Media Streams for Entertainment OR Marketing?

The Media Streams panel at TechCrunch Crunchup included Sean Rad of Ad.ly, Ryan Amos of DailyBooth, Jesse Engle of CoTweet, Hollywood agent Robin Bechtel who represents Britney Spears and Philip Nelson of NewTek. Erick Schonfeld and Paul Carr moderated, Carr enters stage right with a fluffy furry hat on.

Robin talks about an idea did for Britney: they hit tickets for one of her upcoming concerts and sent out clues through Twitter. The grand finale was a live event in Times Square where Britney showed up in a double decker buzz to greet over 8,000 fans.

Philip Nelson of NewTek talks about how Twitter and real-time streams are being used by artists to reach out to fans. One campaign brought 50,000 fans to an artist's hotel room where they experienced personal moments in real-time.

For a Todd Rundgren concert, they did a backstage pass promotion where fans got to witness his costume changes. The result? He sold more tickets.

Co-Tweet CEO Jesse Engle talks of Twitter as a focal point where a lot of disparate messages get communicated across different places. Various marketing elements also come together.

Philip talks about the webcast activity around Miss Universe where through viral communication alone a week before the event, they generated a half million viewers. While the number may not be significant compared to mainstream television, there was no promotion for weeks and months in advance.

The goal is to make contestants more accessible to their fans. Rad says, "Twitter brings a sense of honesty on the net. If you look at Twitter, you’re only as good as your content. While there is a sense of marketing and pushing on Twitter, 140 characters has value to an audience. That said, in some way, shape or form, it wants to be monetized."

Schonfeld brings Scoble up to the stage to talk about supertweet and how it applied to the discussion. Advertising is coming to Twitter, but it will be fun advertising? And what will that mean? Where will it go? The overall sentiment was that you can't f-k with editorial. So like advertising on television and elsewhere, its outside editorial, outside the core content.