Apparently micro-blogging service Twitter is planning a TV show in conjuncion with Reveille Productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners. According to the article on MSNBC, the show would be a little bit reality tv and a little bit game show with contestants twittering about celebs in some sort of a competition. I thought that is what the tabloid magazines and blogs were for and the reality is that one could argue that Twitter is already well ingrained with television. You can’t watch the news without seeing promos to get breaking news via twitter and some anchors occasionally twitter from their desks. ABC has already launched a web-based program, NightTline, that allows Twitter users to discuss issues of the day with the anchors.
A quick search on twitter indicates a whole lot of eye-rolling and a little bit of natural curiosity about the new show. It is an interesting idea but Twitter loses more than half of new subscribers within a month of their signing up for the service, according to David Martin of Nielsen. I’d imagine the new show will generate significant numbers of new subscribers while driving adoption. What will be interesting though is seeing whether or not the early adopters stick around too.
UPDATE: Read on Mashable last night that Twitter is not endorsing any one show and is involved in many potential television projects. This makes more sense and allows them to partner and gain a halo effect from what others are doing. I still however think they need to figure out what their second act will be as people have less urgency around micro-blogging in and of itself.
June 2nd, 2009 at 11:23 am
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