Can twitter save the broadcast schedule?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the using of a second screen while watching TV, initially as an enhancement to the program you’re watching, looking up actors, back story, soundtracks, time lines, related media etc. For every hour of watching lost you need to spend as long on lostpedia working out what you just saw.
Four years ago Tom Coates wrote this piece on social TV watching via software on set-top boxes, he hints on mobile / second screen integration, which I think is key in it becoming reality.
This is now starting to happen. Most nights when watching TV I have ‘second screen’ to hand, this used to be a laptop, now it’s typically a smart phone or iPod touch. Smaller devices offer a more discreet back channel and are also easily ignored when you want to pay attention to the main screen. Also my wife tends to email and face book on the iBook while we watch tv anyway! :)
Last night was no different, I was watching ‘The Hospital’ on channel 4, a brutal documentary, that I couldn’t help commenting on. Moments later several more people in my ‘small’ following stream were commenting on it too. Then a ‘I’ve just started watching it’ tweet, I did a search on the hospital to see over 60% of tweets were about the program, and there were A LOT of them. Along side these tweets were an equally active group posting about the ongoing champions league games. In the morning there were messages from people that had watched the Channel 4+1 version after reading the tweets. This is gold for TV companies, a secondary channel that’s actively recruiting viewers to live broadcasts and their non skippable adverts, as well as encouraging time shift viewing via +1 channels, and on demand services like 4oD and iPlayer.
For the viewer it moves the next days ‘water cooler’ moment to the here and now, which is what twitter is all about, you device acting in context with your viewing and your remote contacts. There’s numerous reputation and recommendation transactions going on invisibly. An your level on engagement is in your control, want to pay attention to the programme, just put the device down. Twitters short messages also mimic the sort of quick comment/conversation you would have with people in the room with you during watching a programme. They are not enough of a distraction toruin the watching experience.
Last week, Roo Reynolds noted the massive twitter trending during the BBC’s apprentice , The BBC themselves are trailing the website and its ‘live voting’ feature that people are meant to use while watching. This all makes watching the live original broadcast more crucial, plus if you wait a day to time shift it, chances are the outcome is spoiled.
I’ve been using several TV based application on mobile devices, SKY+ is available on pretty much all devices now, allowing you to set your box remotely and view EPG’s. TIOTI are doing good work, iPlayer has mobile versions at varying levels of development. As well as legally and illegally downloaded TV/Movie files, consumption habits are changing but not lessening.
Importantly this just the beginning of the possibility’s, and this is all based on existing data and communication channels, it just needs to aggregated into a single useful application that’s dedicated to TV.
The twitter example is interesting in that it’s keeping the idea of ‘event’ television alive and well in a post broadcast consumption world.
