On Saturday, November 27 2010 I logged on to the United Football League’s YouTube webcast of the league’s Championship Game from Omaha’s Rosenblatt Stadium. I was not prepared for what I experienced and I don’t know how to begin describing it, so I’ll just throw random thoughts at you.
On the UFL’s YouTube channel I was able to choose from about seven different camera angles at any time during the broadcast. I was able to not only see what was going on in the huddle and the sidelienes, but I could also hear conversations amongst the coaches and players. Directly below the video pane was a feed of comments, questions and shout-outs from fans who were watching literally from around the world. The feed was pulling content from the UFL’s Facebook wall, tweets on Twitter with the designated hash tag, comments posted directly via YouTube and texted via MMS. By the way, the game was also broadcasted on Versus network sans all the social media elements.
During what would ordinarily be commercial breaks was an announcer in the booth addressing select comments and questions from fans. Of course I was thrilled that he actually read one of my tweets about two minutes after I posted it.
I see great potential for this sort of application for all sorts of events such as conventions, awards ceremonies, town halls, etc. The whole thing just blew me away. Am I alone in thinking that we are on the cusp of an complete media revolution?
ROMANCING THE BLATT 