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The lifeblood of college football fandom is changing.

The painted faces crammed into the student section of stadiums nationwide have turned away from newspapers and talk radio toward social media to get stats, scores and even messages from coaches and players in real time. As social media infiltrates stadiums and clubhouses, teams are scrambling on and off the field to reach students and young alumni an audience that constitutes 12 percent of game attendance, a figure that will only grow over time.

To understand the growing role of social media in collegiate sports, consider a 2011 study by Galen Clavio (.pdf) at Indiana University. It found 18- to 29-year-old fans are significantly more likely to rely upon social platforms like Facebook and YouTube for sports info than those older than 30. Although Clavio acknowledges the survey may self-select for a group of tech-savvy, high-earning respondents, the findings jibe with those of Pew Internet, which found 86 percent of adults aged 18 to 29 the highest percentage among all age groups use social networking sites on a regular basis.

Athletic departments have felt this shift, and some are struggling to navigate the changing landscape.

Pleasing students is one thing, but running a business (and college sports is a business) is quite another. The boosters who fill athletic department coffers typically are older than students and, according to Clavios study, beyond social medias influential reach. That may lead some athletic departments to figure, Why bother? Attendance stats support this view, as the greatest number of fans at college football games are aged 45 to 54. Theyre followed by the 35 to 44 set. But the number of fans who rely upon social media for much of their news will only grow.

No less a problem are television networks, which are quick to say social media can infringe on exclusivity contracts. Thats led to some effort to rein in social media. In 2009, for example, the Southeastern Conference briefly considered banning social media at all sporting events, an idea that seems absurd, if not impossible to enforce.

If the Iranian government couldnt cut off Twitter in the middle of country-wide riots, the SEC certainly wasnt going to be able to cut off social media at an Alabama-Tennessee game, said Clavio. The SEC got that message and settled on a not-for-profit social media policy where fans could post updates, take pictures or shoot video as long as they made no money doing so.

The relationship between sports and social remains occasionally tenuous, but it is a commanding player on any athletic programs roster so much so that a teams website, once the dominant digital domain for team information, pales in the shadow of its Facebook page.

Among Top 25 NCAA football teams, social media pages are built around a few core principles: fun, short, engaging messages and pictures. Lots of big, beautiful pictures. Take the University of Michigans Facebook page, a destination engineered to prime a daylong fan-gasm in the virtual Big House. The site is built for fans, not boosters or networks, and with nearly 1 million faithful followers, director of digital marketing Jordan Maleh delivers what users want. The page features high-res images that easily stockpile 20,000 Likes or more. Updates featuring game scores or rally calls accumulate thousands of comments ranging from a simple Go Blue to armchair quarterback criticism of the teams performance. Every sport gets its own social site, with 29 in all.

I view Michigan athletics almost like a league. Major League Baseball or the NBA has 20-plus teams; we are now focused on 29 [Wolverine] teams as opposed to just one, Maleh said.

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College Football Fans Go Social for Sports News

Social networking sites are gaining more popularity these days and now in this race Worldfloat.com has also been added. The idea-tor behind this site is Pushkar Mahatta, Director of Mahatta Towers. In a candid chat with Dataquest, Pushkar Mahatta talked about the company's journey towards becoming biggest virtual billboard company.

Brief us about your website.

Worldfloat.com is a pure software retail product which no one in the country has produced and is getting global acceptance. Signups by users worldwide has made worldfloat.com a potential front runner in the social networking arena. With the float technology a user can travel and communicate with anyone in the 1600 cities that have been created by the website virtually. There is freedom of communication as anyone can ping or tap on someone's picture and start chatting whether one is a friend or not. People have the ability to walk around in a virtually created real world on worldfloat.com. This sort of movement and technology was used only in virtual gaming before worldfloat.com pushed the idea in to the social networking arena. It gives a user the freedom to walk with one's friend, travel to different cities and chat also at the same time. Worldfloat.com is the virtual replication of real life in motion. The user base is currently more than 5 lakh people from all over the world.

Every 3-6 months we are planning to introduce a new module on worldfloat.com for eg a user will be able to do a virtual event in any city of the world at zero cost while sitting at home. The no of cities will be increased gradually and steadily to about 30,000 cities on the earth created on worldfloat.com. There is a plan to open an online education university for students all over the world to take forward the concept of educating a child at home.

How it is different from other social networking website ?

Worldfloat is the first of its kind to generate ad revenues through geotagging. The revenue will be generated by provision of billboards provided in every city to the users to advertise their product. Currently all other websites are generating revenue through the profile page model whereas worldfloat.com is planning to create most of its revenue from being the biggest virtual billboard company.

There is no comparable product available in the world today developed by an Indian which is not for just for the Indian market but the whole world. With the float technology a user can travel and communicate with anyone in the 1600 cities that have been created by the website virtually.

How did you get this idea to develop such website?

As a student of philosophy, inter disciplinary application of philosophy, psychology, metaphysics which gave me the ability to innovative thinking. That led me to think in terms of virtually replicating life on the Internet. World float emerged as a combination of several ideas patterned on real life which has been virtually created to go digital where individuals can connect to each other seamlessly across the world, without limitations of present social networking sites.

Read more here:
Emerging trends in social networking

21-09-2012 14:46 A suicidal man who held a businessman hostage inside a downtown Pittsburgh office building for more than five hours Friday, posting Facebook updates during the standoff, surrendered to authorities without incident, police said. (Sept. 12)

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Police: Hostage-Taker Surrenders in Pittsburgh - Video

The days of resumes and door-to-door job hunting are becoming a thing of the past. With a computer and a few clicks of a mouse, job seekers and even employers can now find just what they're looking for thanks to social networking.

Newly married mother Sierra Smith calls herself a social media success story. Last month, she wasn't happy with her old job, so she began looking for a higher paying one.

"Since I have a family to support and I have a little baby, [I have] to pay bills and get stuff done," Smith said.

She wanted to focus her job hunt. To do that, she explored several social sites, which led her to Walmart's hiring page.

"I applied for the job and got the call," Smith said. "If you want to look for a job, don't be scared. Go on the internet. You don't have to go to stores anymore; social networking is the best."

Social networking seems to be reshaping job searches across the country.

A JobVille survey shows that one out of six people used social media to get hired. Three of the most popular search engines are Facebook (18,400,000), LinkedIn (10,200,00), and Twitter (8,000,000).

Public and Employee Specialist Robin Wood said sites like Facebook help get the word out faster to more people, saving both time and money.

"That is all we have to do is sit at our computer, type a message, and it is out there and it is free. As soon as we post the jobs online, we get calls, we get emails. The waiting period is nothing now," Wood said.

But not everyone is a fan of using social media to look for jobs. One unemployed, single mom said she prefers the personal connection.

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How social media is reshaping job searches

CLIFTON - The school district has adopted a new social networking policy to guide teachers and other staff on proper use of online communication, email and text messages.

The same policy has been adopted by a number of districts across North Jersey, as officials try and to prevent online posts and texts that might be deemed inappropriate or offensive. The policy warns staff to use caution when communicating with students or publishing online and to set appropriate boundaries between personal and public online behaviors.

According to the policy, school staff shouldn't:

xMake statements that defame district employees, students or their families, or that violate policies on discrimination or harassment.

xPost materials that are sexually graphic or promote violence.

xUse their school title unless the communication is official.

xUpdate their status on social networking sites during the school day unless it involves a school project.

Clifton school board member Mary Kowal said the new policy was needed because of the prevalence of social media use.

_"Everyone is tightening up their policies and leaving no stone unturned, so to speak," she said. "It's a preventive measure to separate your personal life from your school life."

Teachers have been disciplined and even fired for comments or photos posted online. A Paterson teacher was suspended last year after referring to her first-grade students as "future criminals" on Facebook; another New Jersey teacher was suspended after posting anti-gay remarks.

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Clifton is latest district to rein in social networking by staff