Just when you’ve learnt how to tweet on Twitter, it’s time for Twision.
Twitter Television is the latest twist on the microblogging phenomenon to have captured people’s imagination, at least in Spain.
Combining Twitter with TV, the new program on the country’s Veo7 channel allows twitterers to interact with the presenters and their guests.
Thousands of people have been logging in to post tweets, or messages, on any given subject that pop up in real time on the bottom of the TV screen during the hour-long weekly show.
US-based Twitter itself said Twision appeared to be the first show of its kind in the world, although it has no official connection to the social networking site.
“It’s not backed at all by Twitter, which is what makes the show even more compelling,” said Twitter’s vice president for communications, Sean Garrett.
“Anyone can do something like this completely on their own with Twitter’s open and public network,” he said.
The program also has recorded features and interviews, as well as the latest news on Internet technology and social networking sites.
The first show in March included Spain’s NBA basketball star Rudy Fernandez, who answered questions in a Twitentrevistado, or Twinterview.
Another program focused on the newly launched iPad, and included an interview with a Spanish hacker based in Houston, Texas.
The Web version, at www.veo.es/twision, features a “Twitterulia” which shows tweets alongside the broadcast.
Veo7’s director Melchor Moralles, one of the two hosts, said some 659,000 people had tuned in for at least part of the first show in March. Two months later, this had slumped to 350,000, although a repeat of the program is shown the next day.
The figures “prove that there is room for a program like this,” Moralles said in a blog. “Twision is going to succeed, there’s no doubt.”
However, one analyst said he doubted the Veo7 show ever would catch on in the long-term.
“Whenever a new technology comes along, older forms will try to interact with it,” said Joshua Benton of Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab.
“There used to be a lot of TV shows about Web sites. When television first came along, there were programs that just showed radio disc jockeys playing records,” he said.
“I think it’s a natural thing for a television producer to want to bring the latest hot topic to his medium. But I wouldn’t say I’m optimistic about Twision lasting on air for 20 years,” he said.
Twitter itself, which has broadcast billions of tweets since its launch in 2006, last year signed what was described as a “lightweight, non-exclusive, agreement” with US TV producers to develop a show based on the social networking site.
However, Garrett said the reports “were exaggerated in the media.”
“There was a passing thought, but then it was quickly agreed that there would be no reason for us to be involved in a ‘Twitter Show’ because media everywhere could do it on their own,” he said.
He said the Veo7 show “was brought up in our weekly all-employee meeting and everyone enjoyed hearing about it.”
Twitter executives are “constantly surprised by how people use and integrate Twitter in creative ways,” he said.
Tweets shown on the program itself were largely enthusiastic.
“What’s amusing is to see this live, and to try to follow 3,000 tweets there were tonight,” said one.
“Thank you [to you and all the team] for doing something different and innovative,” said another.
But at least one viewer was disappointed.
“The only thing new is the format. In terms of the content, I don’t see anything different from conventional television,” said Natalia, a 43-year-old teacher. “In short, I think there are many programs like this already on TV.”
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
A former flight attendant for a Canadian airline posed as a commercial pilot and as a current flight attendant to obtain hundreds of free flights from US airlines, authorities said on Tuesday. Dallas Pokornik, 33, of Toronto, was arrested in Panama after being indicted on wire fraud charges in US federal court in Hawaii in October last year. He pleaded not guilty on Tuesday following his extradition to the US. Pokornik was a flight attendant for a Toronto-based airline from 2017 to 2019, then used fake employee identification from that carrier to obtain tickets reserved for pilots and flight attendants on three other
RSS