Tweet Tweet

First it was Xanga.  Then it was Myspace.  Then Facebook took over the world.  And while Facebook is still going strong, there is a new networking phenomenon that is taking over the world: Twitter.  It's simple, you get 140 characters to tell people anything you want.  What you're doing, something they should see, or maybe even what your blog's about.  You can also post pictures and links as long as everything you do is under 140 characters.  You can also send direct messages (like an internal twitter email) or even reply to somebody by mentioning them by name in your tweet (a twitter post).  All this is fine and dandy but what in the world does it have to do with sports?

How about this tweet a few weeks ago:

"grant hill told me before the game that the suns WOULD show up today -- he just looked over at me from the huddle and mouthed 'i was wrong'"

-or-

"heading to dinner with CC and a bus of his family! met Michael Jordan and tori spelling,,,,and we won! great day!"

The first tweet was from ESPN/ABC sideline reporter Lisa Salters during a critical game a few weeks ago between the Suns and Mavs.  The second tweet is from Nick Swisher after the Yankees first win in new Yankee Stadium on Friday.  So what's the big deal you ask?  Here's the big deal, I didn't get these off TV or search for them on the Internet.  I got them off their Twitter pages.  Pages I can see.  Pages I follow.  When you sign into Twitter and go to your home page you can see the most recent tweets from all the people you follow.  And from the people I follow you'd think I was a lot more than a college freshman:  Shaq, CC Sabathia, Derek Fisher, Pete Carrol, ESPN's Jayson Stark, Stephen A. Smith, Lamar Odom, and Chris Bosh.  On top of these sports A-Listers, if I so chose I could be following Ashton Kutcher (the first to 1,000,000 followers), Taylor Swift, Diddy, Ludacris, John Mayer, and yes, Oprah.  I can also follow President Obama and John McCain.  And then there are the multitude of news sites and services that post feeds including CNN and ESPN. 

All of this is just goes to show us once again how much smaller the world is getting.  I, Craig Hoffman, in Murfreesboro, TN, know who Nick Swisher ate dinner with last night.  He plays for my favorite baseball team!  This is also showing us how smart we're getting.  ESPN has mastered twitter.  They have their anchors update from the SportsCenter desk bringing us inside the studio and letting us know what the anchors are thinking as they sit there for 3 hours in the middle of day.  This particularly intrigued me last week when Harry Kalas past and this came through from Chris McKendry on the SportsCenter Twitter: "Chris McKendry: Could cry on TV. Harry Kalas gone at 73. The voice of my generation of Phillies fans. He called every game of my life."

ESPN has also used this (as many others have) as a marketing tool.  On top of SportsCenter I also follow all the ESPN radio shows.  Of course they post from the studios saying random things like Scott Van Pelt telling us he went and got a soda and was going to pay for it later, but more importantly they tell us in tweet form when guests will be on and thus, those of us in Twitter world know when to listen.  

So Twitter can be used to know what our favorite athletes and celebrities are doing, what's going on on the set of our favorite shows, and when things are going to happen on those shows.  Any other wonderful uses?  Sure.  Say maybe a young aspiring journalist (me) bringing his blog to the attention of one of the best in the business (Lisa Salters)?  Yeah, already did it.  (And Ms. Salters if you are indeed reading this I would like to thank you so much for taking a little time out for someone you've never met and I would love to know what you think!) 

Technology makes the world a smaller place and the more people that dive in the better.  It brings people together yada yada yada, but most of all: it's just plain cool.  140 characters have never said so much.  I thought that Facebook would be the end for a while after it sprinted past Myspace, but with Twitter catching on quickly who knows what the future holds.  But in the meantime, I guess we'll all just tweet away.

Follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/choffman223