Posts Tagged ‘NFL’

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Twitter acquires Summify

Twitter has acquired Vancouver-based startup Summify, a service that creates daily summaries of news content from your social networks, including Twitter. The service aggregates the most popular links shared among your social connections and delivers them either via iPhone app, email, or web. The service announced in a blog post that they have disabled new user registration and will stop delivering their summaries, which are my favorite emails to receive every day, in the next few weeks. Five members from Summify will be joining Twitter’s growth team in San Francisco, but how the platform will be used is still a mystery.

Users take to Twitter to discuss SOPA blackout

We’ve already written about the blackouts to oppose SOPA that took place on January 18, but Twitter was not discussed. Since the internet had a few thousand less functioning websites than usual, of course people took to Twitter to talk about it. While Facebook did not go dark, Mark Zuckerberg did want to share his opinions on the legislation, and did so in a Facebook post. But he then brought his Twitter account back from an almost 2-year coma:

There were also several Trending Topics about the movement, including #factswithoutWikipedia and “Stop SOPA and PIPA”. There were also students confused as to how they were supposed to do homework without Wikipedia, which also shows how incredibly reliant we can be on such sites. Several other sites have posted funny tweets from the blackout, such as  The Huffington Post, Laughing Squid, and Gawker.

After fumble, 49er receives death threats on Twitter

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver and punt returner Kyle Williams has been receiving death threats on Twitter after fumbling the last punt of the championship game. The fumble put the 49ers’ opponent, the New York Giants, in position for a field goal that led to a win in overtime and a trip to the Super Bowl. Tweets included harsh words such as “I doubt I will ever forgive kyle williams”, but some were much more serious, such as this one: “Kyle Williams better keep one eye open… Im gonna bust both that dudes kneecaps see if he ever plays in red and gold again.” His father, Chicago White Sox general manager Kenny Williams, told ESPN “it certainly makes you question our culture of sports.”

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

America’s First Lady joins Twitter

Michelle Obama joined Twitter on January 12, adding more social media power to Obama’s re-election campaign. Like her husband’s Twitter account, it will be managed by campaign staff with occasional tweets with personal signatures. Tweets from the First Lady herself will be signed “-mo”, similar to tweets on President Obama’s Twitter account signed “-bo”. She’s already amassed over 360,000 followers, who she acknowledged in her first personal tweet:

The account has only posted 12 tweets so far, with topics ranging from health care to Martin Luther King Jr. to her recent appearance iCarly, a kid-friendly sitcom on Nickelodeon starring Miranda Cosgrove, which includes a “random dancing” segment where Michelle busts a move!

Ochocinco makes up for 2 years of ignored tweets

Florida college student Victor Gonzalez tweeted his way to see the NFL playoff game between the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos. Gonzalez had been tweeting to Patriots wide receiver Chad Ochocinco for two years and never received a response from him. When he tweeted Ochocinco again to point this out, the NFL star decided to make up for it by inviting Gonzalez to last Sunday’s game. Ochocinco took care of Gonzalez’s travel to Foxboro and hotel stay as well.

Ashton Kutcher gets Punk’d by hacker and vows revenge

Add another person to the list of people tweeting from Ashton Kutcher’s account besides Ashton Kutcher: a hacker. Over the weekend, his Twitter and Foursquare accounts were hacked. The hacker seemed to want to add steam to rumors about a romance between Kutcher and Lorene Scafaria.

A fake tweet read: “First official sleepover with my girl @lorenescafaria so maybe breakfast with everyone next time! (@ Lorene’s House)”, with a link to a Foursquare check-in with a map showing Scafaria’s house.

Kutcher caught on and removed the tweets. But thanks to Foursquare (which Kutcher owns shares in and promotes), Kutcher also caught the hacker’s physical location. He has now vowed to find the hacker, tweeting “I’m coming for you my friend” with a link to a map showing the location, and “You hacked my Foursquare and I now know your address. Whoops…This is gonna be fun.”

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

Kansas teen’s “mean” tweet stirs First Amendment controversy

From the back of the audience of a speech by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, 18-year-old Emma Sullivan tweeted “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucks, in person #heblowsalot.” As controversy heated up over this situation, the public has showed her support by also using the hashtag #heblowsalot. Since that first tweet, she has amassed more than 14,000 followers (while the Governor only has 3,379!) and tweets about gratitude for her supporters and her disbelief that she is now making headlines.

Governor Brownback’s office spotted Sullivan’s tweet during routine social media monitoring and contacted the Youth in Government program Sullivan was participating in. Sullivan was called into her principal’s office, scolded, and ordered to submit an apology letter to the Governor. Sullivan refused to write such a letter. Later, the Governor was the one issuing an apology, admitting that his staff overreacted to her tweet.

Rihanna reaches 10 million followers

Rihanna is the most recent celebrity to reach 10,000,000 followers on Twitter. She will be the 8th human, 6th woman, and 5th female musical artists to reach this number. The last million followers have all been acquired in the past 27 days. MediaBistro.com reports that the next celebrity to reach this milestone will likely be Taylor Swift, likely right before Christmas.

Ashton Kutcher kicked out of Top 10 Most Followed on Twitter

Following his recent blunder and handing over of his Twitter feed, Ashton Kutcher is no longer one of the top ten most followed users on Twitter. Kutcher is (was?) one of the most famous celebrity personalities on social media and was the first to reach one million followers. But he has been knocked out of the top 10 by Selena Gomez. According to Media Bistro, he’ll have to fight to defend position #11 as it looks like Oprah Winfrey and Ellen Degeneres should pass him by the end of the year.

Dallas Cowboys cheerleader gets national attention after tackle

During the fourth quarter of the Dallas Cowboys’ game against the Miami Dolphins on Thanksgiving Day, Cowboys cheerleader Melissa Kellerman (@MelissaRae) was accidentally taken down by tight end Jason Witten. She got right back up and later took to Twitter to let everyone know she was okay, tweeting “I’m not the best at Jason Witten trust falls. ;) ” and “Not hurtin’ today, like some of ya’ll thought I would be. Our TE isn’t as tough as he looks…That or I’m WAY tougher than I look. ;)

The controversy started when CNBC’s Darren Rovell reported in a tweet that the team made her delete her account after comments made about the incident.  Then a campaign to bring back Kellerman’s account, @BringBakMelissa, popped up on Twitter and fans began voicing their opinions (mostly angry) on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ official fan page on Facebook. Since wall posts are no longer allowed, fans took to commenting on other posts.

The director of public relations for the Cowboys, Rich Dalrymple, stated that the team has “never gotten involved with individual Twitter accounts or suspended one,” and that Kellerman deleted the account herself because she was “overwhelmed by the number of responses.” After being tackled, her number of followers tripled quickly. Her account has since been put back up, but as private so fans must request to follow her.

NFL Players and Fans Celebrate End of Lockout on Twitter

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

At the end of a really great football game, players and fans storm the field.  At the end of a league lockout, players and fans storm Twitter.

After almost five months of negotiations, the National Football League lockout ended yesterday when the NFL Players Association signed off on a new collective bargaining agreement.  To celebrate, both players and football fans alike shared their excitement on Twitter.  The NFL commissioner even announced the end of the lockout with a quote perfect for Twitter: a simple “Football is back.”

Mashable compiled a timeline of player tweets throughout the day, where you can see the transition from curiosity and uncertainty to celebratory, with Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals tweeting “Hey Laaaa hey Laaaa my girlfriend’s (Football) back”.

Football fans also took to Twitter to talk about the announcement.  There were several people that compared the lockout to the debt ceiling, providing for some amusing comments such as “Good work NFL.  Your move, Congress” and the hashtag #WashingtonFail.

Unlike with other current events, this online discussion will not dwindle away in a few days or as soon as something else exciting happens.  Twitter has made its way into the sports world as much as it has into anything else.  With players going back to work shortly, we are sure to see lots of tweets with updates about training camps and other preseason activities.  Once football season starts, Twitter is widely used to talk about games, scores, and players.  And of course, the Superbowl is worth tweeting about.

So yesterday not only marked the end of the lockout, but the beginning of football season…on Twitter, that is.