Over Memorial Day Weekend, there was a lot of buzz around the web regarding a Twitter TV show. Variety reported that Twitter had partnered with Reveille and Brillstein Entertainment to develop an unscripted show about ordinary people “on the trail of celebrities.”
Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone updated the Twitter blog, discussing the situation. The show is not an official Twitter show. It’s more of an extension of Twitter’s openness that it has displayed on the web. Stone writes:
Twitter is very open. As a result, thousands of different applications, web sites, and mobile interfaces have been created by developers. These different approaches add variety and relevance to Twitter and in general make the ecosystem more interesting. However, Twitter’s openness is not limited to the web or even to mobile phones.
During the 2008 presidential elections, Hack The Debate showed us how Twitter could make television interactive and possibly even have a democratizing effect on the medium. The power of Twitter was harnessed to create new, compelling, and engaging programming. CNN was an early innovator with Twitter too. Our openness made it all possible.
Stone describes the partnership with Reveille and Brillstein as a “lightweight, non-exclusive agreement.” So in other words, we may see a whole slew of Twitter-related television programming. This doesn’t seem too far-fetched, given the never-ending supply of reality TV shows we are pummeled with, not to mention the ongoing Twitter Mania.
Any Twitter-based show is bound to receive a lot of criticism. Twitter itself already gets its share. Combine it with reality TV, and it’s not hard to envision a Blogosphere (not to mention a Twitterverse) filled with sarcasm and loathing from those who already dislike the concept of Twitter. Luckily for Twitter and the show’s creators, there will probably be a lot of excitement as well.
