How do you make the act of sitting on your sofa every night of the week, with your eyes glued to a box streaming colourful moving images, a social activity? Well you set up a second box nearby which streams comments from people all over the country, indeed, from across the globe and you stare at this box as well as the cathode ray/plasma/LED screen in the corner.
OK, so perhaps I paint a poor image of what is emerging as social broadcasting and honestly speaking I didn’t get it to start with. Why would you want to watch two screens and miss half the programme whilst you tweet you comments and views? That was until Eurovision.
Eurovision changed everything. Or perhaps Twitter changed Eurovision? Either way, this year, Eurovision became an exciting rollercoaster of musicality, costumes and hashtags. Finally I had a group, a very large group at that, of EuroTrash enthusiasts with whom I could chat about the competition.
And it’s not programmes that for years have been cringe worthy or you really should be ashamed to enjoy that have evolved due to social networking and Twitter. Channel 4’s “experiment” of televising live surgery has had people flooding to Twitter, not just to follow what other people think but to directly ask the studio, presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy @krishgm and surgeons their questions. And when Channel 4 can’t cope with the influx of questions, Tweeters are helping each other out.
Roo Reynolds has blogged often about social broadcasting with his unique insight working for the BBC, and shows how The Apprentice has fans login on and voting each week for who they think will be on the receiving end of the shows iconic catchphrase from Sir Alan in the Board Room.
Instead of sitting every night like a couch potato staring at the TV, I now like to stare at the TV and Twitterfon on my iPod and debate the finer points of international singing competitions (#eurovision), talent shows (#bgt) and open heart surgery (#slive). It is certainly more exciting watching TV with "friends".
Tuesday 26 May 2009
Tuesday 5 May 2009
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