Twitter + Telly: enhancing your experience?
I thought my Twitter habit was bad but apparently it’s about to get worse. The Royal Wedding has highlighted the trend for something called ‘two screening’ where people congregate round the telly to watch and tweet a running commentary of the most popular TV programmes. For me it started with Mary Queen of Shops, entertaining on its own but even more fun when reading the tweets of fellow viewers. I rarely watch TV but I’ve noticed that increasingly, my Twitter feed is flooded with tweets about certain TV shows during the week. Everyone but me seems to be watching Made In Chelsea, The Apprentice and Eurovision and frankly I’m starting to feel left out! TV-tweeting might be the tipping point that brings naysayers to Twitter – my friend’s mum has apparently decided to join Twitter so she can partake in The Apprentice TV-tweets along with thousands of others and Alan Sugar himself. Will two-screening mean that TV ratings and Twitter users go up?
Student Sarah Smith has written a post on the subject here. What do you think? Are you on Twitter? Are you tempted to join? Do you watch and tweet at the same time and how does tweeting enhance your experience (or not).
[Image: Twitpic/@BBCWorld]
16 May, 2011 @ 9:34 am
I love to watch and tweet.. and also FB .. I love it xx
16 May, 2011 @ 5:49 pm
Oh this is SO me, I actually enjoy TV much more now I ‘two-screen’, it’s like being in a room full of funny people. I tried to do it while watching Iplayer the other day and forgot it wasn’t live…MOST disappointing. Ax
16 May, 2011 @ 6:36 pm
Oh I two screen a lot.
Infact I think I use twitter more when I’m watching the telly. I joined Twitter just before Xfactor started last year but I just didn’t “get it” until the XFactor auditions screened. I find it interesting (and a lot of the times funny) to read people’s opinions-it’s a bit like meeting with your friends the next day and discussing what happened on Eastenders last night only you’re doing it whilst the show is on so you’re getting an immediate reaction.
I must say, Twitter MADE the royal wedding for me. I most probably would have changed the channel after I had seen the dress but my timeline had me locked in.
16 May, 2011 @ 7:37 pm
I love watching TV and tweeting at the same time, I feel like I am part of a huge community. Also some of the comments people make really make me laugh and enjoy the show much more. And they said telly was dead eh?
16 May, 2011 @ 9:00 pm
Absolutely, in a house full of twitterers during the Eurovision on Saturday, my boyfriend was driven demented and felt extremely left out as the rest of us spent all night on our phones/laptops asking each other ‘did you see what so-and-so said?’
There’s a lot of shows that just wouldn’t be AS entertaining were it not for twitter
16 May, 2011 @ 9:41 pm
Glad we are all in agreement, I think Twitter is going to really come into its own now (more than Facebook for me)! Thanks for the comments!
17 May, 2011 @ 11:18 am
v. interesting point to raise. I have started avoiding Twitter when my fave shows are on in the States (what is: Gossip Girl)because the spoiler tweets take over!!! Wonder when the networks will find a clever way to integrate and capitalize on the phenom?
22 May, 2011 @ 7:28 am
So funny…AOL wanted to do something like this way back in 1999 but they didn’t have the mechanism for it. I think their idea was a box attached to the TV, so you’d see people’s comments on the TV screen. Interesting to see how the concept eventually came to be. They were ahead of their time in this one way. (At the same time, they were still relying on dial-up.)