The Finger Wag – Athletes using Twitter and Social Media to their Disadvantage

ESPN held their “upfront” thismorning, according to wikipedia:

In the North American television industry, an upfront is a meeting hosted at the start of important advertising sales periods by television network executives, attended by the press and major advertisers. It is so named because of its main purpose, to allow marketers to buy commercial airtime “up front”, or several months before the television season begins.

Why does any of this matter to us? ESPN is prepared to overtake the internet. Done are the days where they just want to ruin 4 channels on TV and a host of websites with different local “flavors”. No today marked a huge announcement. ESPN plans to help bring Facebook down in flames. You may have heard of Facebook, it’s a social networking tool that used to be just for college kids. Now it has expanded to include anyone who has ever touched a computer. Facebook has recently decided
that privacy is useless in this new world so now everyone who knows you now knows you listen to Collective Soul on Pandora.

Why am I so critical of Facebook? I can’t stand half of my news feed. It is filled with too much crap. I do not care about your mafia and I really hate seeing what kind of pig you are raising on your farm.

ESPN is about to make my Facebook experience even more annoying, we are talking ESPN2 First Take level of annoyance. ESPN will be partnering with Playdom to create a Facebook game based off Farmville. It will actually be called ESPNUVille. Let that soak in a bit.

I personally can’t wait to see Facebook friends bitching that their
UVille isn’t producing enough Sasha Vujacics…

Upfronts: ESPN Gets Into the Game