Whilst I sat in front of the TV watching an episode of The Virtual Revolution with a laptop open, monitoring a Twitter hashtag I found it to be a very surreal situation.
The Virtual Revolution is a new TV series aired by the BBC and presented by Dr Aleks Krotoski which looks at how the web has changed our lives in the relatively short time it has been around. Each programme starts with the hashtag #bbcrevolution implying it’s use in social media; the first programme to take advantage of such a device?
Throughout the course of the programme tweets poured in using of the #bbcrevolution hashtag all relating to what was currently on screen. It was a really enlightening experience and a fantastic structured way of viewers discussing what they were seeing in real-time. The most surreal point of all however was the featuring of Austin Heap, the brains behind Haystack, which was developed to provide unfiltered Internet access to the people of Iran.
During Austin’s appearance #bbcrevolution tweets mentioned him and a short while later Aleks retweeted a tweet of his “yes… just finished! RT @AustinHeap: Omg did my part already air?!?! #bbcrevolution”. It was this immediacy of response whilst the programme was still being aired and the interaction with the presenter that I find so surreal.
Up until now I have largely seen TV programmes to be a one-way stream of information; pushed to the viewer. This has changed and for the better. Mal Fletcher posed an interesting question however, “When will TV bcasters allow us live interaction w/ doco broadcasts via #socntwkg, to provide a Forum?” Twitter is great for short responses and discussions, but the 140-character limit doesn’t allow for the opportunity to go into detail about specific points in the same way a forum would allow.