The social TV phenomenon

One innovation tactic I have found interesting to follow is the idea of "social TV" - the notion to encourage interaction on social media to discuss thoughts and ideas about TV shows while they are live. It's fascinating because when we were growing up, we would watch a TV show live (and maybe record it if we had to miss its appearance), and now we have moved so much farther than that. Television shows have a hashtag in the bottom corner, you can DVR or TiVo them to fast forward parts that you don't want to see and watch your Twitterfeed or Facebook newsfeed to see your network's every thought on each character, scene, episode and more. There are measurement companies that analyze the conversation before and after these shows, submitting reports to advertisers and TV ratings companies so they can see what is being discussed and adjust content accordingly.

One of my favorite TV shows this year, Revenge, has integrated into this pretty intensely. Besides a hashtag, they have a variety of Twitter accounts that retweet the shows' followers and discuss what is happening as it appears. @Gabriel_Mann, the character who plays Nolan Ross and tweets about the show live, has nearly 80,000 followers. The main character - Emily Thorne - has a website called http://emilythorne.org/ - "The Infinity Box: Hampton's Exposed! Ultimate site for ABC's Revenge." This site links to each character on the show to the personal actors and actresses websites, or their character's blogs. Because the show proved so successful in the social sphere, Target & Neiman Marcus even did a huge advertising partnership with it that was heavily discussed online on both Twitter and media publications.

What keeps me following these tactics are that they are luring consumers like me in. I made my Twitter public so @Revenge could retweet me. I read the character blogs and looked at all of these Twitter accounts just to see what the characters are saying. And there are even this many: @Revenge, @TreadwellReport, @TheNolanRoss, @TheAmandaClarke, @EmilyThorneOrg, @VictoriaGraysn, @KaraWallaceC, @HamptonsThorne, @CharGrayson and @RevengeWriters. As a media student, I'm constantly curious about who is running these accounts, what their guidelines are and how much they are getting paid. Another show, Girls on HBO, is one series I see becoming an early adopter to this phenomenon (@GirlsHBO). With its audience of 20something talkers, they already have an active presence on YouTube and Twitter. And it's changing the way we watch TV to be able to read blogs, see what fictional characters might say and be looking at two > one screen while watching TV.

 Do you utilize social TV? What do you think?