I'm not sure the original idea (hold a video hostage in exchange for tweets) can be improved. It's rather user-hostile.

What might be worthwhile is the social-media-isize your video feature. An easy-to-use tool for embedding twitter/facebook/linkedin/whatever posting inside the video sounds relatively useful. Maybe have this stuff pop up when the user pauses the video, or when it ends.

Demanding that people do your advertising for you is a death sentence for using social media. You want to enable them to advertise for you, forcing it just fosters ill will.

Have it just be a caption under the video asking users to tweet if they like it. Maybe even have it slide down into view after the video, or 5 minutes into it, or right after the best part of the video.

Blocking the video with the prompt strikes me as hamfisted. Particularly for a technical audience that's aware of how these sharing mechanisms work.

How about a "Don't ever show me this again." option? I really resent being nagged like that right up front. At that point I don't even know if the video is something I want to share since I have not seen it yet.

Or what about something less intrusive that shows up next to the video or slides down like a google video ad after I have been watching for a few minutes. At that point I'm already engaged and more likely to say, "Hey, this is really good - let me tweet it." Maybe you get more traction with the tool that way. I'm not really sure.

I’m the creator of TweetPerView. I give Andrew a ton of respect here. He really means it when he says he’s here to help ambitious entrepreneurs. He’s done a few tests on older shows, but really put it on the line by implementing TPV on a brand new interview - with Jason Fried, no less! The idea behind the whole project is to help grow an audience and engage viewers. We'll see what happens. Thanks Andrew.