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!

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?