A New Meaning for "Second Screen"

There's a new meaning to the phrase "second screen," a term that once referred to the use of an additional content consumption screen, typically in a video context. In the older notion, the theater screen was "first," the TV screen was "second" and the PC screen was third (not in any particular order of use, but simply as an illustration of how people use various screens to consumer content). 

Some began to refer to the mobile as a "fourth screen." Now, with the advent of tablets, we might arguably be up to about five different screens that routinely are used to consume content. The difference now is that the range of content is no longer confined primarily to video, and now embraces text, image and other forms of visually-oriented content. 

So the issue is what roles and business strategies are possible in an era where people use multiple screens to consume content. 

Consider Twitter or other social applications. It hasn’t always been clear what Twitter wanted to be when it grew up. Did it want to be a news network or a complement to use of other media, consumed on multiple screens. 

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo now seems to argue that Twitter's role is to be a complementary “second screen” for existing media. That means enhancing and complementing the actual content delivery function of any other screen, not becoming an actual content provider. 

That, in many ways, is how people are using their multiple screens, in any case. They have a TV on, but use their mobiles and tablets while "watching TV." Actually "watching" sometimes is a misnomer. The TV is on, but people aren't actually watching; they are mostly listening, while watching some other screen. 

Multiple screens now are used by people to consume content. But people now also use multiple screens to complement what is consumed on other screens.