Backchannels: what’s the potential?
One of the most enjoyable things about being at SXSW this year was sitting in some of the larger and more disastrous talks and reading the tweets roll in from around the room. I’ve heard a few social media muggers call this ‘the social media backchannel’. It’s consistently amusing. It’s like passing notes around a class full of your best friends in front of a blind supply teacher.
Last night’s #leadersdebate was a total treat. Eventually I was reading the tweets from the people I follow and the search results for #leadersdebate and not even watching the TV. Clearly, occupying both the TV screen AND the only laptop in the house pleased my wife no end. She was reduced to squinting at Facebook on her iPhone instead. And I wasn’t alone; a few non-industry friends said they preferred the talk on Facebook over the telly.
So, given that this backchannel stuff is hugely popular, what’s the potential? Is there a chance that the backchannel might become the frontchannel? Could you see yourself totally ignoring the commentary on the World Cup this year in favour of a large-screen feed of tagged football commentary from fans? Could you see yourself at a wedding writing messages on a virtual wall? And how about planning a happening simply in order to enjoy the backchannel? It would have been sweet for Parlorphone to hype up the release of LCD Soundsystem’s new album This Is Happening and schedule a giant global listen and to pull in the backchannel from twitter. It would be like a giant record club. You could do the same for a movie like Kick-Ass, perhaps allow 20k people to view the film and have them backchannel it for others.
What’s interesting is that the majority of people tend to go with the consensus, so if the backchannel is negative, don’t bother distributing that extra 100k copies or planning that high-budget tour if the album flops in the proto-backchannel.
One of the major criticisms might be around profanity. But really, I honestly believe we’ll grow out of most of that. Though there’s always someone that has to draw the penis on the notepad isn’t there?
There’s a startup idea there somewhere.
8 comments
Hahahaha. Comment over.
Good one, Mike!
Have you checked out LiveFyre (interesting back channel premise based off of “intelligent conversation)?
I love the idea and concept of “event based viewing” where commentary and insight are far more valuable in real time then in a recording…
Thanks Stuart, looks good I’ll check it out.
Great post.
Do you think there’s a use for dedicated event-specific backchannels that can bring people together in a more intelligent way than just hashtags or do you think the currently diverse / random / ad hoc nature is part of its power / usefulness / charm?
If such a place existed would people (you) use them or would you most likely stick on Twitter? Are there certain situations that suit this better than others (e.g. England World Cup games that almost everyone’s watching vs a 1st round Snooker game with only a handful of viewers)?
My question is part idle curiosity but part due to ideas and conversations that we’ve been having.
Personally I really only want to see the backchannel created by people I already follow. It’s not too interesting getting random folk on there, like you do on Justin.tv. Personally I would stick to Twitter, however the experience is far from ideal on any of the clients.
I think niche and popular events are very different from each other. The world cup and leaders debates seem to have everybody on there, but I wouldn’t want to subject people to certain stuff I might enthuse about. And likewise, people subjecting me to tweets about snooker would result in reaching for the un-follow button. Niche happenings should probably be moved out of the stream somehow. Some combination of being able to see the people I know who are taking part in this happening and seeing new folk would be interesting.
I think that’s the challenge. As long as people you follow are discussing a topic, you’re mostly interested in that but as you get to more niche subjects, you start to want to introduce some external opinion. It’s a difficult balance and quite a tricky problem to solve technically (especially within the confines of APIs and stuff).
BTW, prepare to un-follow me as the World Championship Snooker has just kicked off!
Right, I’ve un-followed you. Better to be safe then sorry.
Yeah, it feels like something that could and should be built into Twitter somehow. It would be very cool to be able to subscribe to a ‘channel’ or ‘happening’ and only see tweets from your friends regarding that thing. It seems like the kind of core extension that they would figure in at some point.