Social Television?

Where social networks meet television

Yesterday, The Guardian ran one of their ‘predictions’ for 2010 in their Media Section. I It predicted the rise of something they called Social Television.

Social Television  is the inevitable marriage of watching TV and being on the web at the same time.

The Guardian predicts we will see many Social TV experiments in 2010.

Of course, we have already done the Social TV work with our series 5Takes for The Travel Channel.

The series ran  in 2004/5 for The Travel Channel, before there was a term Social Television, and before there was Twitter.

5Takes ran for four season, so I am not complaining.  One renewal is pretty good in cable. Four is four times better.

But the show never gained the kind of traction I hoped it would.

The idea was that people went online and talked to the participants while the show was happening, in real time.

In those days, we had to send our participants to Internet Cafes so that they could log in and read the emails. It just shows you how quickly technology moves.

Today, they could tweet all day long, back and forth, with the viewers.

The show gained a limited cult following, but now with Twitter, I think the model is really ready to try again.

The secret to the show, besides the social networking, is the fast turn.

But taking the edit into the field, and editing on laptops in real time, as we shot, we were able to turn each hour in only 6 days, as it happened.

Probably, one day we will look at that as archaic as having to go to the Internet cafe to read your emails.

But for now, a 6-day turn around for a weekly hour reality show is still pretty good.

Married to Twitter, it could be … well, let’s call it Social Television.

About the author

mrosenblum - For more than 20 years, Mr. Rosenblum has been on the cutting edge of the digital ‘videojournalist’ revolution. During this time, he has lead a drive for videoliteracy, and the complete rethinking of how television is made and controlled. His work has included: The complete transitioning of The BBC's national network (UK) to a VJ-driven model, starting in 2002. The complete conversion of The Voice of America, the United State’s Government’s broadcasting agency, (and the largest broadcaster in the world), from short wave radio to television broadcasting and webcasting using the ‘VJ” paradigm (1998-present). The construction of NYT Television, a New York Times Company, and the largest producer of non-fiction television in the US. Rosenblum was both the founder and President of NYT TV, (all based on the “VJ” paradigm – 1996-1998). The President and Founder of Video News International, a global VJ-driven newsgathering company, with more than 100 journalists around the world. (1993-1996).