What does the overwhelming global response to the launch of Such Tweet Sorrow tell us about Twitter?
To me, it marks an important tipping point that every new platform hits when it truly comes of age. This is the point at which a platform for communication becomes a truly viable platform for ever-more-sophisticated forms of content and entertainment - because this is the key to driving it forwards into mass market penetration. Like it or not, it's content that's going to get your granny on Twitter ... and your mum. And, yes, your kids too.
This is by no means a new thing. We've seen this curve many times before. Radio started as a communication tool to bring people together over long distances but then evolved as a content platform. Same thing with Facebook. Are we now seeing the same thing happen with Twitter – via projects like Such Tweet Sorrow – and what will this mean for the future of the platform?
There’s something interesting in having the opportunity to watch how this happens with Twitter and see the progression. It appears to be following a route that has been established since prehistoric days in the development of language itself. It goes something like this ....
Birth of language :
The development of a common language. (In the twittersphere this means hashtags, RT’s, DM’s @replies etc)
From communication to broadcast :
As more people adopt the language, it spreads, grows, evolves. Communities are built. Eventually it reaches a critical mass where there are enough users and communities to form what can be called a viable audience. And thus broadcast is born.
Birth of content :
News comes first. Arguably news is part communication, part content. But it’s the first thing that happens with any new language/platform once audiences have emerged. We’re already there with Twitter – personally, it’s my first and most common go-to place for news these days. Web and RSS feeds already seem like supporting players for additional content.
Comedy:
Interesting that this emerges so quickly behind news - something there about the importance of satire, perhaps? Live comedy rarely works on other media – on tv, for example, it just isn’t the same. But, of all the media platforms, twitter is the one that comes closest to recreating the live experience of a bearpit comedy gig, with all the cheers and jeers from the crowd. Peter Serafinowicz , for example, has mastered the art of twitter comedy and massively enhanced his reputation – and arguably got his TV series DVD released off the back of a twitter campaign and huge growth in followers. Live audience interaction is a crucial component to good live comedy - and this is something twitter excels at and @serafinowicz works incredibly well.
Twitter also works for comedy and comedians as it helps hone skills to write tight one-liners. But over the weekend of the launch of Such Tweet Sorrow there was also an interesting exploration of the dramatic possibilities of Twitter by Graham Linehan - writer of Father Ted - who started writing a live, impromptu sketch about the arrest of the Pope. Twitter comedy, it seems, had evolved beyond the one-liner and into new more structured possibilities. Which brings me to ....
Drama:
Ahh. Drama on new media platforms. Always a tricky one because it requires a more sophisticated use and understanding of the medium, (by both writers, producers and audiences). It took TV a long, long time to get it right. For years, TV drama essentially meant plonking a camera in front of a stage play, (but in a TV studio), and filming it. The BBC's I Claudius may have been a landmark drama of its day, but - really - it is little more than a stage play with the live audience removed, with few concessions to the fact that it is played out over an entirely new medium with a different set of rules and possibilities. And online? Lots of lessons not being learned with too much telly-on-the-web masquerading as interactive dramas. Bebo pretty much cornered that space after the initial success of Kate Modern ... but it was always obvious to me that they were backing the wrong horse.
So how will Twitter fare as a platform for drama? We've had a sneak preview already from the superb use of the medium with Jon Bounds' Twitpanto , (which - it was announced today - has been awarded a thoroughly deserved Webby Honoree in the Net Art category). One of the wonderful innovations here was the web platform for Twitpanto which filtered the scripted cast tweets onto a 'stage' and the backchat from the twitter audience into an auditorium so you could follow the narrative more clearly. Brilliant!
And now here comes Such Tweet Sorrow - the world's first professionally produced drama for Twitter - from the RSC, no less. What this has in common with Twitpanto - and why I believe it marks a genuinely intriguing turning point - is that it really makes best use of the live, interactive and real-time nature of twitter. And as much as it's tempting to say this is a 21st Century version of Shakespeare, there's so much about it that harks back to the way Shakespeare would have been performed in his day to the cheers and jeers from the balconies and groundlings. Like live comedy, interaction from a live audience is a crucial element of theatre - even if it's only the occasional audible gasp or laugh or burst of applause.
I don't doubt that there will be those who bemoan the idea of Twitter becoming a content platform, and I totally get that. There will always be protests when developers move into an area of great natural beauty. Usually rightly so. But just watching how this develops - and following the incredible buzz, (mostly overwhelmingly positive), around Such Tweet Sorrow since its launch is genuinely exciting. I have no idea where this is going to lead, but I do know that it is important. It's an important step for Mudlark - the small, perfectly formed and brilliantly creative company that conceived it, and it's great to see them being thrust on the international stage where they belong. And that right there is a large part of the reason why we supported this project through our Digital Media Fund and 4iP. But it's also important to push a few boundaries and see what this new content platform is capable of delivering - this is surely what an innovation fund should be there for?
Can Twitter do drama? And - more importantly - can it do it to the world-class standards of the RSC with arguably the best known play by the world's greatest ever playwright? Aye .... there's the rub.