Take A Peck

According to Mashable, Yahoo is testing a lifecasting service called Yahoo Live with its employees. According to Wikipedia, lifecasting is “is a continual broadcast of events in a person’s life through digital media.” As we’ve seen with blogs, social networking and YouTube, people love sharing their lives. Whether it’s for fame, fortune or just to be noticed, people are more and more willing to let others into their lives. With the rise of online video (and the number of laptops that are shipping with webcams), lifecasting should continue to become more popular with the younger crowd.

Lifecasting seems to have a few potential applications in the sports world. It’s really just an unfiltered blog (with video). What if teams provided an outlet for passionate fans to post videos of how dedicated they are. Offer an inside look at the life of a superfan, from what they do each day to keep up with their team, to how crazy they are on game days. This could be turned into a video series or show and teams could tie-in sponsors to generate more revenue.

A brand could sponsor a season-long lifecasting contest to identify the best superfan.

Teams could get players involved in lifecasting to offer an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to be a professional athlete. This could be tested around a player’s All-Star game appearance and could be continued depending on the interest it generates.

These are just a few ideas. What do you think about lifecasting opportunities in sports?

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Our attention spans are getting shorter. We’re multitasking more. And we’re trying to keep up with a bazillion things at once.

Enter Twitter–Twitter is a bit-sized (think Mighty Mouse) version of Instant Messaging + Facebook. It lets you instantly see/give updates (messages, links, etc) friends in your network. You can post from AIM, the web, desktop (via widget), or cell phone.

People may update their Facebook status once a day or week or month, but with Twitter I can get instant updates delivered to my desktop, personal Twitter page, phone or IM program. Back in May of this year I wrote a very rambling post calling Twitter a new tool for stalkers. I tried it out for awhile but ultimately quit because none of my friends were using it.

And they still aren’t. But tons of people are. David Armano at Logic + Emotion has a great post about Twitter exploding in popularity because it is a conversation ecosystem. I recommend reading his whole post, but see below for one of his diagrams that aims to explain Twitter’s multiple touchpoints.

I still don’t know what to think about Twitter, but it sure does seem like a growing connection platform. Stay tuned for a post that will attempt to explain how sports teams and sponsors can get involved with Twitter to connect with fans and customers and keep them updated on what’s going on.

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Apparently, I’m a Media Snacker. I got tagged by Ben over at Blogging Experiment in the latest meme (a sort of online chain letter where someone tags 5 people and each of them tag 5 people, etc), which discusses Media Snackers–what they are and if you respect them or not. What is a Media Snacker, you say? The short version is that they are people who keep up with the latest trends and consume and media, news and entertainment when they want, how they want, where they want, and how often they want–which is basically all the time. Check out the video to see more about what a Media Snacker is (I’m not a video expert and I can’t get this thing to embed properly)

So, yeah I’m a Media Snacker. Online, I consume enough media to feed a small country, and I always have about 10 tabs open at once because I’m a super multi-tasker/have a super-short attention span. I keep up with all the sports marketing/business blogs I know of as well as a bunch of advertising and social networking blogs. But I actually am not as media savvy when it comes to cell phones. I don’t use my phone for blogging or video or music, though I do use it for pictures sometimes. If I lived in a big city, this would be different, as I’d probably be taking the train to work and have lots of time to kill. But as it is now, I drive everywhere so that doesn’t leave much time for sitting around and doing things with the phone.

On to the main question–Do you respect Media Snackers? I’d have to say yes, because I think we have an insatiable thirst for knowledge and always want to do more in less time. You’ve got to admire people who are curious and always creating and consuming and not just sitting around and doing nothing.

But being a Media Snacker is often tough. Most of my friends don’t see the point of reading 50 blogs a day or keeping up with every piece of news I find interesting. And to some extent, they have a point. I’ve actually tried to cut down on my snacking, so I actually can focus on getting things done, instead of just consuming new information. Sometimes you have to limit the amount of information you take in, since more information does not always lead to better work and better decisions. You have to focus your snacking, so you’re getting the right stuff and not a bunch of junk.

Now I have to tag 5 people to keep the meme going (not like it depends on just me though) I’ll go with:

• Pat Coyle
• Darren Heitner
• David Armano
• Darren Herman
• Leland Maschmeyer

Don’t forget that the 4th edition of the Sports Business Carnival will be up here on Monday. You can submit an article here. Come back and check it out! (more…)

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If you look at the sidebar on your right under “Subscribe to this” you will see a new addition–a button that lets you add my blog as a widget to many different services, such as Facebook, MySpace, Google, your own blog, and/or others. So, if you’re already using Facebook all the time, why not go ahead and add my blog as a widget there. That way, you don’t have to even leave Facebook to get updates. (If you do this, it shows up under “Posted Items”).

Widgets are poised to revolutionize the web experience (and eventually they will be popular on cell phones, too. Alltel’s LG AX8600 comes with Celltop, an application that utilizes widgets and won CTIA’s Best in Show Award.) Essentially, widgets are any third party application that can be embedded in a webpage, or downloaded and kept on someone’s desktop. There are so many possibilities here it’s hard to just describe a few. But I’ll try anyways.

A bar or restaurant could offer people widgets that let them keep up with the nightly drink and food specials. Instead of having to call or visit the restaurant’s website, people would get automatic updates through widgets. You might say people who won’t even visit a website to get a special are extremely lazy, but why shouldn’t a business make it easier for people to find out about them?

Grocery stores can advertise their specials and discounts by taking advantage widgets (They could even save money on printing costs and reduce the amount of hard copies of coupons). Media companies can offer video snippets as samples to get people interested in their shows. Individuals can use widgets to expand their spheres of influence and reach more people. To echo, my last post about Twitter opportunities, the possibilities are endless.

This blog was widgetized using Widgetbox.

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This is pretty cool. It’s a revolving earth that shows in real time who is updating their Twitters, where they are, and what they’re saying.

I could imagine big companies using something like this (that would update automatically) to see what’s going on at each of their offices all over the world at any given time. Or a company like Starbucks could set something like this up and customize it based on what kind of drink someone buys. So they could have it show them who all is buying an orange mocha frappachino at any given time all over the world–not sure why people waste money on those expensive drinks but you get my point.

Personally, I’d like to see a mashup of this with sports scores all over the world. Or wave reports for surfing. The possibilities are endless….

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If you stalkers out there can’t get enough of Facebook to keep up with what your friends are doing, check out Twitter. Twitter is defined by Wikipedia as “a social networking and micro-blogging service,” but it’s basically like having a cross-platform away message that can be updated almost anywhere. You can send in updates to your Twitter profile page via the Twitter website, your cell phone or instant messenger.

To better explain what Twitter is, you have 140 characters to answer the question, “What are you doing?” For example you might say, “Trying to hit the fairway at Chapel Ridge and avoid being struck by lightning” if you were golfing yesterday like I was. When you update your Twitter, your friends can opt to receive notifications and you can be notified when they update theirs. You can see what they’re doing and they can check to see what you’re up to. Twitter has definitely tapped into the viral power of blogs, too, enabling people to add Twitter widgets to their blogs and websites so others (and non-Twitterers) can see what they and their friends are doing.

I decided to try Twitter and see what all the buzz is about, so I’ll be updating my Twitter regularly over the next week. For all you stalkers out there, this is your free pass into my world. Seriously though, I think it definitely will prompt some interesting questions, beyond what I’ve already begun to wonder.

As we are more and more connected to the world we live in via email, cell phones, Blackberries, instant messaging, social networks, etc, etc. this begs the question–How much is too much? Personally, I don’t really care what most people are doing every minute and hour or their lives, even if they are my friends. Then again, if a bunch of my friends started twittering, I could see myself getting caught up in it.

As these new social networking sites and connection tools have arisen, they bring into existence new forms of social currency, or cool points. For example, you can already make some basic assumptions about someone (18-24) that’s on Facebook and has less than 50 or 100 friends–they probably don’t have many REAL friends either, and aren’t fun to hang out with (nevermind the fact that maybe they were a late adopter and never bothered to add many of their friends, or they are trying to be a “rebel” and not have a lot of Facebook friends). There’s cool and uncool Facebook profiles too, and people (myself included) make judgments about others based only on one page that may or may not reflect how they really are.

Another question is how will Twitter affect politics? Politicians are already getting involved and I stumbled upon Barack Obama’s Twitter page almost immediately after signing up. Will a politician be seen as more “in touch” with the younger people if he has a Twitter? Will many people read it? As of this writing, Obama has about 2,500 “followers.” Will this influence voting? Will people read the Twitters of all candidates, not just the candidate they support? Does Obama actually update his Twitter or does someone do it for him? All burning questions, which I could comment on but will save for another time. I’ve written too much already and would love to hear any thoughts you had about Twitter and this stuff.

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