More on Pro Athletes and Teams on Social Media

As blogged about a week ago Social media and professional athletes has become a new problem. Recently ESPN examined the different professional sports leagues to better understand the policies for player's use of twitter. Many of the leagues are the same and some quite different. They either embrace the new idea of getting your own voice out there, or simply hate the idea. In my opinion i do not like to hear what many of the players have to say outside of news conferences. Often many of their opinions cause harm to the integrity of the organization(team).

CRAIGSLIST on TWITTER! (or How to Spend $0 on Books for College)

Well, not exactly, but pretty close. According to an article posted by TechCrunch,
a new, free e-trade site was launched during a recent TechCrunch ‘Hackathon’ (http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/11/watch-the-techcrunch-disrupt-hackathon-live-2/).

This newly launched Twitter business, @Shopr.com, coordinates those hoping to sell and those looking to buy in specific regions or cities, similar to Craigslist. A quote from the article states, “The service’s founders tell me that in their initial research currently around 7,000 Tweets per hour relate to commerce and people looking to buy and sell items (over 5,000 selling-related Tweets are sent every hour).”

As an avid Craigslist user myself, I love free advertising and no commissions. I’ve paid for most of my required books for college by buying and selling all my books at discount rates. I shop around on such sites as Half.com, Craigslist.com, Amazon.com and Textbooks.com to buy my books and I sell them as soon as I’m done using them. All in all, I’ve pretty much broken even, give or take thirty dollars. This is far cheaper than buying e-books or renting books and both leave you with nothing tangible to sell.

The article goes on to state that sellers can tweet their wares on their own site and go on about their day. @Shopr mines data from Twitter and matches the two parties, notifying the seller if an interested buyer tweets similar or matching information. If the seller hopes to have the item found by @Shopr, the seller must clearly describe the item for sale, where it’s being sold and the asking price. However, the seller can also post their items directly at #!/shoprsell.

Buyers can go to #!/shoprbuy and post items they are searching for or simply tweet about the item(s) on their own page, again listing particulars. Buyers, too, can also go directly to @Shopr’s site to poke around.

Unbelievable as it sounds, my television died the day before the Superbowl® one year. Need I say more? Thanks to Craigslist, by the end of the day, we had a TV (which, as we all know, is cheaper than a divorce). It will be interesting to see how Twitter’s @Shopr competes against Craigslist as both platforms use the same process. Ultimately, it boils down to how quickly the seller would like to make a sale and how quickly the buyer needs the item.

(From TechCrunch) http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/11/shopr-connects-buyers-and-sellers-on-twitter/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Social Media: Helping or Hindering Revolutions?

2011 has been full of revolts and revolutions around the world, (i.e. Egypt, Libya, and the UK.) This article by John D. Sutter of CNN explains how social networks such as Twitter and Facebook help fuel the fires of revolution, but also how they can slow down a revolution.

Navid Hassanpour, a student at Yale argues that social media hinders revolutions and slows them down, because of a lack of "face-to-face communication." He explains that people won't be motivated to actually be apart of what is happening, and will instead get distracted by everything else that is going on the internet.

On the other hand, Wael Ghonim, a Google employee who helped organize Egypt's revolution over Facebook, explains how these mediums of social interaction helped the revolution by simply stating, "'If you want to liberate a society, just give them the internet.'" Personally, I agree with his statement. The internet obviously helps spread ideas and news a whole lot quicker than say the evening news or tomorrow's newspaper, but more importantly when the government has to shut down something because it's threatened by the ideas that are being passed on you know that particular something is powerful.

T-weet Partiers

GOP Presidential Hopefuls Face Off in First Ever Twitter Debate

On Wednesday July 21, 2011 TheTeaParty.net hosted the GOP’s presidential hopefuls "Twitter Debate". On the sidelines, 22,400 viewers watched and commented.

A politician can’t even say good morning in under 140-characters how do expect them to answer a serious question within in those limitations? It is nice, for a change, that politicians gave short answers. But there is a certain amount of characters required to put together a thought, and 140 is far below the correct number.

I think the debates showed us the limitations of Twitter- the inability to deliver complex messages. I suspect that there was a lot of pre-typed responses that were cut and pasted into the conversation. Hopefully both sides will abandon this practice.

10 Animals With More Social Media Fans Than Major Media Outlets

Who doesn't love really cute animals faces? How about ESPN? Your Twitter followers votes are in and with over 1 million tweeple: Sockington the really cute animal face wins with 1,484,398 Twitter followers vs. ESPN with 1,426,705 Twitter followers.




These social site aren't just for people anymore, " ...animals have been tweeting with more than just their beaks", as stated on an article from Mashable.

Animals have been going online after you've falling asleep updating their Facebook and Twitter accounts, now they have more friends than you do.

Social networks like LOLcats, Upside-down dogs and many others have been getting more and more downloads, likes, tweeps, mobile apps downloads than several popular media outlets.

The top 10 Animals with more social media fans than major media outlets is as follows:

1)@Sockington 1,484,398 Twitter followers vs ESPN 1,426,705 Twitter followers

2)@BronxZooCobra 236,919 Twitter followers vs @bbcnews Twitter followers


3)Maru 138,118 Youtube Subscribers vs currentTV139,948 Youtube Subcribers

4)Boo 1,331,870 Facebook fans vs People Magazine 1,243,705 Facebook fans

5)@nyannyancat 123,179 Twitter followers vs @msnbc 105,630 Twitter followers

6)Beast 143,699 Facebook fans vs Forbes 133,369 Facebook fans


7)@common_squirrel 29,029 Twitter fans vs @SFGate 28,465 Twitter followers

8)@JFKTurles 8,333 Twitter followers vs @newsday 6,745 Twitter followers

9)Raccoon Willie 6,962 Youtube Subscribers vs RadioLab 4,221 Youtube Subscribers

10)@toasterpup 3,948 Twitter followers vs @SavannahNow 3,367 Twitter followers

Now we can see where some of our priorities go when it comes to social media site, cute animal faces.