I was reading Malcolm Gladwell's piece here in the New Yorker and got glassy eyed over to this idea instead.
Personally, I like having certain tweets sent directly to my phone as text messages. I pay for unlimited SMS cause I like this way of messaging. Now let's say I'm someone who's really into history. I see plays and read books about historical events, which is great, but how about a new way to consume in this new medium a lot of us find ourselves immersed in today?
I am imagining an experience where I can subscribe to the twitter feed of, let's say, Lawrence of Arabia during the time when he led the revolt against the Ottoman Army. In real-time accuracy, only decades back, I receive play by play tweets from T.E. himself as the days passed trekking across the desert.
Tweet example:
T.E.Lawrence We could not lightly draw water after dark, for OMG there were snakes swimming in the pools or clustering in knots around their brinks!!
8 minutes ago from Camel API
This way of storytelling is only possible today, where wherever we go we carry a device which we don't mind interrupting us from time to time.
The next step past this is mixed media where the play by play comes at you beyond one single channel. But that's another idea and it's too early to get into that.
Image: Something not human trapped at the California Academy of Sciences basement in San Francisco.
I love this idea. I would say- not so much the new theater- theater is live and and face to face participatory- that is it's bag. No, this is crazier, like a new way to do narrative content entirely. Instead of buying the Lawrence of Arabia and reading it sleepily before bed- this idea is like enlisting as one of Lawrence of Arabia's men, choosing to go on the quest and getting real time updates little bits of bite size non-day interrupting entertainment, to sort of thrill you while you get the mail. I would totally sign up to crusade with Joan of Arc via Twitter or be a lady of Marie Antones- court.
I would like to say that the idea is first and formats excellent on it's own, but would also be quite nice as the lead up to a piece of video content. Allowing episodic content to become a more immersive experience.
I knew you'd like it! I hope someone who's in the business of telling stories and trying to figure out how to survive the internet is listening.