Last night’s #leadersdebate was a total treat. Eventually I was reading the tweets from the people I follow and the search results for #leadersdebate and not even watching the TV. Clearly, occupying both the TV screen AND the only laptop in the house pleased my wife no end. She was reduced to squinting at Facebook on her iPhone instead. And I wasn’t alone; a few non-industry friends said they preferred the talk on Facebook over the telly.

So, given that this backchannel stuff is hugely popular, what’s the potential? Is there a chance that the backchannel might become the frontchannel? Could you see yourself totally ignoring the commentary on the World Cup this year in favour of a large-screen feed of tagged football commentary from fans? Could you see yourself at a wedding writing messages on a virtual wall? And how about planning a happening simply in order to enjoy the backchannel? It would have been sweet for Parlorphone to hype up the release of LCD Soundsystem’s new album This Is Happening and schedule a giant global listen and to pull in the backchannel from twitter. It would be like a giant record club. You could do the same for a movie like Kick-Ass, perhaps allow 20k people to view the film and have them backchannel it for others.

What’s interesting is that the majority of people tend to go with the consensus, so if the backchannel is negative, don’t bother distributing that extra 100k copies or planning that high-budget tour if the album flops in the proto-backchannel.

One of the major criticisms might be around profanity. But really, I honestly believe we’ll grow out of most of that. Though there’s always someone that has to draw the penis on the notepad isn’t there?

There’s a startup idea there somewhere.