Update: Well, of all the bad timing, Twitter crashed during the East Coast airing of the show. “All your excited tweeting about #NoReservations broke Twitter!” jokes @travelchannel, which released the bonus scene (below) regardless. “Thank you for tweeting w/ us during @NoReservations and being good sports during the outage,” they tweeted. Here’s the clip:
Earlier: You may remember when Travel Channel’s Anthony Bourdain live-tweeted an episode of “No Reservations” last season. Tweets exploded during the broadcast, and Twitter mapped the tweet volume against the precise moments in the show when the promotional call-outs appeared on air.
Tonight, the Travel Channel is trying something different, called “flock to unlock,” by the Twitter folks. Bourdain will be live-tweeting with call-outs on TV again, but there’s a twist. “We have set a goal of 10,000 fan tweets about the show during the episode, and we’ll be tracking the tweet totals in real time online,” Travel Channel social media manager Nisha Chittal tells Lost Remote. “If we hit 10,000, we have promised to release an exclusive missing scene from the episode that did not make it on air.”
That scene will be hosted on YouTube and distributed instantly to Travel Channel’s Twitter followers and Facebook fans. In a way, it’s like Groupon for entertainment TV. Instead of “tipping” a deal, social participation unlocks exclusive content for all.
“The goal of this to take talent live tweeting and really take it to the next level,” explains Chittal. “We want to incentive participation in the live tweet by giving them the chance to unlock additional content from the show just by participating.” She says Twitter told her this has never been done before — and we haven’t heard anyone try it, either.
No Reservations airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT.