Twitter might be a cool and fun way for NFL fans to get in touch with their favorite teams and players, but the ad hoc “Twitter chats” sponsored by Verizon Wireless leave a lot to be desired, mainly due to the poor manners of the Twittersphere.
On Tuesday night Verizon Wireless and its NFL Mobile application sponsored a chat with Washington Redskins linebacker Brian Orakpo, otherwise known as @rak98 on Twitter. The half-hour long chat, which fans could find by either following Orakpo directly or by using the hashtag #NFLMobile, was almost instantly filled with spam Tweets, typically ones of a sexual nature with links to some godforsaken unknown location… which we didn’t click on.
Of the Tweets that did get through to Orakpo, the ones he chose to answer were pretty harmless — ones about “how frustrating is it when people hold you” or “what kind of victory dance will you do when you score a touchdown.” There were a couple that hinted at Orakpo’s personality — turns out his sports heroes include Michael Strahan and Hakeem Olajuwon — but since Orakpo forgot to include the #NFLMobile hashtag on several posts it was hard to follow the “chat” thread, especially with all the spam in between.
And though I tried hard, I couldn’t get Orakpo to answer a couple tweet questions I sent in — apparently they were either too controversial (I asked him if the ‘Skins were solidly behind QB Rex Grossman, someone who us Chicago Bears fans have few fond memories of) or too wordy — I also asked what Orakpo thought of the new tackling rules, a question I later realized couldn’t really be answered in 140 characters or less. So maybe I am as lame as the chat. So we’ll both learn going forward.
But it sure is a challenge to wade through the spam tweets. Not sure if the spam is standard fare for these chats, but with all its dough can’t Verizon get together with Twitter and find a way to keep the crap out of the chat? Otherwise these things are going to die a quick death and that would be unfortunate. Especially if it happens before I get one of my Tweets answered.
Thank you for doing this valuable legwork. It does not sound like anything I would have wanted to invest time following. But that do you expect? These kinds of forums might have a few interesting nuggets over the course of a season, but you notice that it is Orakpo and not Ochocinco chosen by Verizon and NFL Mobile. He’s duller, and more easily controlled.
Tweets from fans and the truly daring members of the media enhance the fan experience, not athletes. It is like what Jim DeLorenzo, VP of Octagon Digital, and a guy who represents something like 800 athletes, wrote in TechCrunch: “one of the truly great aspects of sports fandom is that it is inherently social. It’s just no fun cheering by yourself. Fans want to be around other like-minded fans.”
When it comes to Twitter, if that like-minded fan can also give your 360-view of the game a little more insight, a little more anticipation or a little more edge, then you’ve unlocked the true power of sports communities and sports content accessed via smartphones, iPads and other mobile devices. So I am not giving up on Twitter, by any stretch. In fact, I think Twitter will end up a venue where we find a completely ready for prime time 2011 version of Chris Berman — a can’t-be-stopped 140-character natural, who can tell fans what just really happened, and who can uncannily predict what can happen next.