As the Academy Awards, televised in more than 100 countries, are quickly approaching the social media buzz prior to its airing has generated numerous trending topics, the creation of live blogs, and thousands of online predictions. Twitter users have been predicting Oscar winners for the past few days and Twitter estimated approximately 476,000 tweets were gathered to make various predictions so far this year. In previous years there has always been excitement and enthusiasm prior to the Oscars, however; the hype has never been quantifiable. Through the use of social media today Twitter and Mashable launched mRank, a newly created system to measure the Oscar buzz across Twitter and Facebook. A chart was created listing the movie titles and the amount of tweets each one received. Right now The Artist is leading for best-predicted picture with over 13,000 tweets. The only movie that comes close to the first predicted movie is Hugo directed by Martin Scorsese with 4,900.
The Academy Awards are not only using Twitter and Facebook to promote the award show, but Mashable created a live blog specifically for people that may not be able to watch the show live on television. Similarly to Super Bowl XLVI, the Oscars will not be streaming live, however; fans will have the opportunity to receive the fastest updates through Twitter and Mashable’s live blog. Not only did the Academy Awards and Mashable join together to launch a blog with updates by the minute, ABC is offering an official Oscars Back Stage iOS application for the iphone and ipad. The new application offers behind the scene footage from the Oscars including access to the control room, views from multiple different camera angles, and select interviews with the Oscar winners. In comparison to last year where the Oscars offered an all access online pass for $4.99, the iOS application will be free for all iphone and ipad users. It is apparent that the Oscars are using social media in 2012 to their greatest advantage. The Oscars preshow is asking Twitter followers to hashtag #bestdressed and #oscars during the preshow and #oscars along with the award presented during the show.
Kayla, I wound up writing about the Oscars as well but instead I looked at it after the event happened. I didn't realize that there was so much buzz beforehand, just with predictions. I think the numbers that you cited in your blogpost really exemplify the power of social media to drive conversations and connect countless numbers of people. It's interesting to see such large numbers and you have to assume it makes it more enjoyable for people to watch these big events when they know they are sharing their opinions with others who are interested in watching as well.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is so interesting to see how many large events have had great success with Twitter. I love how the hashtag can stir up so much conversation and create buzz about the events. The Oscars Back Stage app seemed like an interesting concept and I wonder how well it was received. I was watching the event and was on Twitter a few times during it and saw so many #bestdressed tweets also so I think that it probably worked out rather well!
ReplyDeleteI really find it interesting that The Oscars chose not to live stream, and in place live-tweeted, their awards show. Although I agree that Twitter is a quick and easy way to follow something as much or as little as you choose, for some people, a good old stream of the show itself is far more feasible than constantly checking your twitter stream. Also, for students studying abroad, being able to live stream the Oscars or the Superbowl was a great way to keep up with what was going on at home; that taste of home just isn't the same when reduced to 140 characters!
ReplyDeleteI think it's really interesting to view the data from before the actual event. I think it's cool that they took the data from before the event to predict who the winners would be.
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