Telegent Systems and Arima Communications Corp., a leading Taiwanese handset ODM company, have announced that Arima has enhanced its free-to-air TV handset design incorporating Telegent’s mobile TV technology to enable consumers tosend and receive SMS messages while watching live, free broadcast TV.
The SMS-TV feature, which will be commercially available in handset designs this summer, is targeted towards consumers who want to chat with one another while watching their favorite programs as well as those who like to interact with participation TV programs through voting or polling. Additionally, the design enables operators to use free-to-air mobile TV to generate revenue from related phone services.
Could this be the fabled Mobile TV business model making an appearance? Up til’ now, it’s been absent, other than some suggestions that advertising could provide revenues – but the use of integrated messaging whilst watching TV is much stronger. Of course, the idea isn’t new – some adult channels on the normal tellybox have had people texting in for years …!
At any rate, if you want to know more about this feature, click here.
[Via: pr-inside.com]