Ruh-Roh. ESPN Shuts Down the Tweeting and Whatnot

Magilla_Gorilla · Post #1 » by **Magilla_Gorilla** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 1:36 pm

From the General Board

magicfan4life05 wrote:I just found the story on a football website of all places:

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... -tweeting/

Though it's unknown whether the folks at the Sports Illustrated parent company granted King a papal dispensation for his decision to choose speed and Twitter over page views and SI.com, employees at ESPN are officially on notice.

Thou shalt not Tweet regarding professional matters.

ESPN basketball analyst (for now) Ric Bucher made the disclosure today -- where else? -- on his Twitter page.

"The hammer just came down, tweeps: ESPN memo prohibiting tweeting info unless it serves ESPN," Bucher wrote, capping it with a choice of words that conjures memories of a certain Twilight Zone cookbook. "Kinda figured this was coming."

And then Bucher acknowledged the distinct possibility that he has stepped into a pile of, um, trouble. "I'm probably violating some sort of policy just by telling you," Bucher wrote. "In any case, stay tuned."

Bucher also explained his understanding of the contours of the policy. "My guess is I can still tweet about my vacation/car shopping, etc. Which I will do, if I can. But the informal NBA talk is prob in jeopardy."

Post #2 » by **Ben** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 1:41 pm

Oh my gosh. What would this summer's big rumor season have been if it not for the tweets? We never would have known which big rumor not to believe. End of an era.

anorexorcism · Post #3 » by **anorexorcism** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 1:41 pm

Corporate jackasses (BSPN)

TB#1 · Post #4 » by **TB#1** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 1:56 pm

Twitter is for twits.

Hope the 15 minutes of fame for such a gimmicky waste of time is at 14:59.

Not that I'm not curious about what Tyrus had for breakfast before breaking out for The Lab, but...in general I think following celebrities on Twitter is for people who think TMZ is riveting, mainstream news.

And I despise TMZ and everything it stands for.

But that's me. To each his own, I guess.

Post #5 » by **DuckIII** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 2:17 pm

Magilla_Gorilla wrote:Bucher also explained his understanding of the contours of the policy. "My guess is I can still tweet about my vacation/car shopping, etc. Which I will do, if I can. But the informal NBA talk is prob in jeopardy."

Oh, Joy!

AirP. · Post #6 » by **AirP.** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 2:20 pm

TB#1 wrote:Twitter is for twits.

Hope the 15 minutes of fame for such a gimmicky waste of time is at 14:59.

Not that I'm not curious about what Tyrus had for breakfast before breaking out for The Lab, but...in general I think following celebrities on Twitter is for people who think TMZ is riveting, mainstream news.

And I despise TMZ and everything it stands for.

But that's me. To each his own, I guess.

Depends on how it's used... Doug now uses Twitter to announce new stories he's just put up. I enjoy finding out new info when it first comes out, the problem for people under ESPN... instead of teasing the story and drawing traffic to the website, they give up enough information so you don't need to go to their website.

But you're right... too many people just put up too much stupid information and I've had to dump half the people I use to follow because of too much stupid information.

Post #7 » by **DuckIII** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 2:22 pm

anorexorcism wrote:Corporate jackasses (BSPN)

The primary product that ESPN sells is information. Its no surprise they don't want their reporters giving that information away in a forum that they can't generate revenue from. This is no different than a grocery store having a rule against employees filling their trunks up with food and handing it out for free on street corners.

I'm shocked that a company as well run as espn took this look to bring the hammer down.

Grand Champ · Post #8 » by **Grand Champ** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 2:52 pm

TB#1 wrote:Twitter is for twits.

Hope the 15 minutes of fame for such a gimmicky waste of time is at 14:59.

Not that I'm not curious about what Tyrus had for breakfast before breaking out for The Lab, but...in general I think following celebrities on Twitter is for people who think TMZ is riveting, mainstream news.

And I despise TMZ and everything it stands for.

But that's me. To each his own, I guess.

+eleventybillion

The Force. · Post #9 » by **The Force.** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 2:52 pm

lol @ all these analysts getting all twitter happy... it's funny because there's real no "tangible" benefit for someone who tweets information, it's more of a vanity contest than anything else.

On the subject, for those who haven't heard, the Chargers just fined cornerback Antonio Cromartie $2,500 for complaining about training camp food via Twitter.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/20 ... complaint/

AirP. · Post #10 » by **AirP.** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 3:31 pm

So what effect will this have on ESPN overall with them shutting down twittering? News that they hold back will get out quicker from other people making their product a lesser value.

To be quite honest, ESPN and other news organizations just aren't getting it. Twitter isn't going to make them money, but if they took what makes Twitter great and utilized that type of technology for themselves their website would be much more dynamic and a much better destination for fans.

Just have twitter like apps on cells for the employees, instead of SMS a message to Twitter, they SMS it to a certain account inside of ESPN, that person takes the message, posts it on a website and then sends a tweet out to the masses with just a headline, who it's by and the link to the story.. THE END. Putting the information in a tweet gives nothing to ESPN, driving traffic to their website does. It's really not that hard, you have to embrace technology.

This is fine on Twitter: RicBucher Disclaimer II: nothing worse than being forced to bag on DLee. Love watching him play. He's underrated. But Simmons' man love was 2 much.

This is something that needed to be posted to ESPN and drive traffic there: RicBucher For what it's worth: Pat Riley and Dwyane Wade never met w/Odom. Never even texted him. According to a source who would know.

On a NFL guy saying:

"Tweeting was invented for 7th grade girls. We have a bunch of girls in this league!"

He's absolute right... too many people think everything they do is important enough for others to know about... when it really isn't. You're always going to have people overuse a product and twitter has way too many people overusing it. Twitter should just advertise the goods, not just hand them to you.

apollocreed32 · Post #11 » by **apollocreed32** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 3:35 pm

twitter is extremely useful in the right hands. in the hands of people like tyrus, its freaking terrible. simple, dont follow morons like tyrus thomas, [p] diddy, or kim kardashian. i for one enjoyed hearing what informal basketball talk bucher had to share. i took it as it was, little chit chat he had heard here and there. why cant that be an interesting 5 seconds of my day.

i agree reading crap like "AT THE LAB", or "LETS GET IT" makes me want to rip out my eyeballs. its as easy as not following people who should be wearing helmets to walk to the kitchen.

Post #12 » by **Rerisen** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 3:51 pm

Does this mean no more Scoop Jackson wild rumors? Oh well, the 'whatnot' seems a bigger loss than the tweeting to this point.

Steve Brule · Post #13 » by **Steve Brule** » Wed Aug 5, 2009 5:49 pm

Twitter would be a much more suitable name for a vagina rather than a social networking site. Wonder if they realized that. Maybe they did it on purpose. Maybe I need to stop watching porn.

Post #14 » by **Payt10** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 1:19 am

League Circles · Post #15 » by **League Circles** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 1:30 am

I don't use twitter but I wondering if I'm misunderstanding what it is, because I can't see what's different about Twitter vs. RSS feeds or a bunch of other ways to get info. Like, if you have to check twitter to see what's going on, how is that different from checking espn.com or your igoogle feeds?

AirP. · Post #16 » by **AirP.** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 1:50 am

teamCHItown wrote:I don't use twitter but I wondering if I'm misunderstanding what it is, because I can't see what's different about Twitter vs. RSS feeds or a bunch of other ways to get info. Like, if you have to check twitter to see what's going on, how is that different from checking espn.com or your igoogle feeds?

It's kind of like RSS feeds but instead of having to log onto a computer to get the information, you can specify certain "feeds" to be sent to your cell phone via text messaging. So instead of having to pull the information, twitter can push the information to your phone.

Posey H8er · Post #17 » by **Posey H8er** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 2:01 am

apollocreed32 wrote:twitter is extremely useful in the right hands. in the hands of people like tyrus, its freaking terrible. simple, dont follow morons like tyrus thomas, [p] diddy, or kim kardashian. i for one enjoyed hearing what informal basketball talk bucher had to share. i took it as it was, little chit chat he had heard here and there. why cant that be an interesting 5 seconds of my day.

i agree reading crap like "AT THE LAB", or "LETS GET IT" makes me want to rip out my eyeballs. its as easy as not following people who should be wearing helmets to walk to the kitchen.

I agree. It's useful with news sources or people with inside scoops on deals that's not being talked about on television. But following celebrities or athletes that post random garbage is a reason our society is going down the toilet.

Everyone has to watch the Twitter Tracker on Conan, they make fun of Twitter for the exact same reason.
http://mashable.com/2009/06/09/tonight- ... r-tracker/

rose2tyrus · Post #18 » by **rose2tyrus** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 10:19 am

DuckIII wrote:
Magilla_Gorilla wrote:Bucher also explained his understanding of the contours of the policy. "My guess is I can still tweet about my vacation/car shopping, etc. Which I will do, if I can. But the informal NBA talk is prob in jeopardy."

Oh, Joy!

BR0D1E86 · Post #19 » by **BR0D1E86** » Thu Aug 6, 2009 3:30 pm

The primary product that ESPN sells is information. Its no surprise they don't want their reporters giving that information away in a forum that they can't generate revenue from. This is no different than a grocery store having a rule against employees filling their trunks up with food and handing it out for free on street corners.

I'm shocked that a company as well run as espn took this look to bring the hammer down.

Agreed completely, although I’m more shocked that they don’t turn it into a vehicle to generate more traffic for their web site as mentioned above for Doug’s articles.