I stayed up late last night to watch Jimmy Fallon's first Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show.
I stayed up late because I felt that I was part of the show, more than any other TV show that has ever premiered. That's because Fallon has embraced social media, and the audience, even before the first show aired.
With the help of coproducer Gavin Purcell, Fallon has learned about social media tools like Twitter, Twitpic and videoblogging, and has used them to an extent that is far more personal than even Barack Obama and Brtiney Spears.
"Barack Obama, I've met Jimmy Fallon, and you're no Jimmy Fallon."
From the start, Fallon's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon vieoblog was authentic and personal. A perfect example of how to reach out and start a conversation on the web. Fallon produced one video a day from the beginning of the videoblog up until his premiere last night.
The videoblog was interactive. I posted a text comment, and Fallon called me out in his first video answering commnets.
I sent in a video, and Fallon called me out as "our old pal Steve Garfield" in his first video answering video comments.
It was exciting.
Then Fallon embraced twitter, and actually used it, even learning how to use twitpic to send in photos from his iPhone. Really groundbreaking stuff from someone about to have a nightly TV talk show.
When Fallon and I met at CES in Las Vegas, he felt like he knew me, and I felt like I knew him. That's what can happen when you reach out and embrace social media, especialy video on the web.
Fallon went from having no followers on twitter, to having 182,641.
We are engaged.
The show was recorded in the afternoon, 5:30 PM EST, and we saw a few tweets about it.
One from @gavinpurcell:
First show tonight! An early sneak peak posted on the blog: De Niro & Jimmy do live comedy in Space Train: http://tinyurl.com/av6ebq
One from Fallon using twitpic:
Show taping!! http://twitpic.com/1t5aq
When the show started on the East Coast I jumped on search.twitter.com to participate in a live chat during the show.
It was fun to stay up late and watch live TV like that and participate in the chat. I even watched the commercials. Usually I fast forward past them with my Comcast/TiVo.
I even tweeted about them.
Going to look up some travel with Expedia.com. Covergirl Rihanna! Looks good. ;-) Going to buy Zantac + a Mercedes Benz. #LNWJFThere were a lot of people chatting. We talked about the show intro, the monologue, The Roots, DeNiro, The Space Train Video, Justin Timberlake, Lick it for $10, and Van Morrison.
Twitter really makes it easy for people to sit around and watch TV together. The CNN/Facebook integration during the inaugural was another live event were we all watched together.
Best moments of the show:
The Intro, The Roots, the monologue, Slow Jammin the News, and Fallon and Timberlake singing together.
I really like The Roots. They are amazing. Slow Jammin the News is a great collaboration between The Roots and Fallon, a real highlight.
What I would like to see on future shows:
1. I'd like to see Fallon and the staff live tweeting during the broadcast. What were they doing last night? Partying? We missed you.
2. Open up the MacBook that's on your desk. It's sad to see it closed like that. Send out some tweets during the breaks and talk to us during the taping.
3. Make a category on the video blog where we can quickly see any videos from you. allow us to subscribe to them. You're adding a lot of new content to the blog, but we want to be able to know when YOU make a video, and don't want those posts to get lost among all the new posts.
I'm looking forward to seeing more interactivity with the audience. I know you guys are working on it. Can't wait to see my video submissions on the show, to shoot some behind the scenes video, and attend a taping in NYC.
I'm excited about the future of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Social Media and network TV is happening.