 INTERNATIONAL | SOCIAL NETWORKS |
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| Twitter Joins Forces with NBC Ahead of London 2012 Olympics |
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The social network will be an "official narrator" for the games, according to the Wall Street Journal, as proof that TV and online platforms are not rivals and can actually promote each other.
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For this year's Olympics, which have appropriately been renamed the "Social Games", millions of fans across the globe will access the events through multiple platforms and social media, being able to stay on top of all the action taking place in London.
This Monday, NBC Universal and Twitter announced a partnership for the upcoming Olympic Games, under which the social network will serve as "official narrator" for the US network. There will be a team of people devoting 20 hours a day to collecting thousands of tweets from athletes, fans and NBC players.
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A few weeks ago, NBC announced a similar deal with Facebook, which will allow its viewers to know which athletes and topics are generating the most buzz on social networks.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter hopes to use the collaboration to generate future business growth.
Twitter has over 140 million users and it's popularity increases significantly during live events. This time, it has already sold ads to Olympic sponsors GE and Proctor & Gamble.
The young platform is still generating doubts about its ability to generate money. According to eMarketer, this year Twitter will take in US$260 million in revenue this year, a number far smaller than Facebook's US$ 3.15 billion earned in 2011.
"This is a way for new users to sample Twitter," Chloe Sladden, Twitter's vice president of media, told the Journal. "Twitter is really where the party is."
And here is the social network's main goal: multiplying users to leverage ad sales. We must now wait until the Olympics begin and end to see if the equation works.
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