I’ve been thinking a lot lately about TV and what people call the real time web (Twitter, Facebook status updates, live video streams, etc) and how the two are intersecting. Throw in the iPad and it’s looking more and more like we’re coming to a major change in the way we interact with TV programming and I thought I’d jot down some of my current thoughts on it.

THE SURFACING OF THE LIVING ROOM COVERSATION

Until now, TV as we’ve known it has been mostly a sit back experience. The expectation was that as you watch a TV show, you can enjoy the narrative without any expectation of responding back. It’s very relaxing to watch TV this way and certain shows/types of content will continue to be watched this way for a very long time.

But what many people may not recognize is that even during this one-way experience there has always been social interaction – it’s just until now it was limited to the living room.

At home, you watch with family and/or friends and if something significant goes down you turn to the other person and make a comment. You respond to their responses. You start discussions based on things happening in the show in real-time. If you’ve ever said something to your significant other in response to something on the TV, you’ve participated in social television. This has been happening for as long as TV has been around.

So what we’re seeing lately is not necessarily new, just an expanding of behaviors outside of the home/local space to the greater world. Nowadays, in the same way you might mention how astounded you were at the latest twist in LOST to your roommate, you can just as easily mention that twist to (and get responses from) your followers on Twitter or your connections on Facebook or whatever.

And what’s starting to happen is that living room experience, those real-time discussions that for the last sixty years have stayed in the living room, are bouncing back to the creators of the TV content as soon as they happen. Unfiltered, raw responses to content bouncing back to an extent never seen before.

In essence, the entire world has become a focus group giving feedback in real time.

Never before has there been more immediate feedback on content than we have today. No matter what show is currently airing on whatever network, I can go and find someone talking about it in real-time somewhere on the Internet.

As someone who creates content for TV, this is an amazing tool. Using Twitter, I watch how viewers respond to our show in real-time. I look at it in the morning to see what people are still talking about if anything. I respond to people as much as I can, answering questions. And better yet, so does the host of our show. We’re connecting with viewers more than ever before.

But something is still missing. These connections as of right now are mostly two-way from the viewer to us (the people who are the content creators) and back to the viewer.  They have a few connections to other fans as they watch the show but for the most part are not unified while watching the program. Twitter as medium works fine to connect everyone if the show is a major media event (LOST, the Academy Awards, NFL, etc.) but mostly you and your friends watch different things at different times.

Somehow we need to find a way to sit in the same virtual living room as others experience the same content. Connecting with friends as they watch the same TV as us but also able to access the greater audience watching the show in real time. We need a specific web around content – specialized and connective.

THE IPAD AND WHY IT MATTERS FOR SOCIAL TV

The iPad is a big new thing.

For the first time ever, we have an Internet-active large screen device that is designed to sit in the living room with the TV. You can argue that the iPad can be used for a lot more than that, but to me this is the first computer designed to co-exist with the television.

Of course people have been using their laptops in living rooms for years. How does the iPad differ from that?

Well, for one, it’s definitely less formal using an iPad than a laptop. I know that my wife feels more like I’m sharing the experience of watching TV when I use the iPad vs. the laptop. It’s less bulky and less consuming of space on the couch. Also, the screen is easy to share and move and hand over, all of which add to the comfort level on the couch.

But while that physical sense of device might be important, I think what we’re going to see soon (very soon perhaps) is a focus on TV show specific applications that will clearly delineate the capabilities of the iPad from the laptop and, more importantly, applications designed to keep the user within the creative space of the show content.

These coming applications are going to be deep yet simple extensions of their on-air companions. Many will probably contain similar content to what is currently found on the web but all will make that content easier to serve up and discover and explore.

For example, a show like Discovery’s “Life” could offer up a real time interactive book/encyclopedia companion to that show’s episode. Allow people to go deeper into the animals profiled, see other clips cut from the show. Each episode of that could have a version of something like “The Elements” app currently available for the iPad, encouraging discovery and interactive learning.

But by far the bigger and larger possibility of these apps, is to connect the audience socially under one umbrella and allow for a direct connection between the content provider and amongst all viewers of the show in real-time.

Click the app button to log into the show and boom there you are in a lobby populated with other people watching the show. Connections (friends) see you show up and can chat you up. You can play games that pop up as the show progresses, watch interactive commercials that match the national sponsors and have moderators (or talent) interact with viewers all in real-time.

Data collection too can happen in real time. Content providers can offer people free things for participating in the process, offer them things for signing up their friends, offer them things for helping grow the show to others.

This has been possible for years online you say. True, but the iPad opens up a new standard of application possibilities – and removes a layer of friction from the process. It’s no longer within the browser and all the multitudes of distractions within, it’s a single experience designed smartly to match up (and really be part of) the experience you’re seeing on the TV screen.

In other words, the forthcoming television iPad apps will be that web around content that the greater living room conversation has been missing for sometime.

GETTING THERE FROM WHERE WE ARE

Of course, right now, we’re at the very beginning of this movement. The iPad is a big step in the right direction but it’s still a bleeding-edge device and won’t be in everyone’s hands for quite some time.

A number of start-ups (HotPotato & Miso for example) are attempting to jump into this this space, the social space around TV content, and make a stand. But I have a feeling it’s going to be the content providers themselves (or some company that can build a tool for them to use) that will be the ones who end up succeeding with the iPad.

For one, the content providers control access to the information about the show. It’s very hard to create compelling new companion content for real time consumption unless you know what’s going to happen ahead of time. More importantly, the content providers have access to the talent associated with program. And where the talent goes, so go the fans.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we might also use this at Late Night and while I’m not entirely sure yet and I definitely see us going in this direction in the near future.

More to come on this soon but man what an exciting time to be making video content!