Twitter Rooms

by asi

Here is an idea that’s been pestering my mind for a couple of weeks now. It is far from being fully thought through and it might be complete rubbish but I think there is pinch of potential in this half-baked thought so your suggestions and feedback are hugely appreciated.

The idea comes from both active participation and passive observation. The behaviour is there, the technology is there, now it just needs a nice wrapping/positioning and we might create something useful, or not ;-) . Come to think of it, TweetDeck with it’s search and groups columns / functionality if not too far off from what I have in mind.

Most users of twitter simply participate in the ongoing flow of mishmash tweets on the main feed. TweetDeck allows you to set groups – put your contacts into more manageable / contextual columns like friends, social-media buffs, work-buddies etc. With the search you can set up a column that tracks tweets from the global or local twitterverse. Once created these additional columns will automatically update allowing the user to keep track of a twitter threads far easier.

But one common behaviour is begging for a bit of facilitation. What I have in mind is an effortless creation / engagement in Twitter-Rooms – disposable, pop-up, contextual communities that gather around a shared object in real time.

The most obvious example is what you can call TOTV – Tweet over TV:

Currently people randomly tweet their comments when watching something on TV – whether it’s the Daily Show or a presidential debate. More often than not one or more of your contacts is watching the same program and now you got a conversation – but sometimes it’s just you. So imagine that for every event/program (X-factor, Superball, Big brother etc) you can quickly tune in or create a Twitter Room [Twitter (fo)room?] and for the next half an hour you are part of a contextual, disposable community comprises of many more outside your network that gather around that shared object, conversing, bantering, commenting, swearing and what not. In the past, we used to watch big live events at home, sharing the experience with our immediate surrounding or over the phone / text with our friends, and then converse about them the next day at the office. Now we can have a much broader, more immediate, compelling shared experience in real time.

The next immediate application has to do with unfolding events in the real world. The Mumbai attacks are already considered as a milestone in the fundamental shift in the way news is reported and consumed worldwide. I wonder what would have been the experience if all the people who where there and reported in a fairly dispersed manner had a more designated shared space. There are clear benefits for both the individual and the group.

As I said, the technology is there as well as the behaviour. But it is largely taking place in a scattered way within the mess of the main feed, and we are restricted to our network of contacts. It would be nice to be able to join in a pop-up, disposable conversation/community around any shared object that we fancy, which enable us to both expand the conversation and to converse in a designated space, turning down/off the noise of the main feed to participate in highly contextual conversation.

naff said. what say ya?