It was welcome back to HarfTime with the first show of 2013 discussing the big announcement by Facebook earlier for Graph Search and CBS Sports showing what Facebook fans think of the NFL playoffs.
Until Next Week
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Podcast transcription
Harf: Alright, first time in 2013 we’re going to be getting techy and digital with our sport digital media guru from SportsGeekHQ.com, Sean Callanan is back, good day Seany!
Sean: Good day Harf, how are you doing?
Harf: Going well mate how was your summer?
Sean: It was good, good, did a bit of work with The Thunder which was a little bit tough.
Harf: Did they win a game? [Laughs]
Sean: No they haven’t won a game since December 2011, so it’s not good.
Harf: But, their Twitter traffic is terrific.
Sean: They’ve done very well with Twitter and Facebook and things like that.
Harf: Thanks to you Sports Geek HQ, that’s what you do.
Sean: Exactly.
Harf: Now, hit me up with what’s on the topic for us today?
Sean: Well, Facebook had an announcement today at ten o’clock, they said ‘Come visit us we have something to show you’. So there’s a lot of rumour, ‘Is it a Facebook phone?’ So there’s a lot of people just throwing out red herrings. In the end what they’ve launched is called Graph Search.
Harf: Doesn’t sound very exciting.
Sean: It doesn’t sound very exciting! But the thing is with Facebook you can’t Google Facebook, you can’t search inside Facebook to find stuff so they’ve always kept that data.
Harf: Like a search engine.
Sean: Yeah, they’ve kept that data their own and they’ve blocked, they’ve said no Google you’re cool, you’re not having access to our data where normally everyone else gives Google access to their data. And so now they’ve opened up this thing called Graph Search and so when they talk about the graph they talk about, again not the best name but it’s what you do on Facebook. So the way that it’s explained, you’ll be able to search Facebook for information. So say you’ve got tickets to the tennis tonight and you want to go which of my mates would like to go to the tennis, you can go into, when it is launched, you can go into Facebook and say ‘Who of my mates would like tennis?’ and it will list all your mates that have said they’ve liked tennis or gone to tennis and you go ‘Oh yeah Jono, yeah I forgot he’s a big tennis nut, I’ll contact him’. Or you might be in another town and go ‘Which one of my mates has been to a good sushi restaurant?’ or something like that. And from your activity whether it’s liking, reading articles that kind of thing, Facebook will be able to serve that information, that data. It all sounds from the techy part and the geek part of me, that’s cool, I’m not sure how many people are going to go in and go ‘Please, Facebook tell me which café I should go to.' That’s going to be whether the average user and the average user is a billion people on Facebook, are they going to use it, are they going to be as complex as that or is it going to be something the techy guys say ‘Oh that’s cool’ and the marketers go ‘Oh that’s cool, we can now find out all the people that like SEN.’
Harf: That was what I was going to say, who benefits most?
Sean: The thing is, from a page and more of a sports brand and coffee shop, like friends of mine and stuff across the road, if they’re making their page all active, then when someone searches ‘Where’s a good place for coffee in Richmond?’, if they’ve done the right thing and made you liked their page and you engage with their page then their coffee shop will come up. So, I don’t think it’s going to be a big game changer for sports and for the average user, who knows. But it does almost spawn a new industry of ‘How do I optimise all my social properties in Facebook to make sure people can get found?’
Harf: All we need to do is get a new name for it, it’s not very sexy. Graph Search is not working for me [Laughs]
Sean: No, it’s not working for me either but the other thing is that it does mean from a privacy point of view all that stuff that you thought was harder to find is now a lot easier. So, you don’t want someone going ‘Where’s a good place to go in King’s Cross?’, ‘Well Daniel Harford likes this place and this place…’
Harf: As a restaurant, it was one night!
Sean: Exactly, so it might mean from a privacy point of view, reviewing what you’re doing but
it will be easier to find people and find what they’re up toHarf: Speaking of Facebook, CBS Sports have been showing what NFL Facebook fans have been liking after playoff season.
Sean: Well not so much liking, just what they’re talking about. So mentions and things like that. So they’ve been looking at the data around the NFL weekend and looking at the last week, 2.3 million mentions of the 49ers, 2.2 of The Patriots. Do we just go on the popular opinion and crowd source and say there’s our super bowl potentially, who’s going to win? Can you do it via crowd sourcing? You know you and I have spoken about it before, I’m not a massive one to go write on Facebook while I’m watching a sports event…
Harf: No, it’s a Twitter thing
Sean: I agree, Twitter and you will see, Twitter will come out with something similar to say ‘Here’s the mentions’, they were doing it the other day on the Golden Globes or if everyone is watching it, they’re all talking about it and you can see a certain actress is trending because her dress and the cleavage or whatever and that’s why. But it is more conversational. It’s still interesting to see because you can effectively see from the CBS Sports and they’re doing it to lead up to the Super Bowl but you could see the state by state breakdown of what people thought. So are they a 49ers fan or whatever. Again, all that data is available, and that’s sort of what the social graph will start opening up.
Harf: No mention of the Broncos there, in the top four?
Sean: Well I only did the top four of the teams that are still in it.
Harf: Okay, you had to bring that up did you? Double over time loss and you’re bringing that up.
Sean: My team’s not in there either.
Harf: Who are you?
Sean: I’m a Green Bay Packers man and I was very disappointed with their performance.
Harf: Yeah you would be disappointed, that’s right you are a Packers man. At least you didn’t lose double over time at home, the only team to lose.
Sean: Yeah that was tough…
Harf: Yeah, thanks for bringing it up [Laughs]
Sean: And I did see all the Tee Bo memes popping up on the internet saying ‘Do you miss me now, Broncos?’ sort of thing.
Harf: Well he got in there in great shape, mate great to see you in great shape; I’ll see you again next week.
Sean: Yeah, no worries mate.
Harf: Sports digital media guru Sean Callanan from SportsGeekHQ.com