“If I Can Dream” – High Stakes Social Media

“American Idol” co-creator Simon Fuller’s next show will not air on TV. It will only exist on the web. Pepsi, Ford, MySpace, Hulu, and Clear Channel are all in on it too.

If I Can Dream

The show is called “If I can Dream” and is touted to be..

Tailor-made for this generation.
It’s entertainment for the social networking set —
unfiltered and unvarnished.
Using the most popular social networking tools,
a global audience can interact with our aspiring artists
as they chase their dreams.
Essentially, everyone is part of this exciting journey.

Right beneath this blurb in their press kit are the logos of several social media sites… MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube.

What is the show about?
The show will follow five really good looking young people chasing their dreams in Hollywood. Big Brother style, the house in the Hollywood hills where they are to live will be full of cameras that will be on 24/7.

So we get it will have viewers, but how is it social?

IfIcanDream.com – This is where there show will air 24 / 7 the press release says…

If I Can Dream allows viewers to interact with the narrative in real time and offers open access to an entertainment experience in a way that has not been attempted before.

That doesn’t tell us much, but here is a screen shot of a camera preview…

There is a social ticker thing in the bottom that says things like “Amanda just uploaded this, and Giglianne just tweeted that”.

MySpace – Auditions for this show are now being accepted on MySpace (even though there is a current cast, it will change as the show goes on.)

Clear Channel – Here is what they say they are doing…

Clear Channel’s local radio personalities and audience
interaction will spur daily conversations, and through Clear
Channel’s content creation and distribution platform, the
If I Can Dream stories will come to life on-air, online, and
on mobile devices.

Hmmm, mobile.

Hulu – Hulu will be streaming a weekly show that will be more of a “normal” version of the show. What is notable about this however is that this show will be streamed world wide, which Hulu has not done before. For many countries this will be their first view of Hulu. The cast of the show has gone to Sydney, Tokyo, Taipei, Rio, etc. promoting the show. The American promotion starts soon – Hulu has started to air ads about the shows cast.

Facebook – I really do not see anything special right now (just some fan pages). They are specifically mentioned in the press stuff, but if there is an interactive Facebook page, it hasn’t been revealed yet.

Long story short, this is a very high profile “social experiment” (as they put it). It will be interesting to see how effectively they can do this.

It seems that the “social” of this show will mostly be the voting and the heavy use of familiar social platforms.

The main pages are:

• If I Can Dream the show site.
• The Hulu Page
• The MySpace auditions page
• PressBook (pdf)