It's no longer important just to watch and focus on a TV show or its commercials. According to Twitter, I should be thinking, "Sure, I'm watching this show, but what are other people thinking about
it?"
Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, wants Twitter be the main "second
screen" to the traditional TV screen. Makes sense. I have two eyes.
Maybe this is TV fact-checking at its finest. Twitter would like to make sure I'm always bouncing my
prescient thoughts off other people. Seems that marketers want some of this engagement.
What this really says is that the first screen may not be as Important anymore. I don't
need to give my full attention to "The Good Wife," "The Vampire Diaries," Fox News, or the New York Giants versus the San Francisco 49ers, because it just isn't 100% of what it's cracked up to be.
“We used to have a filtered, one-way view of events in the world from the media...," says Costolo. "Now with Twitter, people want to know what everyone else thinks and
we’re getting this inside-out, multi-perspective view of what’s going on right now as it happens from everybody else that’s watching the same thing we’re watching.”
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Maybe it's just shorter -- or lazier-- attention spans. Is that bad? Even the networks have figured this out, what with growing on-screen clutter, other program graphics, "bugs,"
swipes, and yes, for news shows, tweets and messages at the bottom of the screen.
The remedy: People need context -- because they can't concentrate in the first place.
Marketers? In between and around all these, there can be messages to grab a precious few seconds or minutes of attention.
Social media companies that add that context and value
do well. And, most of all, no one wants to feel alone in TVland. Give people more screens, which equates to more friends and approval.