Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Fan Sourcing

TwitScoop and Twitter search filters in TweetdeckImage by Kevglobal via Flickr

This evening I had planned to watch the Premiership match in the local Walkabout Australian bar as there is usually a decent atmosphere during sporting events. I managed to catch the second half of the FA Cup semi Final match Saturday between Chelsea and Arsenal and it was a good experience.

Everything changed during my journey home as I received a call from my partner, her voice full of emotion because the dog had gone missing. I arrived home and after walking the streets I contacted Battersea Dogs home and thankfully someone had seen her walking the streets and taken her home. We were shortly reunited with the dog and I decided that instead of watching the football at a bar I would stay home with my partner.

We don't have the premium Sky Sports package so after attempting to follow the action through online services - Ustream and Sky Sports Live Score Centre - I turned my attention to Twitter. Using search columns in TweetDeck I was able to follow the action in real-time, the desktop client provided an intriguing perspective.

Obviously I would have preferred to watch the action at Anfield but following the reaction of the fans on Twitter was entertaining. I couldn't have chosen a better match to follow via TweetDeck as there was plenty of goal action. Arshavin receiving the majority of the tweets for obvious reasons and raises the question, why wasn't he played against Chelsea at the weekend?

Following trending topics on Twitter, I have noticed that sporting events consistently feature highly on the service. In the same way that news channels have embraced social media services to provide reaction so too should sports sites. Although when you consider the reaction to Skittles incorporating the Twitter stream there needs to be a way to censor some of the responses. Can that be achieved through the Twitter API?

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