They came, they swam, they tweeted: Phelps vs. Lochte on Twitter
One of our favorite stories from the 2012 London Olympics has been the rivalry between U.S. swimmers Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte… Since we’ve heard so much about how the men compare in the pool, we thought we’d take a look at how Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte have fared on Twitter so far during the games.
NBCOlympics’ Opening Ceremony Tape Delay: Stupid, Stupid, Stupid
Now, tape delays are nothing new, but they do seem archaic at a time when online video and social media bring an air of immediacy to live events. The existence of the NBC Olympics Twitter account is evidence of this, but the account seems totally misused in this case: NBC live tweeted the whole ceremony, with no apparent sense of irony around the fact that its target audience couldn’t actually watch the events it was describing. Instead of building excitement around the ceremony, and engaging with its viewers, all NBC ended up doing was frustrating its audience — the people who care most about watching the thing.
So really, how bad was NBC’s strategy around the U.S. broadcast of the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony in London? So bad that Mark Benioff, chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com, and someone who should really … know better, tweeted out a link to a pirated live stream of the ceremony taking place in London. (Ironically enough, he was tweeting about the appearance of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, that magical thing which made the pirate stream available to the rest of us.)
Giant Hot Wheels Track With Double Vertical Loop and Real Race Car Drivers? Check.
The real double loop track next to it’s toy version.
How Missile Tracking Cameras Are Remaking The NBA
The technology was originally developed to track missiles. Now, SportVU systems hang from the catwalks of 10 NBA arenas, tiny webcams that silently track each player as they shoot, pass, and run across the court, recording each and every move 25 times a second. SportVU can tell you not just Kevin Durant’s shooting average, but his shooting average after dribbling one vs. two times, or his shooting average with a defender three feet away vs. five feet away. SportVU can actually consider both factors at once, plus take into account who passed him the ball, how many minutes he’d been on the court, and how many miles he’d run that game already.
It’s big data in a relatively small pool, and it has the potential to impact everything about basketball.
UEFA Champions League Final — Measuring the Buzz
- 4.8 million tweets total
- Most mentioned player: Didier Drogba, 1.5 million tweets
- Top moment: Chelsea goal in the 88th minute — 109,532 tweets!
(Twitter data from TweetReach Pro)
"A good hockey player skates to where the puck is. A great hockey player skates to where the puck is going to be."
- Wayne Gretzky | 5 things that destroy a company’s value
