For a long time now I have been the type of person that sits with my laptop in front of me while I watch my TV.  Sometimes I am working, other times I am browsing, and more often than not I am keeping an eye on what friends and foes are saying.  I generally have tweet deck open in the background just in case someone happens to post an interesting 140 word reference that I want to explore in greater depth.

I somehow manage to do all this and keep up with the storyline of whatever program I am watching on TV.  

When my show goes to an ad break I tend to mute the TV and switch my entire focus to my laptop for two minutes.  In fact I normally have a bunch of things lined up for the ad breaks that require more attention than I can give while watching my program – during this time I probably also un-mute my laptop and let Pandora suggest to me a random song or two.  In that two minutes, every now and again Pandora comes across a gem that I haven’t heard before that makes my new selections list on iTunes.

Sometimes I’ll see a reference on my program (and occasionally on an ad) that requires immediately goggling because if I don’t do it right now I’ll forget and never do it.

But I never interact with my TV program via my laptop – I am never asked to offer my opinion or to join the live conversation on Larry King via streaming IM.  No TV producer has asked me to vote real-time via Facebook on who the next pop idol should be.  No one has asked me to check in to the shows that I am watching so that my friends can share in this experience.  Saturday Night Live hasn’t even asked me to contribute to a choose your own adventure skit via twitter – it probably would be funnier if they did.  And Neilsen still isn’t using live social media chatter to determine what is popular and what is not.

This is where co-viewing comes in and it is coming big time with the iPad.  All the usual suspects (Apple, Sony, Google and even MTV) are playing with apps and technologies that use the iPad to leverage people like me, a ‘viewing multi-tasker’ is what I think they call me.  Catchy right?

It goes without saying that I will quickly swap my laptop for my iPad, and that I will take it from room to room as I move around, and that opens up a world of new ways that I can engage with what I am watching.  

I am pretty sure that I am not the only ‘viewing multi-tasker’  – so my question is how will the iPad change how you engage (or not) with TV?  You never know, your idea might be a game changer.