Sometime ago, in a land far, far away, a guy named Tom changed the way we interact on-line. He took a very simple idea: Create a space where people can come and develop an identity all there own and gave them the tools to share that identity. Then he gave them the room to grow that identity and gave them access to others who are doing the same for FREE! Wow. Thanks Tom. Thanks for MySpace.
Now it is a global online nation, with a population that would make it a G8 member, if it were an actual country. You would be hard pressed to find a person with the most rudimentary knowledge of the web, without a MySpace page. It has become the ticket for entry into the collective minds of the wired age. The new pick up joint, the new cafe, the new church, the new record label, the new fake ID, the new yearbook, the new marketplace, the new police station, the new me, you and us.
Above all it has become the way that social network patrons get, share, steal (borrow) and form ideas about nearly everything. All of the real news, celebrity gossip, products and services that make social networking so rich with content, have turned it into a new media outlet.
MySpace.com and others are about one thing: identity. A place to be as individual as your mind will let you. This is the formula for the success of most social networks. Give people a place to be unique, ambiguous and different. Then put them all together… I must admit, it’s brilliant!
Because I know the space (I work in it), I can relate to the power of being yourself and getting thousands of others to acknowledge that.
However, there is a new type of Social networking. Sports Social Networking.
Not a revolutionary idea to target a sports fan base. They are loyal, vocal and opinionated. The difference in this niche is whose identity it is. Sports fans aren't interested in pushing themselves, their music, their photos and their obnoxious MySpace backgrounds. With sports we do not need individualism. We are fans of specific teams and players and we want you to know who we love and how much we love them. That is why we usually don't put OUR name on the back of our football jersey, but we proudly wear the jersey of our favorite player. As sport enthusiasts, we want a community of people dedicated to the same sport, team and player. We get our unique identity from identifying with others. Strange as it may seem, the power of sports is the ability to bring people together on common ground.
So sports social networking is fundamentally different. So is ScreamingSports. More on us later....
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