Interpersonal communication mediated by computer services supports the reinforcement and emergence of new communities brought together by leisure or work interests. This paper presents a workbench system that aims to study how the same principle can be applied in interactive television. The main objective is to allow TV users to be online (2BeOn) through the integration of basic and advanced communication services, enabling them to reinforce their interpersonal communication. The 2BeOn system is based on four core components: user tracking, communication services, interface engine and collaboration content/interaction tracing. In addition to the social and behavioural context of the system, its conceptualisation, prototyping and evaluation are addressed.