Past The Press Box : Colin O'Keefe of The American Sportswriter : On Sportswriting, Social Media, Sports Blogging, Journalism, Sports Marketing

Last night, a colleague of mine successfully dragged me to a social media meet-up on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Generally, I hate these things. It's awkward; there's the people who already know each other, random loners being led around by their smart phones and, if you're lucky or buzzed enough, you may even get the opportunity to passive aggressively question the validity of someone's job. It's a hoot. And every single time I go to one of these I get into the same argument.

It, of course, starts with me describing my job. Aside from publishing this blog, I work for LexBlog. LexBlog designs, develops and builds blogs for lawyers and law firms while also educating them on how to use these blogs and other social media to build relationships geared towards client development. The next question from the galley is, inevitably, "so you guys, like, write their content and manage their Twitter account for them?" I respond with "no, because that wouldn't make any sense" and off we go.

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If this entire LeBron free agent extravaganza has shown us anything, it's that he owns us all. As annoyed as almost all sports fans, writers and casual observers have become, he still holds the collective attention spans of each group. He's bigger than any other American athlete and it isn't even close. Now he's on Twitter.

Of course, it isn't a big step for him. Chris Paul buddied up with LBJ, told him Twitter was neat and something fun to mess around on so his camp either acquired the KingJames name or put it to use after acquiring it some time ago. So here we are, three tweets and a few hundred thousand followers later.

A new precedent is set.

LeBron James is coming into the prime of his career and these few days will play a large role in deciding how that will go. LeBron has decided to make social media—if not a large part of it— at least a worthy venture.

So why is this a big deal?

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Once again, the conversation on Twitter is dominated by a single item. Even if it isn't even completely true, social media and Twitter in particular can make one feel like everyone else is doing the same thing they are. But isn't that the point of social media, to find, network and converse with people who share similar interests? That is never more obvious than with an instance like The Oscars. Or, well, the Super Bowl.

In a story I've been meaning to highlight for sometime, and couldn't agree with more, The New York Times points out that it appears as though social media has created a virtual live 'water cooler' for major televised events and have a major impact on television ratings.

The Nielsen Company, which measures television viewership and Web traffic, noticed this month that one in seven people who were watching the Super Bowl and the Olympics opening ceremony were surfing the Web at the same time.

“The Internet is our friend, not our enemy,” said Leslie Moonves, chief executive of the CBS Corporation, which broadcast both the Super Bowl and the Grammy Awards this year. “People want to be attached to each other.”

This is something I've been trying to harp on for some time, going back to the NBA's rise in ratings. Of course, it could have something to do with the fact that my timeline is dominated by snarky sports bloggers and sarcastic beat writers. A look-in:

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Last week brought some terrible, terrible news—news that the Olympics on NBC has received phenomenal ratings, even beating out American Idol. Prior to that, American Idol hadn't been beaten in six years. That's on you America. Back to the point, NBC will likely continue its policy of not airing major events live, instead broadcasting them at two different times to the American public. Maybe you haven't noticed, but fans—while watching—haven't reacted all that well. So, does NBC care as long as people are watching? Of course not. But let's look at one area where this could be hurting: social media.

Prior to the Games, Bob Condron, the Director of Media Services for the United States Olympic Committee, proclaimed that these would be the 'Twitter Olympics' due to loose restrictions on athletes' use of social media.

For those who you who use Twitter to follow and, more importantly, discuss sports, does it seem as though the use of Twitter has been all that prominent surrounding these Olympics? Certainly not.

In one of my first posts on this blog, I wrote about how the NBA's rise in popularity and it's potential link to the growing prominence of social media was less about its use by athletes and more about the high level of conversation taking place amongst fans. This is the same thing.

For a sporting event to reach its full potential in the world of social media, there has to be a great amount of discussion amongs fans. The Olympics simply don't have that. Olympic news currently comes in three different waves: when it actually happens, the East Coast broadcast, and finally the West Coast broadcast. It is absolutely impossible to have a good conversation when everyone has is at a different wave. Some people may have just heard the results, some people may have heard the results and seen it, then there are others who have no news. Breaking up an event like this greatly reduces the amount of conversation.

For someone who follows along on Twitter with every sporting event possible, I refuse to do so with the Olympics. During the day, I try to avoid the results and then once I have it on in the background at night, during the West Coast airing, no one is talking about it. So yes, I continue to watch, while being sorely disappointed. The other day NBC aired an extended piece on the 1980 Olympic hockey team instead of showing the live USA-Canada. I don't care if the ratings are somehow higher. This lunacy has to stop.

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As is the case with these huge global events—Olympics, World Cup, etc—the media polices in place are extremely strict and breaking them usually results in dismemberment. So, watch out bloggers. The IOC released its Blogging Guidelines for the 2010 Games (PDF) and they are bit cumbersome, especially confusing to the athletes planning on sharing an inside take with their fans.

Unlike professional sports leagues where there are bans on when athletes can use social media sites, athletes are free to blog at their own discretion, as long as they don't break any rules. One of those: don't act like a journalist.

There are some restrictions on what athletes can do online during the Olympics. According to the IOC Blogging Guidelines for the 2010 Games, athletes and other accredited people must keep their posts confined to their personal experiences. “You can’t act as a journalist if you aren’t,” says [Director of Media Services for the United States Olympic Committee] Bob Condron. “You need to do things in a first person way.”

Rule 49 of the Olympic Charter says that “Only those persons accredited as media may act as journalists, reporters or in any other media capacity.”

Umm, what? In this day and age, what constitutes being a journalist? What if you inject any journalistic post with a first-person voice? Such as "I just spent some time kickin it with Bode Miller and he said he did not close the bar last night, only stayed out until 12:45 and feels relatively good to go today." Does that count as journalism or does it fall under the 'diary' format the IOC is looking for from non-accredited athletes and bloggers?

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It's an ingenious idea, updating fans as soon as the Letters of Intent are faxed in. In what I've seen, Washington's Steve Sarkisian has been one of the best at it, with reporters just relaying what he's been putting out on Twitter. On top of that, UW had a live chat/blog going throughout the day. Very impressive stuff. The University of Washington is doing a lot of things that other schools would benefit from taking note of.

Of course, the University of Spoiled Children took it to another level, with Lane Kiffin doing what Kiffykins does:

Well congrats to UT for hanging on to a couple of our recruits. But we got the important ones

Now, I was planning on posting an image of said tweet, but it appears as though Lane Kiffin got in a bit of trouble, the Twitter account in question no longer exists. Obviously, there's something to be learned here as well.

UPDATE: Sounds like the Kiffin account was fake. Still, it would not have been the least bit surpising.

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The NFL's new Super Bowl site features a page that allows users to see relevant and realtime content from Twitter and Flickr; there's Tweets from smalltime users as well as prominent media outlets. Sounds pretty neat. The problem is, it's one of those sites you look at once, say to yourself "well, that was interesting" and go right back to doing work or Facebook stalking with no plans to return. Such is the problem with social media, some companies and individuals get into it for the sake of appearing hip or technologically savvy without adding any real value.

The idea itself is certainly a good one, and this may even be a decent format for displaying images, but they could've done something much better with Twitter. Why not have separate streams and directories for select writers, bloggers, players and fans along with a chronological timeline for all posts with their #sb44 hashtag? At least that layout makes sense, as opposed to sliding over a virtual mural.

So, well done NFL, you look really cool and hip to those who don't use Twitter on a regular basis. To the influencers who do, the site isn't anything more than something shiny to look at for a minute or two.

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Ever go to a live sporting event, yell at someone on the opposing team, have them turn back and look at you then have no idea what to do next? Yeah, this was a little bit like that. It's a weird world where 'criticizing' a well-known athlete and having them see it no longer takes a column in the local newspaper or a show on TV. Thomas was a good sport about it, I think. He's lashed out a bit on Twitter about writers in the past but took this in stride and with a sense of humor. Best of luck to him and the Huskies.

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Twitter has finally ridded itself of the oft-critiziced 'Suggested Users' list, instead going a bit more user-friendly route and breaking A-list Twitter users up into categories. One of those categories: sports.

The new way of doing things is certainly significantly better than what it used to be, where some suggested users would be RSS feeds in Twitter form, but for it to be useful to everyone it still has a little ways to go.

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I've always advocated the use of Twitter for commentary during a sporting event. I'm sure there are others who don't agree but I think beat writers and bloggers provide a deeper and more entertaining level of analysis than the jocks/talking heads who use volume, not reason, to make a stronger point. But Twitter is still foreign to most people and even those who are on it may not use it with a great amount of depth.

The more you put into Twitter by creating groups and running searches on teams, games and players, the more you get out of it. Well, some people don't want to put that much effort into it. Seesmic Look enters stage right.

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We've seen citizen journalism succeeding and providing unprecedented coverage in chaotic situations before, be it the Iranian hostage crisis or the 2008 earthquake in China. When looking at these incidents, and the most recent tragedy in Haiti, our problems seem a bit smaller in comparison. Yeah, some people tend to overreact.

The reaction coming out of the University of Tennessee after Lane Kiffin split for USC was just a bit ridiculous. It was chaos, and Tennessee basketball player Renaldo Woolridge was one of the citizen journalists covering it.

One excerpt:

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At first, Gilbert Arenas didn't get it. He didn't understand Twitter at all. He refused to use the service until he had 1,000,000 followers. Then, all hell broke lose as he was accused of pulling a gun on a teammate in the locker room over a gambling debt. Getting out in front of that from a public relations standpoint is a virtual impossibility. That hasn't stopped Gilbert Arenas from trying.

As Will Leitch points out, Arenas is changing how athletes deal with crisis and how we view Twitter:

In the past, if a player were accused of pulling a gun on a teammate in the locker room, he would deny the story and then issue "no comments" the rest of the way. Today? They take to the Twitter. Newly minted twitterer Gilbert Arenas exploded this weekend, blasting Peter Vecsey and Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski, telling bad racial jokes and, at one crazy moment, listing all the directors of failed 1995 cinema experiment Four Rooms.

Arenas is flying the face of traditional public relations. He isn't he eliminating any and all exposure (Tiger) or going with the usual denial/no comment (almost everyone implicated in a steroids scandal). He's going for more exposure, more controversy. Now, is this a horrible idea that should never be a attempted or a new school of thought that's worth considering?

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It was announced today that Milwaukee Bucks guard Brandon Jennings will be fined $7,500 by the NBA for violating the league's social media policy. Jennings updated his Twitter feed immediately following a win over the Portland Trailblazers. The NBA's policy states that players, their representatives, and team personnel are banned from social media activity during games as well as 45 minutes before and after.

Here's the tweet that got Brandon in trouble:

Really. That's it. Jennings was excited his young team was off to a great start and wanted to publicly congratulate them. From a fan's perspective, it's very cool to see. We get the vibe of the locker room and hear in his own words how thrilled he is. How does the NBA react to this positive PR? They fine him half a Honda Civic.

This is ridiculous. An NBA policy on social media, and Twitter especially, is unnecessary. As most know, updating Twitter isn't complicated. It's sending a text. I assume most coaches and teams have policies in place on when athletes are allowed to use their phone. Limiting players from using social media has zero impact on their play, attitude, anything. They're already texting. Unless the NBA is doing this purely for selfish reasons—which would be wrong in the first place—then there's no reason at all.

NBA: Let the players Tweet, you're only hurting yourself by not doing so.

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I am not an old school journalist. I'm not one who believes blogs and Twitter should never be trusted. Blogs and Twitter aren't people, one cannot cast everyone using the medium under one light. It'd similar to saying "the phone should never be trusted" or "anyone who emails you isn't a credible source." That's absurd. Online sources pulled from Twitter and blogs should be treated the same as any other source, with a bit of skepticism.

While it's been debated for some time, this issue was framed in my mind by the coverage of the Notre Dame hiring process and further highlighted last night by the premature reports of Chris Henry's death.

Going back, Twitter and blogs should be treated the same as any other source. For some reason, people have skipped the process of evaluating potential sources. Things to consider:

• Do I know this person?
• Are they hiding behind anonymity?
• Have they provided trustworthy information in the past?
• Are they a firsthand source or is the information being relayed through someone else?

With many online media outlets, questions like these have been ignored and any accountability is passed from the journalist to the source.

For example, last night a fake Twitter account claiming to be someone from the Dallas Morning News prematurely announced the passing of Chris Henry, despite the fact that he was still on life support. Michael Rand of the Star Tribune has a great post on how this played out via Twitter and he does highlight the point I'm trying to make, this has less to do with the viral nature of Twitter and more to do with online news outlets taking some users' word as gospel.

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Twitter is really starting to press with the new features and services. Some seem cool (Lists) while others can be frustrating (the new re-tweet function), but it's interesting nonetheless to watch them attempt to expand their offering. Twitter is focusing especially hard on appealing to businesses and their new 'Contributors' feature is aimed directly at them. A bit of background on the service, which could be great tool for sportswriters and sports bloggers, from the Twitter Blog:

The feature we are beta testing is called 'Contributors' – it enables users to engage in more authentic conversations with businesses by allowing those organizations to manage multiple contributors to their account. The feature appends the contributor's username to the tweet byline, making the business to consumer communication more personal; e.g. if @Twitter invites @Biz to tweet on its behalf, then a tweet from @Twitter would include @Biz in the byline so that users know more about the real people behind organizations.

The service could answer a lot of questions for users, such as "Should my Twitter name be my blog/business?", "Should I have a personal account and blog account?" and "Who should I have readers follow, myself or my blog?"

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Over the weekend, The Seattle Times ran a story on Twitter's rising prominence in Major League Baseball and how noticeable it was at the winter meetings. Now, I realize it's every couple days that a major media outlet runs a story on Twitter's rising popularity but every now and then they contain an interesting nugget of information like this:

GMs have long been known to exploit the rumor mill, attempting to make people believe there is plenty of trade interest in a certain player when there might not be any. It's the same with player agents who will whisper about interest in their clients by a specific team before they even contact that club's general manager.

The difference is that, in the past, it might have taken weeks for rumors to circulate by word-of-mouth about a certain player or team. Now, a whisper from one team executive or player agent can be distributed across the country in a matter of seconds via Twitter.

"If I came to these meetings and had a client nobody cared about, of course I'd use this stuff to get his name out there," said one agent, who wanted to be anonymous. "One minute, there's zero market for his services and then, five minutes later, the perception is that you've got five teams banging down your door."

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Almost every sports blog has, at some point or another, ran a live blog on a particular game or event. This process of rapidly updating one blog post with short insight and commentary on a game was extremely popular a few years ago and almost expected of any blog covering a particular team.

As Shel Israel of Global Neighborhoods notes in his blog bost, In loving memory of live blogging, the practice was very popular in the coverage of technology conferences but has since faded with the advent of Twitter.

Then along came Twitter. Obviously, I considered this also important and revolutionary. I still do. But it has occurred to me that this, faster, easier, shorter way of reporting through "live tweets" has replaced the longer, deeper, more thoughtful social media form,at of live blogging. It has done so in a very short period of time and my sense is something is being lost.

Tweets by their nature are terse. An audience members usually says who is speaking & maybe the topic. A rave review is the that she or he "rocks." But the coverage of what is actually being said is reduced. So are the questions and comments coming from outside the room.

This is happening in the world of sports as well. But with sports, Twitter isn't the only thing tool being used as an alternative to true live blogging. A service called CoverItLive is used on several popular blogs. ESPN has also jumped in the live blogging game with their Section 140 and Virtual Pressbox, which operates very similarly to to the CoverItLive. While both are better than traditional live blogging, and each have their advantages, they aren't what I would use to cover a game.

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Notre Dame sent out a press release, notified the alumni and made the announcement on their website but no word yet from Brian Kelly until the presser tomorrow. Well, except for on Twitter. No status updates, but the language and design have changed. New bio:

Thrilled to be the coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Committed to stirring People with PASSION and PURPOSE.

Imagine someone telling you five years ago that a head football coach would acknowledge being hired at Notre Dame via a social network. Ridiculous. But five days ago? You'd almost expect it. It'll be interesting to see how Brian Kelly utilizes social media at Notre Dame. With this past week as an indication, he'll certainly be seeing a significant bump in his followers.

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Since Charlie Weis was let go and made more money in getting fired than I will ever make doing work, I've been following Notre Dame's coaching search with a furor. With the tools available today, this isn't that difficult. A colossal time-suck? Definitely. But all that laborious? Certainly not.

I can say that I've seen almost every rumor. How? As simple—and regrettable—as creating a search column on Tweetdeck. This one line, "'Notre Dame' OR 'Brian Kelly' OR Stoops" has thrown me all over the web and given me a little bit of insight on how the general populous tracks a news story, how it moves from outlet to outlet and most importantly, who to trust.

Notre Dame blog The Blue-Gray Sky has a phenomenal look—nay, social experiment—on how rumors started on the web can get out of hand very, very quickly. Paraphrasing their great blog post, here's how things went down:

• Anonymous person emails supposedly credible site Footballscoop.com claiming "I used to work in the athletic department at Notre Dame (a lie), and I have heard that Jack Swarbrick is interested in Bret Bielema, the head coach at the University of Wisconsin. This was at 6:56pm last evening."
• The site doesn't ask any follow-up questions and runs the rumor almost verbatim the following day.

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The NBA opened its schedule on TNT to its highest rated opening night in the last 26 years; the question now is why? Is it because of the NBA’s presence on Twitter and in other social media—unmatched by any other professional sports league—has brought in completely new fans? Close, but not exactly right.

While its been swirling in the consciences of many, I first saw this question asked by Nate Jones of Goodwin Sports. The specific question asked to his Twitter followers: “ do you guys think that the increased interaction on social media by NBA is helping with ratings?” From there, the responses varied, but one that jumped out at me was Chriss Littmann’s: “Unlikely. People who took the time to find NBA players/teams on social media were probably already fans.” Littman does work on blogs and other social media for sportingnews.com.

It would’ve been fun to embrace the notion that more people are watching the NBA simply because Shaq, Dwight Howard and others are keeping everyone up-to-date with their daily actions and occasionally interacting with their fans. While Jones does point out that Howard has received several comments indicating that there are those who wouldn’t be fans of his or basketball if it weren’t for his presence on Twitter. However, it isn’t reasonable to assume these people are going to sit down and watch a full basketball game or even enjoy what the league has to offer for an extended period of time.

In a post on his blog, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban comes close to hitting it exactly.

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