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Basketball isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when talking about social media. A few Twitter incidents involving NBA players during the last weeks changed this and motivated me to take a closer look at how the NBA and its players are using social media and “Web 2.0″ applications.

Twitter

Last month, Charlie Villanueva, forward of the Milwaukee Bucks, posted the following Tweet:

In da locker room, snuck to post my twitt. We’re playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up.

This was during the halftime of a critical NBA Game. As you can imagine, the Bucks Coach Scott Skiles didn’t find this very amusing and told his players that he doesn’t want it to happen again because he sees this as a lack of professionalism. It’s not rare seeing players giving interviews during breaks or at the halftime of a game. Sending out a Twitter takes a few seconds while giving an interview usually takes much longer. That’s why I don’t agree with Skiles and I think players should be allowed to do it. Twittering during a game can certainly bring live action to a new level. Knowing what players think during games can be very interesting for people watching at home. Wouldn’t it be exciting to see tweets of players sitting on the bench on your TV screen next to the score of the game?

He isn’t the only NBA player using Twitter. Shaquille O’Neal is without a doubt one of the most popular NBA players having a Twitter account. His screen name is THE_REAL_SHAQ. He joined Twitter because an imposter was using his name to interact with his fans. After 1221 tweets, he’s still at it and thinks that Twitter is a fun way to interact with his fans. This experience of Shaquille O’Neal fans shows that it is indeed the real Shaq who is posting on Twitter numerous times a day. After the Villanova-incident, Shaq vowed to post a tweet at halftime without getting into trouble and that’s exactly what he did with the following Tweet:

Through that whole story, Twitter got some mainstream media attention. For a more complete list of NBA players on Twitter, head over to Socialmediasports.com created by the Twitter user NBAplayers. Other NBA players will probably never be on Twitter like Charles Barkley who chose to call people on Twitter a “bunch of losers”. The NBA also has a couple of official Twitter accounts:  “NBA” and  “NBA TV”. They are updated pretty often and can be an interesting resource for NBA fans.

Widgets

It is also really easy to post content from NBA.com on other sites, blogs and social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace, …) with the widgets the NBA is offering.  Here’s an example:

There are a lot of widgets to chose from. I would have loved to have that possibility 10 years back when i created my first fan web pages on Geocities (RIP). Nowadays, this is nothing revolutionary anymore but we’ve come a long way from 1998. The NBA is doing a great job with exporting their content on other sites which gives them a better visibility.

Blogging

On the official NBA site, you can find a lot of blogs by experts, players and fans. The blogs of players, which are probably the most interesting for readers, aren’t updated very often though. Gilbert Arenas’ Blog for example is very fun to read but his last post dates back to November 2008. Other players have their blogs on their official site instead of having it on NBA.com. Dwight Howard has been very active these last weeks, especially since the playoffs started. He has used his blog, as well as his Facebook and Twitter pages to communicate with his fans. Another blog I recommend is Marc Cuban’s blog, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and entrepreneur. He’s been blogging for over 5 years now and often has interesting posts. If you’re looking for blogs of other NBA players or experts, head over to Hoopshype.com, a site with a lot of news and features about the NBA.

Facebook

The NBA is also on Facebook and has over 820 000 fans. The page is updated very often with new videos, pictures or just notifications. As an active Facebook user and NBA.com visitor, i really like that they post random short videos that you can watch without losing too much time. People in the discussion forums are also very active.

The NBA is promoting their brand really well through Facebook which is probably one of their main objectives. Communicating with the fans and letting them participate on their Facebook page by commenting and discussing is also an important factor. They also try to sell their products indirectly through Facebook by posting pictures of some featured products like you can see on the picture above.

Wiki

There are nearly 6000 articles on the Basketball wiki Hoopedia. Apart from articles that the NBA determines to be factually accurate, any content can be added and edited like for every other wiki. It’s a great resource for information about Basketball al over the world, not just the NBA.

Conclusion

All in all, I think that the NBA is doing a really good job at using social media to communicate with their fans. They have understood that they don’t need to have everything on their official site and are present on the main social networks and Twitter. The content on their different pages is updated very often and they are successful because many people are participating by commenting, putting NBA widgets on their site or blog and editing articles on Hoopedia.

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Working Worlds is the first Luxembourgish virtual Job market in Second Life. It is organized by GAX Technologies, a Luxembourg-based software company with an emphasis on new technologies and the financial sector:

Join us on Wednesday NOVEMBER 28th 2007 from 8 am to 9 pm for the first virtual job market. Do not miss the opportunity to get in touch with international companies. The possibility to find the perfect job that fits you. Just dare enter the world of Second Life. Just dare your first virtual job interview and let your dreams become reality.
Employers in Luxembourg are seeking new talents, so give yourself a real chance to improve your career.

If you’re looking for a new job and would like to work in Luxembourg, this might be a good opportunity to present yourself to potential employers in a different way than for the traditional job interview. This looks like a good way to meet a lot of people in a short time and without having to leave home. Registrations are already open on the Working Worlds web site where you can submit your CV.

(via Keep Contact)

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Interesting presentation by Charlene Li from Forrester Research about the way big brands use Facebook.

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Il y a beaucoup de différences entre un blog et un site web classique. La différence la plus marquante est sans doute la structure du blog dans lequel les billets apparaissent dans un ordre chronologique inverse. Cela constitue déjà un changement important d’habitude pour beaucoup d’internautes qui s’attendent à voir les nouvelles en bas de la page. Ce qui est également différent pour l’habitué de la page web traditionnelle est qu’un billet n’a pas forcément de rapport avec un autre billet qui se trouve au-dessus ou en-dessous. Dans le cas des blogs, il s’agit de systèmes de gestion de contenu (CMS : content management system) et non de HTML comme pour les sites web classiques. Pour plus d’info sur les SGC, cliquez sur ce lien. Apres avoir survolé les différences techniques, venons-on maintenant aux avantages du blog par rapport au site web classique :

• • La facilité de publication
  • Le référencement
  • L’actualisation
  • L’interactivité

Il est beaucoup plus facile de créer un blog qu’un site web classique car on n’a pas besoin d’avoir de connaissance technique en HTML. La publication d’un nouveau billet peut se faire en quelques clics et sans dépenser de l’argent avec un outil comme Wordpress. Si on fait une recherche sur Google, les blogs se trouvent souvent dans les premières positions. Ils sont donc souvent mieux référencés que les sites web traditionnels. Il faut encore ajouter qu’un blog est beaucoup plus souvent actualisé qu’un site web classique. L’interactivité est sans doute l’élément le plus important du blog. Elle est possible grâce aux commentaires qu’on peut laisser après chaque billet. Cette fonction commentaire donne aux internautes la possibilité de communiquer entre eux sur le blog. Par ailleurs, avec les rétroliens (trackbacks), une communication entre différents blogs devient possible. Pour les blogs d’entreprises, c’est ici où ils peuvent communiquer directement avec leurs clients et d’autres parties prenantes.

Grâce aux blogs, la communication « many to many » devient beaucoup plus facile qu’avec les sites web traditionnelles et le web devient vraiment participatif. Personnellement, je pense que les blogs sans fonction commentaire ne peuvent pas être considérés comme des vrais blogs même s’il en existe beaucoup. S’il faut vraiment tirer une frontière entre blogs et pages web traditionnelles, alors c’est ici. Il est difficile de donner une définition stricte d’un blog mais peut-être cette question ne se pose même pas car dans le futur, toutes ou quelques fonctionnalités des blogs vont probablement être présentes sur la majorité des sites web et on ne fera plus de différence entre blog et site web traditionnel.

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