Perhaps, but consider the following scenario. Walking through Bryant Park, located in Manhattan, a free Wi-Fi enabled park, the Windows Mobile™ PDA you carry is altered to someone in your proximity that also uses Jambo™, wireless social networking software. Your IM avatar, which at this point now supports video clips about the user or other content, tells her you are an Indie Film Producer and her clip informs you she is a location scout for Indie and Feature projects, so you decide to contact each other via IM. Since you are working on a film short, it could not have been a more timely connection. I have had serendipitous encounters similar to this, less the technology, have you?

If social networking is valuable in business, then using wireless technology is just another form of connecting with people. Okay, so how is this complimentary technology to the growth of IPTV?

As people have become more mobile with their technology they want to connect to their information and content whenever and wherever they are; the video ipod is but the latest example. While it may be a novelty to spend hours transferring your existing video or downloading an encore television episode for the short term, I think there exists a larger opportunity to make the experience more interactive and useful for individuals and groups. Yahoo! FinanceVision™ was, as I wrote in an earlier post, the best example in its day of a customizable video and text platform albeit only to a desktop. If you intersect video, music, email or text content ubiquitously to mobile devices, the progression follows that you would want the ability to connect with others in real time for shared experiences or to collaborate using your content to expand your story.

Jambo.net is an interesting technology and company, which I came to learn about at a college reunion at Cornell University last summer. Started by Charles Ribaudo and Jim Young, Jambo enables serendipitous connection via their wireless platform, which works on a Wi-Fi or adhoc connection basis. As with most connection portals people outline those areas of interest they wish to share to attract other people. Information is stored in a numeric string, a digital signature to ensure no personal information traverses the net or local connection. When someone is in proximity to you (this can be approximately 300 feet or more depending on the connection), you are alerted to their presence. At this point it is up to the users to determine if they want to make a connection, share contact information, chat via IM or even share files. Since you can set your level of transparency, you are assured not to be bothered when working.

Since IPTV allows for varied content and applications running within a UI, using mobile devices running Jambo might foster connections and collaborations on the fly with media as the common denominator. While this has applications in business, it will transcend that usage into other areas of life.

Perhaps using a program like Jambo, which operates within an IPTV platform to augment real-time interactions, might become the next wave of reality TV?