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The "good old days" ??
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/29/s...witter-followers-during-daytona-500.html?_r=1
Stopped on the Track, Racing Ahead on Twitter
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: February 28, 2012
It was, certainly, an unusual place to tweet from: Car No. 2 at the Daytona 500, the race suspended, part of the track ablaze with burning jet fuel.
Enlarge This Image
Brad Keselowski's photograph of a Daytona 500 crash was retweeted on Twitter more than 5,000 times.
Related
O.K., Keselowski’s Dodge was not moving. The race had been halted. Still, talk about the potential perils of tweeting or texting while behind the wheel.
What happened Monday — when Nascar’s biggest race became one of its most dangerous — was just the latest episode in social media’s evolution.
Keselowski, whose number of followers on Twitter would triple to more than 200,000 by the time the ill-fated race ended, answered questions from his car — as if he were following Nascar forebears like Junior Johnson and Dale Earnhardt into the digital domain.
He responded to one person who beseeched him to end his recklessness.
“Please! Don’t tweet and drive,” he was advised.
“No worries,” he said. “We stopped.”
“Are you sitting in the car right now tweeting?” he was asked.
“Yup,” Keselowski tweeted. “At least I’m not in the Port-a-Jon.”
Another fan asked where he was going to put his phone when the race was begun again.
“My pocket,” he said.
Keselowski’s iPhone was still in his pocket when he crashed on Lap 187. Then the phone was back out, and Keselowski posted from the ruins of his car.
“Nothing we could do there,” he wrote. “Never saw the wreck till we were windshield deep.”
Nascar has a policy against using electronic devices while in a moving car. Technically, Keselowski did not violate any rules, especially regarding the safety of its drivers. Nascar decided not to fine him.
Even if he had violated Nascar’s policy, the organization might have found it difficult to come down hard on him. After all, in one night’s burst of Twitter posts, Keselowski became the symbol of Nascar’s newly aggressive push into social media as a way to attract and interact with young fans.
“He distinguished himself in being the poster child for an engaging athlete — the type of athlete that the fans really connect to in a multitude of ways,” said David Higdon, a Nascar spokesman.
By tweeting during the lengthy stoppage in the race, Keselowski found a neat loophole that let him send messages from his car or as he walked around the track and talked with other drivers.
Sports leagues have rules prohibiting players from sending messages into the social media maw during games. Major League Baseball enforces a no-tweet zone from 30 minutes before the game until it is over.
The N.F.L. is tougher, preventing messaging from 90 minutes before kickoff until players have finished their postgame interviews. Among those who have been fined for in-game tweeting are Michael Oher, the Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman, and Chad Ochocinco, the New England Patriots wide receiver.
“One of the things we preach to leagues is you need to share insider perspectives and angles that fans don’t see on TV,” said Omid Ashtari, the head of sports and entertainment on the Twitter media team.
When Rory McIlroy won the United States Open last year, he tweeted a photograph of the trophy from his point of view, quickly increasing his number of followers by 20 percent, well above 300,000, Ashtari said. “He found a different perspective, saying, ‘Look, I’m looking at the U.S. Open trophy,’ ” he said.
Keselowski, 28, is an eager and savvy user of social media. He staged a contest that culminated in having 5,000 of his fans’ Twitter handles affixed to the bed of his truck for the Nascar Camping World Truck series race last Friday. Ten were more prominently displayed on the sides of the truck.
That got him 6,000 additional followers.
“He’s a digital native,” Higdon said. “This is an extension of his personality.”
But Monday’s avalanche made Friday’s gain look like a minor uptick.
He began the race with about 65,000 followers. The photo of the crash brought him 55,000 more, according to a tweet from ESPN.
“How did you get this pic?” someone asked him on Twitter.
“I took it,” he responded.
As the number of new followers grew, he was asked how much higher it could go.
“You’re up to 133,519 followers and counting,” he was told. “Can you get to 150,000 tonight?”
“Sure, let’s do it,” Keselowski responded.
When told he had passed 200,000, he said, “Thank you followers.” That gave him more than Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (who has more than 91,000 but has never sent a tweet). Matt Kenseth, who won the Daytona 500, has only about 74,000.
Along the way, Keselowski updated followers on the battery life left on his iPhone; wrote that “my friendly Nascar officials say we are close” to restarting the race and posted a photo of one of them; said “Probly,” when asked if his were the first in-car tweets in Daytona 500 history; and said after his crash on Lap 188 that Jamie McMurray told him that “something broke on his car #1.”
David Schwab, a vice president of Octagon, a sports marketing agency, watched Keselowski’s Twitter performance and wrote his own message: “Maybe the best ‘in event’ twitter feed I have ever watched.”
In an interview, he said, “Mainstream America is talking about Brad Keselowski.” He added: “By others not tweeting during the race, it gave Brad an unbelievable opportunity to take a space where he’s not a top-10 driver. But he might develop a fan base that’s a top-10 fan base.”
On Tuesday, Keselowski took to Twitter again and was asked, “Are you going to keep your phone in ur pocket the rest of the season?”
Keselowski replied, “If #nascar lets me.”
Late Tuesday, Nascar announced that he could.
Stopped on the Track, Racing Ahead on Twitter
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: February 28, 2012
It was, certainly, an unusual place to tweet from: Car No. 2 at the Daytona 500, the race suspended, part of the track ablaze with burning jet fuel.
Enlarge This Image
Brad Keselowski's photograph of a Daytona 500 crash was retweeted on Twitter more than 5,000 times.
Related
- Surviving Rain and Fire, Nascar Faces Its Critics(February 29, 2012)
- After Two Days of Delays, Kenseth Wins His Second Daytona 500(February 28, 2012)
O.K., Keselowski’s Dodge was not moving. The race had been halted. Still, talk about the potential perils of tweeting or texting while behind the wheel.
What happened Monday — when Nascar’s biggest race became one of its most dangerous — was just the latest episode in social media’s evolution.
Keselowski, whose number of followers on Twitter would triple to more than 200,000 by the time the ill-fated race ended, answered questions from his car — as if he were following Nascar forebears like Junior Johnson and Dale Earnhardt into the digital domain.
He responded to one person who beseeched him to end his recklessness.
“Please! Don’t tweet and drive,” he was advised.
“No worries,” he said. “We stopped.”
“Are you sitting in the car right now tweeting?” he was asked.
“Yup,” Keselowski tweeted. “At least I’m not in the Port-a-Jon.”
Another fan asked where he was going to put his phone when the race was begun again.
“My pocket,” he said.
Keselowski’s iPhone was still in his pocket when he crashed on Lap 187. Then the phone was back out, and Keselowski posted from the ruins of his car.
“Nothing we could do there,” he wrote. “Never saw the wreck till we were windshield deep.”
Nascar has a policy against using electronic devices while in a moving car. Technically, Keselowski did not violate any rules, especially regarding the safety of its drivers. Nascar decided not to fine him.
Even if he had violated Nascar’s policy, the organization might have found it difficult to come down hard on him. After all, in one night’s burst of Twitter posts, Keselowski became the symbol of Nascar’s newly aggressive push into social media as a way to attract and interact with young fans.
“He distinguished himself in being the poster child for an engaging athlete — the type of athlete that the fans really connect to in a multitude of ways,” said David Higdon, a Nascar spokesman.
By tweeting during the lengthy stoppage in the race, Keselowski found a neat loophole that let him send messages from his car or as he walked around the track and talked with other drivers.
Sports leagues have rules prohibiting players from sending messages into the social media maw during games. Major League Baseball enforces a no-tweet zone from 30 minutes before the game until it is over.
The N.F.L. is tougher, preventing messaging from 90 minutes before kickoff until players have finished their postgame interviews. Among those who have been fined for in-game tweeting are Michael Oher, the Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman, and Chad Ochocinco, the New England Patriots wide receiver.
“One of the things we preach to leagues is you need to share insider perspectives and angles that fans don’t see on TV,” said Omid Ashtari, the head of sports and entertainment on the Twitter media team.
When Rory McIlroy won the United States Open last year, he tweeted a photograph of the trophy from his point of view, quickly increasing his number of followers by 20 percent, well above 300,000, Ashtari said. “He found a different perspective, saying, ‘Look, I’m looking at the U.S. Open trophy,’ ” he said.
Keselowski, 28, is an eager and savvy user of social media. He staged a contest that culminated in having 5,000 of his fans’ Twitter handles affixed to the bed of his truck for the Nascar Camping World Truck series race last Friday. Ten were more prominently displayed on the sides of the truck.
That got him 6,000 additional followers.
“He’s a digital native,” Higdon said. “This is an extension of his personality.”
But Monday’s avalanche made Friday’s gain look like a minor uptick.
He began the race with about 65,000 followers. The photo of the crash brought him 55,000 more, according to a tweet from ESPN.
“How did you get this pic?” someone asked him on Twitter.
“I took it,” he responded.
As the number of new followers grew, he was asked how much higher it could go.
“You’re up to 133,519 followers and counting,” he was told. “Can you get to 150,000 tonight?”
“Sure, let’s do it,” Keselowski responded.
When told he had passed 200,000, he said, “Thank you followers.” That gave him more than Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (who has more than 91,000 but has never sent a tweet). Matt Kenseth, who won the Daytona 500, has only about 74,000.
Along the way, Keselowski updated followers on the battery life left on his iPhone; wrote that “my friendly Nascar officials say we are close” to restarting the race and posted a photo of one of them; said “Probly,” when asked if his were the first in-car tweets in Daytona 500 history; and said after his crash on Lap 188 that Jamie McMurray told him that “something broke on his car #1.”
David Schwab, a vice president of Octagon, a sports marketing agency, watched Keselowski’s Twitter performance and wrote his own message: “Maybe the best ‘in event’ twitter feed I have ever watched.”
In an interview, he said, “Mainstream America is talking about Brad Keselowski.” He added: “By others not tweeting during the race, it gave Brad an unbelievable opportunity to take a space where he’s not a top-10 driver. But he might develop a fan base that’s a top-10 fan base.”
On Tuesday, Keselowski took to Twitter again and was asked, “Are you going to keep your phone in ur pocket the rest of the season?”
Keselowski replied, “If #nascar lets me.”
Late Tuesday, Nascar announced that he could.
