In what may be the world’s first test of interactive mobile television, Norwegian broadcaster NRK and Swedish wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson (ERICY) have announced a six week project that will allow users to download and interact with music programming.
The test, the Associated Press reported, involves the Norwegian youth music program Svisj. Users can vote for the next music video by pressing a mobile phone key, and communicate through text with each other or the program producers while watching the show.
The Associated Press reported that hundreds of viewers downloaded the free software during the first week of the test. Viewers could already communicate with Svisj program producers by sending SMS messages from their mobile phones. With the new system, they can watch on their phones and communicate at the same time at about the half the cost of each standard text message.
The process, called IM-TV, works with phones made by Sony Ericsson, a joint venture between Ericsson and Japan’s Sony.
