The author of The Thick of It has written a pilot episode about the world of social media for an American television company. Armando Iannucci is in discussions with HBO, the cable company that made The Wire and The Sopranos. He tells Andrew Rawnsley, the Observer's chief political commentator, in the New Review that he is unlikely to write another series of The Thick of It and plans to focus his attention on the new centre of power in California's Silicon Valley.