At least that appears to be the attitude of almost everyone attending the London Olympics.
Twitter use got so hyper in the Games' first couple of days that the organizing committee had to ask attendees to cut back on their tweeting as it was clogging networks, interfering with GPS and interrupting TV network news feeds. As if anyone with followers gives a hoot about the audience for those losers.
Social networking, blogging, tweeting and You-tubing do not appear to cut into television viewership. Despite the criticism in the US of NBC's network coverage, one senses from informal surveys that huge numbers of people are tuning in wherever they can - and often despite their own better instincts.
But the biggest story is of the ubiquitous twitter use by both athletes and fans. Everyone has a story to tell, a grudge to settle or a point to make. And no one seems to be tuning them out just yet. JL
Paresh Dave reports in the San Francisco Chronicle:
For all the talk about Michael Phelps vs. Ryan Lochte, security concerns and unfilled seats, the trending topic at the Olympic Games might actually be Twitter.
The San Francisco microblogging service has made its omnipresence felt at these Games.
Among other things, it has played a role in the suspensions of two athletes. The International Olympic Committee has blamed loquacious Twitter users in London crowds for causing a broadcasting glitch. And its official partnership with Olympics broadcaster NBC may have led to the suspension of a journalist's account because he was critical of NBC's broadcast strategy.
London 2012 has cemented Twitter's role as both a global living room and a global water cooler that draws citizens of all sorts - from the athletes themselves to armchair judges at home - to participate in a communal discussion about the world as it happens.
More than ever before, Internet users have the choice of shifting between lives divided by time zones to ones where the world happens at once. No longer limited to the views of friends, family, reporters and announcers, they can tune into the instantaneous tweets of half a billion Twitter feeds across the globe.
"The social Web has equalized time zones in a way that people are grappling with," said Susan Etlinger, an analyst at business consulting firm Altimeter Group. "As people become more acclimated to sharing these world experiences on social media, we'll see a diversity of opinions that you can't get through traditional media."
Not that old media is being killed by Twitter. In fact, NBC posted record ratings throughout the Games' first weekend. The network has credited real-time social-media buzz for enticing more people to tune into its tape-delayed evening coverage.
Watch what you tweet
Twitter's growing presence has been apparent in more than half a dozen instances in opening days of the Games:
-- NBC drew outrage Friday, mainly through Twitter, for not telecasting an Opening Ceremony tribute to the victims of the July 7, 2005, terrorist attacks in London, replacing it with an interview of swimming star Phelps.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME? NBC cut a tribute to victims of the 7/7 attacks? Because we're too dumb to remember them? Why?" San Francisco blogger Meg Keene posted to Twitter.
An NBC spokesman said its coverage is "tailored for the U.S. audience."
-- On Sunday, U.S. soccer player Hope Solo was chastised by her coach for using Twitter to question the knowledge of NBC soccer analyst Brandi Chastain, a former soccer star. A Twitter spokeswoman said employees met with U.S. athletes before the Games to offer thoughts on best practices for tweeters.
-- After a 2-1 loss to South Korea on Sunday, a Swiss soccer player posted a message on Twitter that basically called Koreans idiots and told them to burn. The team sent him home on Monday.
-- His gaffe followed that of a female Greek triple-jumper who was dropped from her team last week before the Opening Ceremony for posting a tweet that said mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus in Greece could feed off all the African immigrants in the country.
-- During Saturday's cycling events, Olympic organizers said they had trouble pulling data from GPS devices on bicycles because Twitter users and text message senders were overloading telecommunications infrastructure.
-- U.S. track athlete Sanya Richards-Ross has been leading a crusade - via Twitter hashtags #rule40 and #WeDemandChange - against an international rule that bans athletes from promoting their own sponsors through social media during the Games. She and others are sponsored by Nike, but only Adidas can be mentioned during the Olympics because it is the official sportswear sponsor. Nike, however, was one of several brands that advertised on Twitter over the weekend, and added about 8,000 followers.
-- The Associated Press reported that British police are looking into a tweet directed at British diver Tom Daley, who lost his father a year ago to cancer, that said he let his father down. If considered menacing, offensive or indecent, the tweet would be illegal under British law.
-- And Monday, Twitter, at the behest of NBC, shut down the account of Guy Adams, a Los Angeles correspondent for the British newspaper the Independent. In joining the chorus of complaints about NBC's decision not to stream the Opening Ceremony live online, Adams tweeted the publicly available e-mail address of an NBC executive. As is its policy, Twitter declined to comment on a specific user account. But in an e-mail to Adams, Twitter said he had been suspended for "posting an individual's private information."
More than ever before, Internet users have the choice of shifting between lives divided by time zones to ones where the world happens at once. No longer limited to the views of friends, family, reporters and announcers, they can tune into the instantaneous tweets of half a billion Twitter feeds across the globe.
"The social Web has equalized time zones in a way that people are grappling with," said Susan Etlinger, an analyst at business consulting firm Altimeter Group. "As people become more acclimated to sharing these world experiences on social media, we'll see a diversity of opinions that you can't get through traditional media."
Not that old media is being killed by Twitter. In fact, NBC posted record ratings throughout the Games' first weekend. The network has credited real-time social-media buzz for enticing more people to tune into its tape-delayed evening coverage.
Where the action is
The Games have proven a huge social-media subject. Procera Networks of Fremont said social-networking traffic was up 25 percent over normal levels last weekend, with the same amount of users posting more frequently to websites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Social-widget maker AddThis, which is crunching social-media data during the Olympics, said since Sunday that content including the term "Twitter" has been shared vigorously across the social Web, with terms like "dismissal," "gymnastics," "infographic" and "vieira" (NBC host Meredith) popping up alongside.
"What we think is interesting is Twitter is really part of the conversation right now," AddThis head of marketing Allison Tepley said.
While Twitter has helped bring average Joes closer to the Phelpses and Lochtes of the world, as well as to reporters, executives and fellow sports watchers from Brazil to Indonesia, its network provides a different kind of connection.
"You can connect with people online, but you can't sit down and have a beer with them," said Scott Campbell, a professor of telecommunications at the University of Michigan. "It's different type of values."
Campbell said big, dramatic events, such as the Olympics or the killing of Osama bin Laden, are so complicated and uncertain that many people still prefer having information explained to them rather than solely digging through a list of links.
"It might be easier to let the network tell them what the great big story is going to be," Campbell said.
Still the also-ran
And for all the buzz around Twitter, investors are most concerned with bottom-line realities. As a business, it still faces challenges as it competes with older and larger social-network Facebook for eyeballs and advertising dollars of small businesses.
About three times more content is shared through Facebook than via Twitter. Analysts and communications experts say Twitter must continue to lower the learning curve for new users, and create more curated and visual experiences.
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