Twitter-based competition show may be headed to TV

NEW YORK -- Twitter, the website that asks what everybody's doing, may end up being at the center of a TV series.

Executives at the social-networking site have teamed with Reveille productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners to develop an unscripted series based on the popular 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 show's producers announced Monday.

"Right now, Twitter is an incredible technological and cultural phenomenon," said executive producer Amy Ephron, who created the TV show and took it to Twitter.

The producers call their proposed series the first to bring the immediacy of Twitter to the TV screen.

"It captures what's best about Twitter, and it's a compelling TV show in its own right," said Noah Oppenheim, head of unscripted development for Reveille.

Like Ephron, he was tightlipped on any details about the show, its format, even its title. He said the partners are saving all that for their upcoming pitch meetings with networks.

Once a network deal is signed, "We're ready to go into production," Oppenheim said.

The San Francisco-based Twitter, which was founded in 2007, is one of the Internet's fastest-growing sites. A recent Nielsen report found that unique visitors to Twitter increased from 475,000 during February 2008 to 7 million a year later.

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On the Net:

http://www.twitter.com/