In yesterday's Japan Times , there was an article about the rollout of One Seg, or One Segment, which will allow cell, GPS and mobile game users the ability to watch their favorite television programs.

®Vodafone 905SH, One Seg enabled phone

What is the hook that is going to get passive viewers motivated to purchase? The article spoke of product placements for example, an actress wearing a dress. The viewer interested in owning that item would follow links to on-line shopping malls. I do not know what the metrics suggest about successful rates using this method however, it certainly has been done before and is worth leveraging.

While there is no mention of a specific demographic targeted, it is fair to say teens and young adults constitute a large portion, especially since they have been in the vanguard of embracing new phone technologies.

"If users just watch TV programs, we will not be able to gain a profit," said Kazunori Higuchi, a spokesman for NTT DoCoMo, the country's biggest mobile phone service provider. "We hope users will visit sites related to the TV programs," which would allow the telecommunications carrier to charge users for data services.

It got me thinking about my post on Social Networking and IPTV . What is the connection? I think an interesting hook to motivate teens to buy featured products beyond a static link, would be a social networking layer running on top of the IPTV UI. Give teens the ability to chat with friends, peers or even a store clerk as they walk past a boutique and ask about the latest trend in nautical fashions or what actress and model, Yu Yamada is wearing in her latest commercial. If they were using a Jambo.net enabled device, their tastes in clothing, cosmetics or any other opted-in data would be available to share with retailers and help drive merchandise sales, kind of like Tom Cruise walking through the mall in Minority Report.

This is but one slice, and the article went on to list reasons why One Seg might threaten Telco's. That said, perhaps making the experience more interactive would motivate people into action? Just ask the kids on the street. The street does not lie!