UK commercial terrestrial broadcaster, ITV (note: the name is an acronym for Independent Television Network), announced Friday an "experiment" that will see it integrating two Twitter tools into a special area of its Web site in order to "reflect the online 'noise'" generated by fans in real time during the May 30th FA Cup soccer final between Everton and Chelsea. Twitterfall, a service that cascades comments made on Twitter ("tweets"), will be embedded into the soccer section of itv.com on the day of the game, allowing fans to see tweets about the game as it progresses. In addition, ITV says, a tool developed by London-based thruSITES will allow fans to see which of the game's players is generating the most chatter on Twitter: Chelsea and Everton players' names and faces will appear alongside bars that will move up and down to reflect the buzz each player has generated during the game. According to ITV, the tool will also be available after the game, so that fans can view a timeline, in order to see which players generated buzz at crucial moments. In addition to the two Twitter tools, ITV says it will offer iPhone users the ability to submit audio comments on its site for other fans to hear, via Web-based audio-commenting service, AudioBoo.
The tools will be available on a special FA Cup Buzz page, which soccer fans will be able to access via itv.com/football, starting at 1:00PM on the day of the game. Earlier this year, ITV--which now offers Twitter feeds for all its major shows, as well as a network Twitter feed--experimented with enabling fans of the series, "Primeval," to comment alongside the series' first episode. It says that the experiment helped generate thousands of tweets about the show. A follow-up experiment saw "Primeval" writer, James Moran, live-microblogging on the show's Twitter feed during a broadcast of one of its episodes. "Our experiments with social media show that fans of our shows, especially the big live events, love to share their thoughts with others on the Web in real time," itv.com managing director, Dominic Cameron, said in a prepared statement. "Social media can really transform the way we all enjoy those memorable moments on ITV. This experiment is a great way of reflecting the buzz about the game on our site and, if it's a success, will no doubt pave the way for more efforts to engage football fans in new and interesting ways."
