Patent ID: 8711200

Claim:
A television appliance comprising: a television receiver for receiving television signals and outputting the television signal of at least one selected channel to a screen of said television appliance; a network interface for accessing a data network; a memory storing a communication client application; and at least one processing apparatus communicatively associated with the memory, network interface, and video apparatus, and arranged to execute the communication client application to perform operations including: maintaining a list of contacts; allowing the television appliance to establish communication events with the contacts' respective television appliances via the network interface and the data network; receiving a machine-readable data item via the network interface and the data network from a respective contact's television appliance, the machine-readable data item indicating a current television channel being displayed by the respective contact's television appliance; and processing the machine-readable data item so as to enable said user's television appliance to be automatically navigated to the same television channel being displayed by the respective contact's television appliance based on the processed data item when the television channel being displayed by the respective contact's television appliance includes different content than the at least one selected channel.