Marketing gurus, social networking nuts, online bloggers and people tweeting to the ether; Twitter is ever expanding in different directions. Leave it up to the Terminator Salvation team and their already-complex viral/ARG marketing campaign to bring the first summer-tent-pole interactive marketing to the new social networking client.

What we know abut the Terminator Salvation ARG universe thus far is that Skynet is online at SkyNetResearch.com, there’s the ReisistOrBeTerminated.com RPG game and now…

From the Twitter-Game press release:

CULVER CITY, Calif., April 20 — In anticipation of the worldwide release of the motion picture Terminator Salvation, Twitter users will have the chance to join the human resistance against the machines in Sony Pictures Releasing International’s first-ever game created for the social networking platform, it was announced today by Sal Ladestro, executive vice president of marketing, Sony Pictures Releasing International. Users can follow tweets from the resistance at www.Twitter.com/Resistance2018.

In the Terminator Salvation Twitter game, members of the human resistance communicate with each other through Twitter and turn to the community for help in decoding intercepted Skynet transmissions. Players earn points through timely assistance in decoding these messages and, with these points, rise in rank within the Resistance Army. Players must constantly be on guard against the machines, which periodically and randomly choose a number of players and penalize them a percentage of their points. A companion blog augments the information within Twitter and hosts a leader board for the game.
Sal Ladestro, Executive Vice President of Marketing, for Sony Pictures Releasing International (SPRI) commented, “Twitter users can join John Connor in the war against the machines by following the tweets at Resistance 2018. In the fight against Skynet and the Terminators, mass communication is vital, so it’s no surprise that the resistance would turn to Twitter. We think this is the perfect environment for the Terminator game as it allows users to interact with the movie, their friends and other game players instantaneously.”

A worldwide phenomenon, Twitter’s micro-blogging social networking site has been expanding exponentially across the globe in recent months. Between February 2008 and February 2009, new accounts on Twitter were up 1,841%, with an 87% increase between January 2009 and February 2009 alone. More than 90% of Twitter users choose to make their updates public.

Terminator Salvation is set in post-apocalyptic 2018, where John Connor (Christian Bale) is the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future that Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet’s operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind.

The companion site is 2018Blog.com where you sign in with your Twitter username and are presented with the rules for the Twitter ARG. The focus of the game is mostly centered around @ replying or #hashtagging responses to the Resistance Twitter. Tweets from the ARG Twitter account take one of six different forms:

Resistance Assignments (Abbreviation: RA) will be of the following types:
-Word Mix (Abbreviation: WM) - Word Mix is a simple jumble of letters that need to be unscrambled. Ex: “OHJN” is “JOHN”

-Trivia (Abbreviation: TR) - Trivia questions require simple answers about Terminator Salvation. You may often be directed to the website to find the answer.
-Partial Transmission (Abbreviation: PT) - Partial transmission is a simple letter, word or combination of both that you must fill in and then reply with the complete message. Ex: “_O_N” is “JOHN”

-Skynet Warnings (Abbreviation: SW) are informational messages related to the war between humans and machines.

-Terminator Salvation Updates (Abbreviation: TSU) are information about the film. The updates may also reinforce the instructions and provide tips on how to earn more points.

-Status (Abbreviation: STAT) are direct messages that update you on your points and rank in the game.

As of this posting, only TSUs have been sent out an no one has any points on the 2018Blog leaderboard.

This seems like an awful lot of ARG-ing for one movie, but like the Dark Knight, if the games are well designed and pick up enough interest, they might be able to transcend their outer veneer of overly-complex online games they currently have.