Facebook's Sports Play

For a long time, college athletic programs put their majority focus into Twitter.  As a 2004 adopter, myself among them.  Over time and new responsibilities, I've gotten a stronger sense of the need to be in both spaces -- Facebook and Twitter -- but with the right content and the right timing (in other words, yet another time to say delink your damn accounts).

Facebook's aging demo plays well toward alumni, parents and influencers -- especially outside the urban markets -- but it has not been a big factor in sports.

Until this week.  Yes, Facebook lost out on SnapChat in a bid to get younger, but it just vacuumed up SportsStream.

The product creates a second screen using the streams from Twitter, official team data (live stats) and visuals from InstaGram and others.  Sort of automating the kind of live blogging many do with tools like CoverItLive.

Paul Allen believed in the concept, and now the Zuck is on board.