I had a concept for an internet reality show yesterday. It’s really just for fun but it goes like this. You set up an online community for people who are interested in the show. They get to hear what happens within a real household via a blog text-type update. They can send in suggestions for what you say to the other people in the house. The best suggestion each day is used to stir things up in the house, obviously within guidelines.

People who are sceptics can pay to meet the people in the house if they want – connecting the online & offline world. As I say the top suggestion is used in conversation with housemates to make something happen – that’s what gets people hooked. The results are posted up the next day. But it’s not live, in real time. You have to wait to see what happens as a result of each suggested storyline interaction. So it’s mysterious too.

One question that remains for me is what kind of disclaimers would you require for the household participants? And it is important that the people in the household know what’s going on exactly?

The goood thing is that there are lots of neat ways to monetize it, such as allowing one person as the first one to meet the household to then post in the online community that it’s really happening. Which in turn helps stoke demand for other people to meet the householders.

OK enough fun with reality TV and online communities, back to my holiday.