Interfacing social networking sites with set top box

Abstract

Today's viewers can be overwhelmed by the amount of content that is made available to them. In a world of hundreds of thousands, sometimes hundreds of millions of choices, we need powerful and effective interfaces to help viewers manage their viewing choices and find the content that's right for them. The project explores how the merging of ubiquitous consumer electronics and the sociable web improve the user experience of these devices, increase the functionality of both, and help distribute content in a more sociable way. The source of motivation for this project is the very idea of providing 'lean back' mode to communicate via social networking sites that can be achieved using a remote control for T.V like device. All one needs to communicate in this mode is a T.V (with a remote), a STB that is provided with IP. This project saves the time and money of customers as they need not have a computer or a dedicated internet connection to utilize services of social networking sites. This project also acts as a add-on feature from the service provider to the customers. This project can also be extended to include still more useful services of World Wide Web. The future fields would be to allow the customer to do TV shopping, Net surfing. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.