Twitter eyes reality TV show

Popular micro-blogging website Twitter is set to put the small screen on fire with a new reality show in line.

Twitter, which boasts of more than 7 million users, has collaborated with Reveille productions and Brillstein Entertainment Partners to develop a fresh reality programme using the site as a guide.

Producers, in a statement, said the show would involve "ordinary people put on the trail of celebrities in a competitive format."

"Twitter is transforming the way people communicate, especially celebrities and their fans," the New York Daily News quoted Reveille managing director Howard Owens as saying.

Owens further added that he expected the show to "unlock Twitter's potential on TV."

Syracuse University Professor Robert Thompson, who heads the school's Center for Television and Popular Culture, said it seemed a good idea to put "a reality TV show out there with the Twitter aura".

But Thompson also placed certain doubts, saying: "The very thing that makes Twitter so appealing - its immediacy - is something this TV show likely isn't going to capture."