Nestivity Introduces Tweetcasts: Pairs Twitter Chats And Multimedia Content

Twitter Chats — realtime conversations organized around a hashtag — have been in the news quite a bit lately as a number of vendors have introduced new tools for hosting and participating in chats. The latest entrant: a unique new tool from Nestivity that allows organizers to host a Tweetcast: a realtime Twitter conversation around a central piece of content — a document, image, video, poll, presentation, or even a live Google+ hangout. The tool also de-clutters the stream by filtering out retweets and allows moderators to highlight specific tweets in the main content window.

Nestivity Tweetcasts - live Twitter chat around multimedia content, including live Google Hangouts

The company believes that moderators can use the media window to better structure Twitter chats, which can often be difficult to follow when there is a high volume of active participants. Nestivity founder Henry Min says that the Tweetcasts platform “adds a new level to tweet-based chat experiences by including a live webcast-like component and a more distilled feed to allow for an authentic conversation that is easy to moderate, and easy to join.”

Participants access the chat via a shared URL, where they will see the content and be able to participate in a live Twitter chat on the side of the screen. The displayed content is controlled by a moderator, who can load a variety of rich media assets ahead of time, or add new content during the chat. 

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After the close of a live event, Tweetcasts remain accessible as an ongoing discussion topic within the organizer’s Nestivity community. Followers can reference content and add new comments. For organizers who host recurring tweet-based chats, the conversation can pick-up where it left off rather than start over at the beginning.

Nestivity is a start up that introduced the ability to organize Twitter accounts into communities at SXSW this year. Now in Beta, the platform organizes tweets into structured conversations that have proven attractive to brands from the media, sports and entertainment world, or companies who use the platform to offer customer support. The ability to host Tweetcasts does require a paid Nestivity account, which starts at $19 monthly for a Pro account that includes a 90-day archive. 

What do you think? Do you prefer the free-wheeling feel of classic Twitter chats — or are you excited to try out a more structured Tweetcast around shared content?