Social Media is really nothing new. It’s been around as long as there has been something to sell, that’s needed someone to sell it.

Engaging with potential customers and giving them what they want, is much better than simply standing on a cliff yelling down at them, “Buy This! Buy This!”.

So where does television come in? Well, you may not have noticed, but for the many years that you were glued to your tv set watching The Cosby Show or Seinfeld re-runs, you were in fact watching hours upon hours of advertisements. These advertisements were not just thrown into the commercial breaks willy nilly. Market research was conducted, and in a way, aspects of social media were implemented to decide which ads would be shown during which shows, and at what times.

However, over the past few months, many people have slowly started to focus more on alternate means of receiving entertainment, which could mean big problems for television advertisers. This does however, offer huge potential for online, connected social media campaigns. The ability to tell friends what you are watching on your new device, or what you thought of last night’s episode of The Office while sitting on your couch, could give advertisers an incredible amount of data to use in order to deliver relevant, quality ads to viewers.

The alternatives I’m talking about are mainly comprised of what have been dubbed ‘set top boxes’, ‘video boxes’, ‘home media players’, etc. Everyone has no doubt heard of one or more of the devices, some of which are available, some have been announced and are releasing this year. They include, but are not limited to :

Apple TV

This is Apple’s take on online rentals, for your TV. Linking up to Netflix and iTunes is certainly a major plus for many, but with no internal storage, you are limited to renting or streaming. Also, Apple has a tendency for limiting what you are allowed to do with their devices, so unless you are willing to modify the box to accommodate your needs, you might want to look elsewhere. You can however, expect quality hardware and a user-friendly interface.

Boxee Box

The Boxee Box is a physical implentation of their long running media playback software, Boxee. Heavily integrated with the internet, it pulls information down for your media, and links up with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other social networking accounts. Its interface has proven to be a hit, as well as its compatibility with a range of video/audio formats.

Google TV

Not too much is known about Google TV yet, however the platform has an incredible amount of potential. In a similar fashion to their mobile OS – Android, Google is opting to integrate their software into hardware developed by other companies. The Logitech Revue will debut later this year, which will be powered by Google TV. Google has become a household name now, so it may ride that momentum into a lot of living rooms.

Believe it or not, the XBOX 360 and PlayStation 3

It’s been a long time since gaming machines were used purely for video games. Internet connectivity, media playback, social network integration, and even web browsing (on the PS3) allow users to gulp up as much entertainment as they can on just one device, and allow social media campaigns to engage an entirely new, specific type of audience.

Others include : TiVO Premiere, Roku, WD Live Plus, etc.