Pwning the future

In a quick and dirty post announcing the presence of LP on Twitter I wrote about where I thought mass adoption of the platform was likely to take place.

My favourite use for Twitter? Search for breaking news and to capture the zeitgeist and as a back channel for important events. It’s made watching popular TV fun. Which by the way is where I think it’s real potential lies – integrated with TV as a live mass media watercooler. For example, watching tonight’s Four Corners on the Liberal Party’s internal struggle with global warming and the CPRS while following the #4corners tag.

More comprehensively in The Naked Truth About Social v Broadcast Media, Jason Wilson writes about exactly that intersection of social and broadcast media.

The post stems from a recent event where Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes obliged his legion of fans on Twitter by uttering a single word.

The analogues between Media Watch’s stock in trade — biting criticisms of the failures and inadequacies of Australia’s media — and the fiskings, gotchas and flaming of blogwars were irresistible to some. And as a wry, occasionally smart-arsed presenter, Holmes had all the attributes required to become a minor social media and blogosphere icon. Starting with a tweet, then posts on his own blog and on the group blog Groupthink, Bridges offered a challenge: if Holmes would claim to have “pwned” a newspaper, television programme or radio station, he and others would run naked around the block. A meme was born: letters were written, and on Twitter, a style of live commentary developed — after each item, Twitterers would suggest that the target had been pwned. In the week leading up to last week’s final episode, Holmes dropped hints that the campaign might be having some effect on his script. The runners got ready, and over Monday night and Tuesday morning, videos and photos were published (Warning: nudity).

He goes on to demonstrate how, as he says, “broadcasters have an opportunity to add layers of significance to particular programs, and make it possible for different parts of their audience to engage with programs in different ways,” and how, “it’s possible that in doing all this, social media are in some small ways revivifying, in a post-broadcast era, the old habit of simultaneous viewing, and timeshifting the water-cooler conversation.”

Wilson claims that the “nudie run” would be largely marked down as a bit of internet silliness, but I disagree, the ABC and Holmes noticed, and quite a few other media watchers did too – I think the event highly instructional for the big media players – showing them a way forward in making their content relevant (and immediate) to audiences.

The moral of the story? Listen to your customers. They’re usually right.

You can follow LP on Twitter here.