MTV's premiering “It’s On With Alexa Chung," tomorrow and the former cable powerhouse is banking on the fact that the use of Twitter and Facebook during the live show will give it an edge and drive viewership.
It'll fail and here's why.
The younger generations don't use Twitter because they don't "get it." Why update my status to random people when I can update my stats on Facebook to alert people that I know. As for Facebook, we're doing it now only because it's still sort of the "in" thing to do. However, they are growing more and more disenfranchised with it because it's over populated with adults, i.e. their parents and even grandparents.
If they truly want to make it interactive and in the target demo of MTV viewers, they should have incorporated YouTube, Seesmic, Vimeo, Kyte, etc. Yes, it would take some time to filter through responses, but if you shorten the submissions to 30-45 seconds, you can have a team of editors review the content. With today's mobile devices being a portable video studios and with high def point and shoot devices like the Flip camera, kids are creating more and more video. Just check YouTube and it's littered with raw commentary-type videos from teens.
The over and under for this show is three months. Who wants in on the action?