ironclad excuse for not doing those things, which is none of those things existed then. I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option. Now it’s not, and that’s the big surprise. However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it’s worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter.

Shirky likens the television watching in the post-Second World War era to the usage of gin to assuage the jarring experience of moving from largely agrarian societies to the industrial revolution during the 19th century, and makes a pretty convincing argument for it.

The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing – there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London.

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Amazon.com has often been lauded as one of the first forward-thinking retailing sites to invite consumers to participate in the marketing of the products. Soliciting and publishing the unaltered opinions & experiences of anyone who cares to share for all shoppers to see. Mash that info with rich purchasing metadata (yours and everyone else’s) and you inarguably have an open and trustworthy marketing platform that is completely consumer driven. In 1995 terms: Brilliant. Slick. Avant-garde.

In 2008: Meh.

Today this type of consumer-driven marketing is de rigueur. Any site that’s done its marketing homework utilizes some flavor of published consumer feedback as an engagement tool. So what’s next? Glad you asked.

Amazon.com seems to be back in acquisition mode. After a quiescent period where their few investments seemed geared towards rounding out their service infrastructure, they are now quietly funding some noteworthy startups.

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As Radio Frequency Identification tags become more prevalent in retail supply chain management and theft prevention, the marketing applications, like billboards that display personalized messages to drivers, and consumer privacy issues, like chips implanted in humans!, surrounding RFID technology will also increase.

A great piece about filmmaker and RFID researcher/entrepreneur Stanton Kaye ran last week in LA Weekly. The article, by Steve Mikulan, along with the sidebar, identifies some of the adoption challenges and privacy concerns RFID proponents are facing. While the adoption issues in the U.S. are largely related to cost versus preexisting barcode infrastructure, future RFID use poses a number of issues related to consumer privacy rules since tags can actively transmit data and could link into consumer data beyond the point of sale all of which can be intercepted by third parties. In fact, groups such as CASPIAN – Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering and German group FoeBuD are actively campaigning against the growing use of these ’spy chips’ and building technology to counter RFID tracking.

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LG Norm Hitzges, former Dallas Cowboy signed books in Las Vegas while he was physically sitting in Dallas, Texas. A live demonstration of LongPen, a long distance, real-time, real pen and ink writing and signing device. Attendees could chat with and request a personalized message from Mr. Hitzges. An interesting application that would make any venue a destination where fans could interact with their favorite authors, musicians, actors, athletes, performers and other celebrities from anywhere in the world. The rep at the booth said that signatures made with LongPen are legally binding.

LocaModa had a different perspective than anyone on the floor. They focus on connecting digital signage, web, and mobile interactivity.

Two demos, the first one Jumbli, an online game that participants around the globe send text messages competing for the highest score, and is played on Clear Channel’s giant Spectacolor HD screen in Times Square.

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It’s the age of self expression. Easy-to-create software programs have spurred the massive growth of blogs, podcasts, and videos. Social tools such as RSS Feeds have made it easy for these would-be writers, directors and artists to connect to a large audience. While content sharing sites such as YouTube provide platforms for all types of art (amateur and the more polished), they’ve provided platforms for real talent to be discovered. We’ve witnessed the arrival of the ‘citizen journalist’ in mainstream media with CNN’s I-Report and Fox’s U-Report. Let’s witness the arrival of the next Tolstoy or Twain in the publishing world. Designed to empower prospective authors, self-publishing companies continue to introduce new technologies that make publishing accessible and affordable to the general public. Now, these smart self-publishers are partnering with the large book retailers and social networking sites to connect writers to a large potential customer base. These new partnerships are providing authors with both the access to the tools of production — and outlets for mass distribution.

CreateSpace is a self-publishing tool with books on demand service that is a part of the Amazon group. Self publishers don’t have to worry about the need for inventory. Authors send the original file, and when someone purchases the book, it’s created on demand and shipped within a day. The best part – is that books are available to all Amazon users.

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Nope! They’re ONDAS Media and the latest to hit the satellite radio universe. The catch is you need to be cruisin’ the Autobahn or rollin’ your drop top around Mar Bella to get it. It’s ONDAS Media’s European foray into satellite-based radio bringing together ONDAS Media and Nissan Europe.

The devices are not installed yet but hopes are that with a diverse array of content, continues coverage and killer sound the Europeans will be all over it. The ONDAS group is already deep into the development phase of the radios. These in-vehicle systems are touted as being the most advanced and capable of receiving hundreds of channels of audio and a suite of data services. Upon signing of the agreement, ONDAS will reach the one million mark for pre-sold factory-installed satellite radios. All this is done with the hopes of bringing Europe unique content on a reliable, leading-edge platform by 2011.

Upon its integration, digital satellite transmission network, ONDAS will provide 24-hour, 7-day-a-week digital entertainment in all key European markets and languages to some 240 million vehicles and up to 600 million European inhabitants on the move.

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Raquel and I swung by the innovation and design awards area at the show yesterday and found some pretty cool stuff. For those of you who don’t know, this is a special area over at the Sands Expo where they showcase which devices displayed at the show were outstanding in their specific fields (incidentally, it’s also the area where they showcase the amazing hi-tech Japanese toilet seats, which look rather like the captain’s chair for the Starship Enterprise). So, without further ado, here’s the best of the best, the coolest of the cool and the most honored out of all the products showcased at the Sands:

Vuzix VR920-8 VR Glasses for Xbox 360

This is a product I truly cannot wait to see in action. Vuzix is a company that we talked about before (in its previous incarnation as Icuiti), but the advancement in their products over the previous year is pretty amazing. While virtual reality visors are nothing new (anyone else remember The Lawnmower Man? That’s the movie that made me interested in virtual worlds when I was a kid), Vuzix’s VR920-8 glasses seem pretty cool. They’re built to work with the Xbox 360, and include motion tracking, so when you turn your head, the view follows. I didn’t have the chance to test them, but, being an avid Halo 3 player, this is something I’d totally want.

Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker

I have no rhythm. It makes it hard to go out to clubs because, when dancing, I basically look like a spastic cat that just got dunked in a tank of water. This flaw has also made me avoid things like Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero like the plague. This item might make me change my mind, though. Essentially, it allows you to play air guitar instead of having to hold the normal faux guitar device you usually use to play the game. So, really, it’s a faux faux guitar. Strange.

Texas Instruments DualView Television

Another gaming device, this is a single television screen that allows two players to play the same game on one television. Yes, this function already exists for some games that use split-screen modes, but this television is different. Using stereoscopic glasses, two users will actually be able to see different images on the same television screen. Originally, these types of devices were used to create 3D gaming experiences (Somewhat famously, a well-known console developer came out with one in the 1990’s that made people virtually seasick), using two slightly different images to create the illusion of depth. This device reapplies the same technology, but uses it to allow two players to see separate images. Very cool.

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I hate to admit it, but this is probably the funniest thing I saw at CES. The merry pranksters over at Gizmodo acquired a device that allowed them to turn off television screens and used it to create some hijinks on the convention floor.