There’s been a lot of discussion around the possibilities of time-shifted TV viewing and what it means for Social TV. Again, there are certain situations in which viewers’ desire to socialize around a given program is being supported by technology that allows them to watch the program whenever they want, making the socializing aspect the center of the experience.
But what happens when the situation almost demands real-time viewing? And what happens if that real-time viewing encourages socializing to an even further extent? While being able to watch a program when you want to watch it is really valuable in many instances, sometimes you just need to “go live.”
I’m thinking of events or broadcasts that you just can’t miss – they just aren’t the same recorded.
- Sporting events: You can’t watch Opening Day of the Red Sox even one minute delayed. Absolutely not.
- News or current events: Some of the to-the-minute comments that come from watching the State of the Union address just don’t mean the same thing the following day.
- Entertainment: Let’s be honest ladies, there’s a certain satisfaction when you and your girlfriends can stay with, or even ahead of Joan and Melissa Rivers on the red carpet to the Oscars and chat about it with friends.
- Reality TV: “No, don’t do it!” at the season finale of the Bachelor is not the same an hour later. (For the record, I don’t watch this show, but was interested to see what the Twitter stream was doing for #bachelor last Monday, and 90% of the comments happening would have been meaningless even 10 minutes after the fact).
You’ve missed something that can’t be replicated, and it’s something more than just the program. It’s the social interactions: the trash-talking, the gossiping, the despair! In fact, the people that do want to socialize around some of these programs prefer to do it in real-time. I’ve met more than a few people who have told me that they know one or more people that are all into the same show (pick your show) and want to share thoughts in real-time.
Since issues of distance and coordination are still an issue, this really supports the idea of having a robust system in place to be able to encourage that real-time socialization among your friends.
What other instances have you valued both real-time viewing and social viewing? What solutions have you found to work?
