Chapter Seven
Winners and Losers in a 140-Character World
Today there are websites that reduce or make URLs tiny (e.g., bitly, bre.ad) so that people can fit them within their social media postings, which often have character limits. These tools take a URL string of roughly 100 characters and condense it down to 15. This is necessary in today's sound bite world and is a reflection of a societal shift from the languid days of sipping lemonade on the front porch to multitasking in a WiFi-enabled Starbucks. In a world where everything is condensed and hyperaccelerated, who wins and who loses? In this chapter, we explore several case studies that shed light on what it takes to succeed in the world of Socialnomics.
Does ESPN Have ESP?
Some savvy entrepreneurs at ESPN were ahead of the curve in recognizing the different fundamentals of Socialnomics. Their success was the result of innovation and necessity. Fantasy Football's popularity has grown rapidly since its beginnings in the 1980s. As a result, ESPN started to dedicate more of its television programming to discussing pertinent events related to Fantasy Football; but this increased coverage still wasn't enough. Fantasy Football experts Matthew Berry and Nate Ravitz knew that the public hungered for more fantasy data and approached the ABC/ESPN brass. Their plea for more Fantasy Football airtime proved successful.
Although they were not granted airtime or support, they were given the green light to produce their own podcast, Fantasy ...
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