Twitter TV?

The Web service that proved you can never underestimate people’s attention spans is coming to your television set.

In case you just fell off of the modem truck yesterday, Twitter is the service that enables you to send your thoughts – in 140 characters or less – to anyone opting to receive them.

Who Twitters? It’s probably easier to say who doesn’t Twitter. Like Kanye West, who recently dissed the service for allegedly letting someone else sign up under the star’s name. It’s safe to say West doesn’t Twitter.

With the exception of West, just about everyone who is someone is twittering, from politicians to TV stars to rock stars. Heck, even if a celeb isn’t using Twitter, chances are he (or she) won’t own up to it. These days it’s hip to Twitter.

However, like many social-networking Web services, Twitter has yet to make a dime, although the company’s recent announcement might change things.

The plan is for Twitter to team up with Reveille Productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners for an unscripted (reality) TV series. The program will feature contestants tracking celebrities through 140-character “tweets.”

The show’s producers are touting the program as the first to bring Twitter to the small screen, with Reveille head of unscripted development, Noah Oppenheim, saying, “It captures what’s best about Twitter, and it’s a compelling TV show in its own right.”

If any two companies can make a profitable TV show out of Twitter, it’s probably Reveille and Brillstein Entertainment. Reveille has succeeded in both scripted and unscripted shows, and counts “The Office,” “Ugly Betty,” “The Biggest Loser” and “American Gladiators” among its successful TV properties.

Brillstein Entertainment is also a TV powerhouse, having brought “Real Time With Bill Maher,” “The Sopranos,” “According to Jim” and “News Radio” to living rooms everywhere. If Twitter TV fails, it won’t be because the two companies involved lack any television showbiz savvy.

Who knows? If Twitter takes off as a TV show, maybe even Kanye West will watch.

Twitter Income?

Although a Twitter-based television show could mean some serious dough for the Web upstart, co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone still haven’t revealed plans for deriving income from users’ tweets.

The Twitter twosome faced questions about their company for almost an hour at the Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference, but when it was over the audience knew no more about Twitter’s monetary possibilities than when the Q&A started.

However, the Twitter people did mention a few ideas for making money.

For example, Williams suggested the company would evidently charge for its service – a concept that so far has been antithetic in the online social-networking universe.
“There will be a moment when you can fill out a form or something and give us money,” Williams said.

Williams and Stone also suggested Twitter might offer a service where people pay money to prevent others from using their name. For example, Kanye West, who has criticized the company for letting others sign up under his name, could pay Twitter to authenticate anyone claiming to be the rapper / singer / self-proclaimed Master of the Universe.

But would such a service be legal? What the Twitter co-founders are suggesting would be like a credit card company making you pay them to prevent anyone from fraudulently using your name for a credit account. It’s kind of like those old gangster movies where thugs approach store owners about purchasing a little fire “protection,” and remarking how easy it would be for the entire building to go up in flames.

Aside from throwing out a few possible ideas to turn tweets into gold, neither Williams nor Stone actually revealed any concrete plans to turn Twitter into a profitable company.

For instance, that old Web warhorse known as banner advertising didn’t exactly excite the Twitter execs. Although they didn’t rule it out, Williams told the audience he regarded banner ads as “probably the least interesting thing we could do.”

Other than deflecting questions on how Twitter might make money, Stone and Williams did relay some concrete answers at the conference.

For example, Williams did say one of his top priorities was to hire more people to help grow the company. Although he didn’t say how many people he was looking to hire, he did say Twitter currently has 43 employees, which according to Williams, is twice as much as the company employed in January.

The co-founders also admitted to knowing the Twitter hype won’t last forever.

“If you pay attention to it too much, you can run yourself off the rails,” Stone said. “Pretty soon, everybody’s going to hate us.”

Euro Music Licensing Agreement Nears

Sure, Europe is made up of independent countries, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be a one-stop shop when it comes to music licensing for online sales.

Music rights holders appear to be close to an agreement for creating an environment where only one licensing agreement is necessary to sell music online throughout the continent. Companies currently have to strike agreements with licensing organizations in each individual nation.

That’s why there are several iTunes online stores, such as iTunes UK and iTunes France instead of just one serving all of Europe. In order to bring iTunes to Europe, Apple had to negotiate licensing agreements with each host country.

But having to ink music licensing contracts with each country could soon become yesterday’s digital history. European Union antitrust regulators recently told the music industry it must move quickly and change existing licensing methods.

Although Internet music sales in the United States have yet to make up for lost CD income, European sales are much lower than their Yankee brethren, with individual licensing rules & regs catching most of the blame.

This isn’t the first time the EU has urged changes in music licensing. Last July the EU’s executive body – the European Commission – told those in charge of collecting royalties to end a system of contracts permitting artists to collect payments only from an agency based in their own country.

But the European Commission was concerned with more than iTunes having to duplicate its efforts for every European country it wants to do business in. The EC found 24 European collecting societies guilty of breaking EU antitrust rules, but did not issue any fines.

Now the idea of a one-stop licensing shop is gaining more momentum. French performing rights organization Sacem said it’s willing to allow other organizations license its song catalog on a Europe-wide basis. Ditto for EMI Group, with the record label saying it’s ready to allow rights organizations to administer its catalog throughout Europe.