The World Cup officially kicked off yesterday! While I am not a fan of soccer or sports in general I am interested to see the effects of social media on such a major social event. Twitter has been planning ahead to avoid another crash like what happened with the 2014 Oscars. They are also allowing users to choose your sides for the event by picking a team to unlock custom profile images, header photos, real-time scores and highlights (see Twitter & WorldCup). I wonder what the most popular tweet will be? Based on what happened on Twitter during Sochi it will probably be during an epic game in the final rounds (Does soccer have a final round? I have no idea 🙂
I heard from Google yesterday that they have already been looking into search data and found some interesting trends and insights about this global event. http://goo.gl/EuFhp0
Google shared that this year’s World Cup will be a huge global moment. “The World Cup is the largest, most connected global sporting event. Worldwide, it has more interest on Google Search than the big game, the Olympics, and the Tour de France combined. If you’re looking to reach an audience of sports fans—from the crazed to the casual—the opportunity doesn’t get any bigger. ”
Check out Think Google’s article for more information on the data that they are seeing and I know we are all looking forward to seeing how such a global event will be impacted by social media and perhaps change the future of social media.
But what does this mean for eLearning? Check out two key posts:
- Our learners are social: Television has talked to us for decades, but it never listened!If you ask someone about a class they took and what they liked. Ask them why? They will 99% of the time mention an activity, game, etc. that they played within the class, connected with other students, etc.
- Is It Possible That Online Students Want To Talk To Each Other?While an instructional event isn’t quite the same as the Oscars, but maybe it is? Students getting together online to learn? Why shouldn’t it be a social event? What can an instructor do so that they can get Retweets 1,019,570 & Favorites 289,727 in 15 minutes?
