Twitter, the 140 character limit social networking site, is teaming with a production company to try and create a new reality show that features people interacting with celebrities though their service. It would involve some kind of competition over celebrities, probably to see who can get a response from a celebrity the fastest:

Twitter, the Web site that asks what everybody’s doing, says it wants to be doing a TV series.

The social-networking service said Monday it has teamed with Reveille productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners to develop an unscripted series based on the site, which invites 140-character postings from members around the world.

The show would harness Twitter to put players on the trail of celebrities in an interactive, competitive format.

The producers call their proposed series the first to bring the immediacy of Twitter to the TV screen.
”Twitter is transforming the way people communicate, especially celebrities and their fans,” said Reveille managing director Howard T. Owens, who expects the new project to ”unlock Twitter’s potential on TV.”

No further details were made available on the show’s format or when it might hit the air.

[From The NY Times]

I’ve been using Twitter more lately and it can be a lot of fun. I think that it gives the illusion of letting us get in contact with celebrities, without really offering that. I’ll explain – once in a while, a celebrity will respond to a particular person. If you look to see how many responses a celebrity gets on Twitter, though, there are thousands. Some of the celebrities seem to skim through them, but the chances that they’ll remember or actually respond to you are very low.

If you’re not familiar with Twitter, here’s a quick explanation of how it works – you can send a “direct message,” which is like an internal e-mail, to someone only if they’re also your friend, which in a celebrity’s case won’t happen. They have tens of thousands of followers and have only “friended” a few hundred people in the best cases, probably so they can actually read through the tweets. You can send an @response to anyone on Twitter, but if you look at @responses a celebrity gets there are way too many, and they come in too fast, for the celebrities to go through them all – especially when they’re online and tweeting. Again, they might read the responses if they’re on, but they probably won’t respond to you – they just don’t have the time.

Here are some examples
Responses to Kirstie Alley
Responses to Samantha Ronson
Responses to Ashton Kutcher
Responses to Demi Moore

It does happen, though. One guy posted a sarcastic story calling out Ashton Kutcher for not responding to his tweet, and Ashton left him a voicemail message apologizing. The blogger just happened to be the co-founder of the popular website Buzzfeed, which is likely why Ashton was so apologetic. Kirstie Alley also once called out Geno of Geno’s World for saying something rude to her. Many celebrities respond to some fans on Twitter but it’s understandably hard to get their attention.

The two most influential and prolific celebrity Twitterers, married couple Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, both say that they are against this planned reality show and won’t participate in it. If it goes through, they plan to quit the service. They’re responding to a now-deleted article, though, that seemed to misinterpret the planned show. Here are some of their tweets on the matter, in which they link to that story which is no longer available. Ashton Kutcher is on Twitter as “aplusk” while Demi Moore is “mrskutcher.” These tweets are in reverse order:

From Demi Moore

I hope this isn’t true-if it is our Twitter time may come to a quick and sad end! http://bit.ly/155I15
about 9 hours ago from TweetDeck

@LangeFamily connecting directly with people is different then being exploited by others
about 6 hours ago from web in reply to LangeFamily

@LangeFamily we have nothing to do with a twitter tv show and definitely not one like this article described!
about 3 hours ago from Tweetie in reply to LangeFamily

@EyesOfManySouls what we choose to expose of ourselves is very different then someone selling you out
about 3 hours ago from Tweetie in reply to EyesOfManySouls

From Ashton Kutcher

Wow I hope this isn’t true. I really don’t like being sold out. May have to take a twitter hiatus. http://bit.ly/155I15
about 9 hours ago from TweetDeck

Um how about… I don’t want to be stalked!!! RT @madbrendan: sounds like a crap show anyway! cant imagine it getting many viewers lol
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

It’s all fun and games until somebody gets stalked.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

The Twitter people should have contacted Ashton, Demi and some of the other Twittering celebrities before making the announcement for this show. Ashton and Demi were both linking to a story on the Examiner’s website by author Liz Barrett which has been taken down. The Examiner accepts submissions from anyone and the title of the now-removed story was “Look Out, Ashton Kutcher wants to track celebrities on new reality TV show.” That’s not the case as Ashton isn’t involved with the show. It also sounds like this one author took it a step further and decided to call whatever competitions the show was planning “stalking.” Maybe Ashton and Demi will get on board with some reassurance from Twitter that there will be no exploitation or stalking involved. Hopefully the Twitter people are friends of Ashton and Demi on the service, because they have little chance of getting in touch with them through Twitter.

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are shown at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner on 5/9/09. Credit: PRPhotos.com