HOW TO: Play Recorded Twitter Conversations In Sync With Your Favorite Shows

Watching television shows at the time they air is so 2000s -- about 40% of US households now own a DVR and another 40% regularly watch long form video online.

Viewers who want to pair real-time online conversation with television, however, are still left out when it comes to television-on-demand.

Startup service TweePlayer, which launched its public beta Tuesday, aims to provide a solution for these viewers that gives the best of both worlds. The product records real-time conversations surrounding television events and syncs them with recorded episodes.

Users can select Twitter conversations from shows, sporting events or award shows to play as they watch the recorded event on their televisions. If they want to add something, their tweet is inserted into the conversation as though it were actually happening in real-time. Other TweePlayer users who play the conversation will see that tweet at the appropriate time.

So far, the startup has a list of about 5,000 events for which it is recording conversations based on dynamic target keywords. While television shows make up the bulk of this list, it's also possible to apply the tool to conference videos, podcasts or any other type of media. Users can create their own "Twitter event harvests" by following @TweePLayer on Twitter and adding an event.

Eventually the company plans to give users an option to create more specific conversation channels. Someone could, for instance, create a "spoiler free" channel for a television show. Options to limit conversations to social network connections or people nearby are also in the pipeline.

When it comes to monetizing the tweet harvester, CEO and founder Mick Darling says there are a few options. Tomorrowish, the startup behind TweePlayer, might provide white box solutions for companies like Hulu, or it might sell premium accounts that include commentary from people like actors and conference keynotes. Darling is also talking with several brands about providing sentiment and engagement analytics for specific television shows.

Yahoo News