There is quite a bit of buzz lately about the opportunity to turn TV watching into a more social phenomenon. It's about fitting your TV with presence indication/buddy lists, shared lists of shows, Instant Messaging, box-top cameras, all within the context of the shows you watch.
See Tom Coates' excellent illustrations and explanations of the many cool things it could enable.
I few things I wonder about too...
Maybe your shows could be a part of your online persona too- like a blogroll or a tunes list on your blog? I bet you can tell a lot about a person through their TV habits.
Maybe a show-focused reputation system could be built-in so that ratings from your buddy list can help you find new shows?
Maybe RSS feeds could enable you to track what your buddy's are watching and when.
This further removes the viewer from commercials (which are going the way of dinosaur anyway), I wonder how advertising would work (or not work) in such a system?
All this being said, I'm not sure I *want* TV to be social. When I watch it now, I do it to get away- to let the neurons rest for a bit. If TV were more social, I might have to actually go outside or to a park or something. In which case, I could just take a Sony PSP. ;)
Do you want TV to be social?