The social media Olympics are about to begin, and NBC and Twitter are tying the knot to launch an event page that will live at Twitter.com/#Olympics. This is the second major partnership the San Francisco-based media giant has launched to curate tweets around a sporting event. The first was announced in May with NASCAR that led to Twitter’s first TV spot during the event in June.
Similar to NASCAR, Twitter plans to curate a continuous stream on Twitter.com, but on a much larger scale: a dedicated editorial team will work 20 hours a day throughout the 17 days of the Games. Representatives from Twitter will be on-site in London to work side-by-side with NBC Olympics. “This is a way for new users to sample Twitter,” said Chloe Sladden, the company’s media head, in an interview with the WSJ. According to today’s announcement, Twitter’s destination will be:
– Aggregating content on the #Olympics event page from Olympians, @NBCOlympics, @Olympics, @USOlympic and the best of the London Olympic conversation.
– Promoting the event page with on air graphics across the networks of NBCUniversal that are airing Olympic programming, including in primetime on NBC, as well as additional on-air promotion and content integration.
– Reprising the NBC Olympic Twitter Tracker, a visually compelling real time heat map depicting the minute-by-minute movements of the Olympic conversation on Twitter.
“Partnering with NBC Olympics to create Twitter.com/#Olympics allows us to now shine a spotlight on the best moments within the shared experience of the Olympics and to tell the stories that capture the world’s attention,” Sladden said in the release. Sladden was promoted in February to Vice President of Media for Twitter and has been expanding her TV team (which can now be followed @TwitterTV). No word on the economics of the deal with NBC.
With just four days to go until the Games, this partnership is probably the last big social TV initiative that will be a part of how the games are shared. NBC’s two apps have launched along with the network’s partnership with Facebook. If Twitter draws substantial page views to its destination site, this could be a defining moment for the technology company evolving into a full-fledged, ad-supported, media company with an editorial arm.
We’ll be watching to see whether the apps, Facebook partnership, or Twitter partnership gets the most buzz or becomes the biggest success. With the promised on-air promotion for this partnership and the backing of GE as a sponsor, it seems destined for success. The release also points out that in the 2008 games, NBC also had a Twitter tracker that will now be part of this partnership.