Sybase 365 and Integra5 are teaming up to turn the TV into a mobile phone—or at least a text-messaging device. The two announced today a partnership which hooks Integra5’s MediaFriends television social media platform into Sybase’s SMS interconnectivity hub, creating a solution that will allow consumer to send text messages directly to their friends’ TVs.
The chat session would be initiated from the TV remote, which allows a customer to select on his or her TV screen friends to invite for a chat. That would initiate SMS messages to those contacts who would then be invited to watch the same program and log in to the chat session where they could exchange SMS messages. The messages themselves would be sent from the mobile phone and routed by Sybase to a virtual phone number assigned to the television. The chat log, however, would be displayed on the TV monitor for all participants to see (For a visual see the online demo video Integra5 posted on YouTube).
“We’re creating more end-points for mobile messaging,” said Meredith Flynn-Ripley, CEO of Integra5. “There’s a new definition of peer-to-peer messaging emerging.”
Currently the platform supports phone-to-TV chat, but Integra5 plans to throw the PC into the mix, allowing customers to both receive and reply to TV chat messages from a computer. Integra5 will demo TV Chat at CTIA Wireless.
