Web service Twitter plans TV competition series
Twitter, the Web site that asks what everybody's doing, says it wants to be doing a TV series. — The social-networking service said Monday it has teamed with Reveille productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners to develop …
Context & Ripple Effects
In 2007, television networks were already using the service as a promotional channel in the networks' early Twitter outreach. Twitter's growth past several established web brands gives the entertainment partnership a larger potential audience than that earlier use case.
The parallel account of Twitter's Hollywood push places the company alongside Reveille Productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners in developing programming, shifting its role from a tool broadcasters use to a participant in the production process.
First-order effects
- Twitter, Reveille Productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners begin developing a competition-series concept, giving the platform a direct stake in a television project.
- The production partners gain access to Twitter's growing social audience as they shape and promote the proposed series.
Second-order effects
- Television networks that have used Twitter chiefly for promotion face a platform seeking a place in programming development as well, strengthening the case for closer social-media partnerships around shows.
- Entertainment producers gain another route to test whether an online social brand can help distinguish a television format in a crowded development market.
Third-order effects
- If platforms move from promotional support into production partnerships, the line between social-media audience building and television commissioning will narrow, with audience reach becoming part of a format's development pitch.
The trend: Social platforms are beginning to convert their value as television marketing channels into direct roles in entertainment development.