If there’s one advantage among many that Twitter has over Facebook it’s the real-time events and how people can express what they see and how they feel fast and in a timeline. Facebook has always struggled with this, though today they seem to be fighting back with the launch of Facebook Sports Stadium.
At a glance, this is a walled garden, a place where specific content lives and can be followed without the interruption of all the other things in your Facebook news feed.
Very, Very similar to what Twitter has done with major events like the Soccer World Cup – follow the “hash tag” and you get a timeline with the score in it, some curated content, and of course all the conversation from around the world.
Facebook Sports StadiumToday we’re launching the Facebook Sports Stadium, a dedicated place to experience sports in real-time with your friends and the world. Check out our product announcement here: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/01/facebook-sports-stadium With 650 million sports fans, Facebook is the world’s largest stadium. People already turn to Facebook to celebrate, commiserate, and talk trash with their friends and other fans.Now we’ve built a place devoted to sports so you can get the feeling you’re watching the game with your friends even when you aren’t together.
Posted by Sports on Facebook on Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Launching in the US initially, in time for the NFL Superbowl you can see how easily this could be applied to the NRL and other sports like AFL so it really is taking aim at Twitter who are doing huge things with Sport – they have dedicated sports staff working with sporting organisations and the media.
While Twitter can and will argue they already own this space, it’s easy to see them lose ground just because of the sheer size of Facebook and its user base.
But, in Twitter’s favour, Facebook users don’t like change, they don’t do “different” things, so getting people to engage will be a challenge.
We wait and see.
