The Grammys set social TV records

According to CBS, Sunday’s Grammy Awards saw the second largest audience in the show’s history. But viewers weren’t just watching the show, they were discussing it on social media also. According to a Mashable article, the Grammys got 13 million social mentions, becoming the top entertainment event in social TV. For comparison, the  runner-up (the 2011 VMA’s) got only 3.1 million social comments. Some of the most social moments were Chris Brown’s performance, when Adele performed as well as when she won Album of the Year, Jennifer Hudson’s tribute to Whitney Houston, and Paul McCartney closing the show.

Twitter partners with satellite providers

Twitter recently announced two new partnerships, with Iridium and Thuraya, the world’s largest satellite providers, to provide even greater access to Twitter SMS. This service will come in handy at times when phone lines and the Internet are inaccessible, such as war zones and during natural disasters. Twitter is making moves to insure that the service can be accessed in as many parts of the world as possible. But since not all carriers support Twitter SMS, they also have set up “long codes”, which people can use to send tweets.

Is Oprah desperate for ratings?

While many people were tuning into The Grammy Awards on Sunday night, Oprah was tweeting to make sure viewers didn’t forget about her network, OWN.

Commercial Grammy people..u can turn to OWN.

— Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) February 13, 2012

One tweet in particular caught the attention of many, including the audience measurement company Nielsen. “Every 1 who can please turn to OWN especially if you have a Nielsen box,” she tweeted to over 9 million followers around 9 p.m. The backlash was immediate, with people questioning whether her account was hacked or if she was really “that desperate”. Nielsen tries hard to ensure that viewers in their samples are not pressured to change their viewing habits and are “looking into the incident”. Oprah apologized and, at Nielsen’s request, removed the tweet but is still responding to followers calling her out about it.

Twitter jerseys finally spread to North America

Sports teams around the world have begun promoting their Twitter presences on the field by replacing the names on players’ jerseys with their Twitter handles. But this weekend, the Philadelphia Wings (@PhillyWings) became the first reported sports team in North America to do so. The indoor lacrosse team debuted the jerseys in their game against the Buffalo Bandits on Sunday, which they won. The jerseys were auctioned off after the game, raising over $13,000 for the American Cancer Society. Team spokesman Zack Loyd told The Star that when the players were told about the idea preseason, more than half of them were already active on Twitter. He also said “We were just looking for a way to gain more regional and national exposure.” Well, mission accomplished!

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