When my wife watches Dancing with the Stars, she often trades text messages with her friend about the show they are watching. It appears that VH1, MTV networks, and Mobui Corporation have taken this habit a step further.

Mobui has announced the launch of a downloadable Instant Messaging application that allows “VH1 viewers to use their phone to chat in real time with friends and other VH1 fans while watching VH1’s popular programming”.

In other words, viewers just don’t sit back and watch a VH1 program, they are communicating with other viewers of the same program via their mobile phone. These chat rooms will be based around VH1 programming, and some will be user-defined. There are also plans for celebrity chat rooms hosted by some of the Celebreality stars of such shows like Rock of Love Charm School and Real Chance of Love.

So is this the start of an era of active television watching? I know that I wouldn’t mind joining a real time Instant Message chat about shows like Heroes or Lost. These shows have so many plot twists, that I am always dying to talk about it later. Why not talk about them as I am watching the program itself?

The application currently supports about 37 phones for AT&T, but the company plans to branch out to other wireless operator stores on 107 different phones in the upcoming year. It is available for a one-time only download price of $0.99, and then a monthly subscription price of $0.99.

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