Digital Minds Forum

Dream On…

Written by Neil Kelley on Monday 8th March 2010 at 5:40 pm

A ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary that follows two aspiring actresses, a musician, an actor and a model as they try to break into ‘show business’ and become stars… definitely not my cup of tea, so why on earth am I writing about it? Well…

This is pitched as a new type of reality TV show, one that uses social and interactive media to engage with the ever increasing audience that no longer watch ‘traditional’ TV shows in ‘traditional’ ways, but prefer to use their computers and social networking tools to choose and control what they want to watch and when they want to watch it.

The episodic content is available to watch via Hulu (a free online video service based in the US that offers free content – whilst revenue is derived from advertising – and offering some major shows for free – have a look!) and reflects that of the traditional reality TV show episodes – however you can watch it at your convenience and catch up on any missed episodes.

There are 50 webcams in the house that you access and control based on what you want to see and when you want to see it, the ‘housemates’ Tweet and Blog their thoughts and progress, you can become their friends on key social networks and even text them, the music they’re currently listening is available to stream for free and auditions for new housemates will take place on myspace.com.

There is big corporate sponsorship to keep it viable – from Pepsi and Ford for example – and the program and format is the idea of Simon Fuller (who?) the original brains behind Pop Idol and American Idol.

Will it work, I don’t know… critics are already saying not enough people know about it and that will lead to its failure… it launched last night by the way. So, as a point of interest, is social media a platform that drives conative behaviour or do we still need to rely on more traditional forms of marketing communications for this? All I know is that we could very well be looking at the future of ‘reality’ TV, taken to a whole new level through the intelligent convergence of digital social media… genius!

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