I am an 80's child from New Zealand, who grew up with many fond memories from Telethon. Needless to say, I was over the moon to hear that after 15 years, TV3 was bringing Telethon back to NZ screens and to a new generation of kiwis. Although, I wasn't so happy to find that I was in Australia visiting my parents last weekend when it aired... especially as one of the best things about Telethon is staying up and watching with friends and family!
I had resigned myself to missing out on all the fun, hopefully catching a few snippets on You Tube over the coming months, or the odd clip 'On Demand' on the TV3 site, assuming they didn't have the geo-filters on the content. But, thankfully, I was pleasantly suprised to see that the team behind Telethon thoroughly embraced the digital age, much more so than I would have ever expected!
Not only did TV3 have the entire 23 hours live streaming through their website (non geo-filtered thankfully!), but the Telethon team were also all over the main stream social media sites. On Facebook, they kept their 2,810 fans regularly updated, answering questions and posting pics. On Twitter, the Telethon team had another 659 followers and I had a great time making new friends with other followers such as @mraucklandguy, @kiwisnake, @ktkiwi and @matt_stephenson. The You Tube Channel is a tad undeveloped with only four posts and 27 subscribers, but I assume as more footage gets cut up, more will be uploaded... But then again, there may already be more footage on the TV3 website, but I couldn't find it...
So even though I found myself sitting alone in my room at my parents house in Western Australia, I was able to join in on all the action online. And even better, I was able to enjoy it with many other kiwis online and laugh as events unfolded, so I didn't actually feel alone.
It would have been nice though to see more use of the web for people to register pledges and dares, and also allow other people to vote or add to the pledges for dares to be completed. Being able to donate online these days was a given, although I personally would have liked to have been able to donate by text as well. But all in all, for the first truly integrated live event over tv and online, it was well executed.
Digital and social media, and how we use it, continues to amaze me. Bringing Telethon back and reaching kiwis all around the world through digital media is a real credit to the Telethon team and the amazing online communities that frequent sites like Twitter and Facebook. A job thoroughly well done, and they raised nearly NZ$2million in the process. Lets hope content providers for live events take note of the success of this integrated media approach and we see more of this in the future. No doubt we will see more of this in the future, especially as we move towards a full 'three-screen' strategy approach and we see the same content and media options delivered over mobile devices as well. Interactive and IPTV will also throw some interested challenges to content providers, but at the end of the day, it will all be to the benefit of us, the users, as we get a chance to interact more with content and with each other in ways that suit us.
Well done to the team at Telethon, you officially have my first 'RAVE'.
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And I would also like to thank the community on Twitter for finally helping me understand what the '#telethon' references were for! It is slightly embarassing being an online professional and not knowing, but I believe the best days in our lives are the days we learn something new.
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