Tag twitter

Entries 10 Total

Olympic Twitter Winners

Aug 12, ’12 10:45 PM

The 2012 London Olympics are officially over, the medal count tallied and athletes are returning home. While the U.S. topped the charts in overall and  gold medals, and the U.K. scored more golds than ever before, the real story was how prominent a role social media played. In it’s nightly broadcast, NBC even had a segment that highlighted key activities that happened in the social sphere. It’s clear the “social olympics” were a success on many levels, so much so that increasingly, social measures are being applied to athlete and event popularity. Twitter now uses “tweets per minute” as an official benchmark for gauging consumer energy.

This NYTimes infographic is one of many superb data visualizations produced during the games. It shows the relative % gain in Twitter chatter of 140 Olympic athletes over the course of the games. It’s a small sampling, but the notable athletes are represented. The beauty is that because it’s relative gain over baseline, even lesser known athletes can stand out if they were able to generate conversation. Presumably, the conversation was about their performances in the games, but often it was the athletes themselves that stimulated conversation. From diving star Tom Daley outing a troll to athletes getting distracted on social media, it’s clear it played an important roll in their mindset.

For athletes that gained big new followings, it will be interesting to see how they use social media to interact with their new fans. Best to strike while the iron, er I mean gold is still hot.

Comments (0)

The Second Screen is Now the First Screen

Aug 1, ’12 1:10 AM

We’re getting deeper into the London 2012 Olympics and the interesting thing is how much social media is impacting mainstream coverage. Much of the exciting action is actually taking place away from the field, track, court, or pool. It is happening on Twitter. From athletes being banned for controversial tweets to journalists being banned for criticizing TV coverage, we are truly experiencing the “socialympics” in full force.

Even mainstream media cannot ignore it and Twitter even is the official narrator of the games. Nearly every broadcast has some mention of athletes’ tweets or references to things going on in the social sphere. Some athletes even learn about what’s going on through the network quicker than traditional means.

Clearly, social media has become an integral part of the Olympics that is shaping our expectations and experience. And for many, due to tape delays, and our ever present mobile connections, the second screen is now the first screen we turn to to.

 

Comments (0)

(Un)Olympic Spirit

Jul 29, ’12 5:25 PM

This is the response from Vivian Schiller, Chief Digital Officer for NBC to #NBCFail, a Twitter topic started by frustrated viewers of tape delayed Olympic events.

It’s 2012 and we are living in a world where consumers expect and demand live coverage of any newsworthy event. Everything from presidential speeches to awards shows to major sporting events are live blogged and live-tweeted by thousands of people around the world. Most recently, the Euro 2012 championship was aired live around the world and generated huge social conversation on Twitter. The second screen phenomenon is here and robust.

Fast forward a couple of months to the London 2012 Olympics. In keeping with tradition, NBC refuses to air events live and goes with tape delayed broadcasts. Not only is this infuriating for viewers, those of us who live in social media will typically see the results tweeted long before we’ll get a chance to watch them on TV. Not only that, we need to deal with an endless array of commercials that we can’t skip through without watching at an even later date.

Finally, NBC programming decided to make the Olympics one single continuous TV event, which makes each instance a 9 hour episode that eats up enormous amounts of time and DVR space. In this day and age, why can’t we pick the events we want to watch on demand and simply watch them and not the ones we’re not interested in?

The reason is simple. NBC is holding on to an antiquated business model where they believe they know what’s best for the consumer. Rather than ceding programming control to the people who consumer their content, they are perpetuating a decades old model where they dictate what we watch and when we watch. Contrast this with the World Cup which is arguably as big a global event that is shown without tape delay and frequently without commercials during critical moments.

Olympic events are about excitement and often determined by 1/100th of a second. But that excitement goes away when the race you want to watch is delayed by hours. If NBC was smart, it would learn to accept that the world is moving faster than they want — and the smart money will bet on where consumers want to go.

Comments (0)

Using Social to Measure TV

Jul 2, ’12 10:56 PM

It used to be that TV had its own set of traditional metrics, like CPMs and ratings. That was all fine until second screening came around and really raised the bar in terms of what TV viewing engagement really meant. While someone could turn on a TV and leave the room or skip all the commercials, it would still be counted the same as an active watcher. So brands are now using Twitter to capture an additional measure of success – tweets per second. This is emerging as a standard for how engaged your audience truly is. Those who are taking the time or energy to tweet about something on TV, or pay attention to others who are watching, are definitely a different breed.

Sports and second screening go together like peanut butter and jam. They’re natural fits that complement each other. So it’s no surprise that quick bursts of social chatter works well with consumers.  Last night’s Euro 2012 Championship between Spain and Italy was no exception, generating 15,000 tweets/second during the peak of the game, breaking the record for sports. The record across all categories is a recent telecast of Laputa: Castle in the Sky, with 25,000 tweets/second, directed by Hayou Miyazaki.

Comments (0)

Happiest Places in NYC

Mar 22, ’12 11:36 PM

Do you know what places make you happy? A couple of data scientists have considered geolocation data and sentiment analysis to see what parts of New York City generate the happiest tweets. While this is a cursory attempt that isn’t statistically significant or survived peer review, the idea itself is enough to put a smile on my face.

Comments (0)