ABC announced today that on November 7, it will be launching “ABC Social: Episode Commentary” on ABC.com. The new tool allows web viewers to add their opinions and comments on the show in an adjacent window to the left of the site’s video viewer. Users can log in to this feature using their Facebook accounts and can instantly share their personal commentary with their Facebook friend circles if they so choose.

ABC will be testing this new tool with the new series “V” and will include commentary from V executive producers Scott Peters and Steve Pearlman. ABC plans to include such “insider” commentary alongside other shows down the road—potentially including commentary from actors, network executives and show staffers, journalists and even bloggers.

While this is a great step towards social interaction and viewing content online, there still needs to be a live version as well, for the television. Fox did something similar where they had the actors from “Glee” interact with the viewers on Twitter which posted the updates on the screen while broadcasting. Superfans will want to engage the moment the program is being aired for the first time, as well as after the fact. I see a solution coming very soon that will allow for this kind of social interaction among show fans and their communities.

In the meantime, fans on Twitter have taken upon themselves to set up chat rooms where they can tweet during a show, such as tinychat.com. Of course the networks are probably not aware of these social interactions, most likely, and therefore are missing out on some great feedback and marketing information they could leverage in the future.  Now is the time for networks and show runners to tap into the fans using social media tools, such as Twitter and Facebook, and capitalize on the valuable information they generate.

Tags: Social Media tools