Social TV: Twitter is a natural "companion medium" to other media channels -- in particular to live TV

written by: Gianluigi Cuccureddu

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Published on Monday, 13 December 2010 08:04

That's one of the highlights in a new research called "Twitter Usage In America 2010" derived from the Edison Research/Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Series.

The research is conducted of three years of tracking data from a nationally representative telephone survey (via landline and mobile phone) of 1,753 Americans, and was conducted in February 2010.

The most interesting is the title of this news article, namely that Twitter is a natural "companion medium" to other media channels, in particular Live TV. This trend matches with the rise of multi-device and -platform media consumption, multitasking and real time interaction through Twitter, mostely via iPhone and tablets/iPads.

This development is a natural succession of Social Technographics statistics that shows increasing opportunities for Social TV and statistics from the UK that shows that half of the Brits use social media during watching TV.

This research is a re-affirmation of the conclusions made in the Social Technographics analysis:

Transmedia and multi-screen concepts

These are part of the Social TV experience, offering users a companion application and extra entry in the TV content consumption.
A second more profound implication is the actual TV content creation with help of the viewers which can be accounted especially the Creators.

Not only will a part of the Joiners shift to more active profiles but the large percentage also indicates and sustain that people visit their social network profiles and keep a close eye on what's happening in their network. This sustains the result of another research that indicated the preference for Facebook ratings (Likes) so that friends could see what others found interesting to watch.

Engagement

Viewers want to partake in the prosuming process. Both being part of the production of (primary or secondary) content and consumption of it. Loyalty rises by giving a Voice and businesses can extract intelligence from the target group to learn and enhance their proposition.

Interoperability

Another implication is the increasing importance of creating an interoperable social experience with -for instance- Facebook or any other exisiting social network.
Social behavior doesn't stand still, even if for most profiles a plateau is reached, technological innovations could spur new and/or enhanced social digital behavior.

New -social- Business Models

Partaking the television set into social ubiquity is a first step into transforming the conventional TV networks into social TV networks (Social TV).