This past Sunday may have wrapped up the biggest tournament of the golfing year, but it marked the beginning of an exciting decade of golf to follow. The weekend began with the world number 1 ranked player Rory Mcilroy as the favorite, closely followed by the rolling young star Jordan Spieth. Rory was a favorite and after Nike released an emotional video of Rory growing up idealizing Tiger and ending up getting to play with him, it was hard not to be rooting for him. This masters had many other story lines as well. This weekend marked the return of Tiger Woods and how he would play is also under heavy judgement. 

As the weekend progressed the drama followed. Jordan Spieth came out playing well and never looked back. He had a round that would never be forgotten at the Masters. He set scoring records every day and finished with a tie for lowest round ever in the Masters tournament. Spieth's rise to the top of the golfing world has taken everyone by storm and he is now the number 2 golfer in the world. This round will never be forgotten and could be the most memorable round of golf in history. 

While all of this drama generated a ton of engagement in the social media world, it was one moment in the Masters that I thought would be the most memorable. Ben Crenshaw is one of the greatest golfers in history. He is a two time masters champion and this weekend was his last round ever at Augusta. He is from Texas (like I am) and is my dads favorite golfer as well as the last Texan to win at Augusta. As he finished up his round on Friday (he didn't make the cut) there was an emotional scene on 18. It was great to see all of the respect from players and fans. Golf is truly a gentlemen's game and it was seen on Friday. While he was the last texan to win, it just so happens that Jordan Spieth is from Texas as well. It is hard for me not to root for Jordan, especially since he went to my dad's school, and my second favorite school, the University of Texas. It was a fitting end for this weekend to have Ben Crenshaw's last round, and Jordan Spieth's first major win to be the same weekend. It was a great ending to a great week of golf and I am not looking forward to the rise of America's next great superstar Jordan Spieth. 

March Madness Coming to an End

It is finally here. The madness has calmed down and later tonight we will find out who is the best team in college basketball this season. There have been plenty of surprises like always. I do not want to say on this blog what percentile my bracket is in because it is not great. That is coming from someone who watches a lot of basketball and thinks I know a good deal about it. That is what I love about this tournament. It is always filled with surprises. It is down to the final two teams now, and either Wisconsin or Duke will be cutting down the nets later tonight. A tournament with this much viewership creates a lot of social engagement. That is a great opportunity for companies to engage with consumers. None do it better than Coke Zero, who is the official sponsor of the tournament.

After Saturday night's upset of Wisconsin over Kentucky the social media world blew up. Most of it was filled with Kentucky haters praising Wisconsin for the win. Other people were Kentucky fans who were upset about the shocking loss. The thing that made me engage was a comment by one of the leaders of the Kentucky team in the post game interview. They asked Andrew Harrison, one of the best players on Kentucky's previously undefeated team, what he thought about Frank Kaminsky (the best player for Wisconsin, and possibly in the nation this year). Harrison responded with a few expletives and nothing nice to say. That is one of the dangers of social media. He can get in a lot of trouble for that. The fans will not let him forget those comments, even if they were said in the heat of the moment. Many people were posting about Harrison's comments and were outraged. In today's sports world, a comment like that can drastically affect a players draft stock and end up costing the players millions of dollars in the draft. If will be interesting to see how the reaction from his comments will affect Harrison's future, and it will be something to watch.

That being said, I am excited for this game tonight. It is a matchup between two well rounded teams. They are both coached by elite coaches, and the players are all very smart and talented. While Duke has won their games more convincingly as of late, Wisconsin has played much tougher teams so far in the tournament and won. It is going to be a great game to watch tonight, and look for plenty of social engagement during and after the game.

Spotify and Uber Partnership

While this is not a recent thing, it is something that I just found out about. I was recently in a cab in Savannah where the driver was expressing her concern to me about Uber coming to town. I have used Uber a few times and it has always been a good experience. It is usually cheaper than a cab, and much more comfortable. With this partnership, I think that Uber is once again taking a big leap in front of the average taxicab business.

Not only is the transportation industry changing, but the way people listen to music is changing as well. Itunes used to dominate the market, but now Spotify is a major player in the market. People select their songs and put them in playlists. They pay a monthly fee if they want add free streaming, and if not they hear an advertisement every couple of songs. That is much easier than paying for every song like the case is for Itunes. That is why Spotify has been so popular.

One of the things that I enjoy most about my car rides is the ability to control the type of music I listen to. In a cab or taxi that is not an option. This partnership adds the luxury of a more comfortable car, along with the ability to select your own music. That combination could spell trouble for the taxicabs. In this new partnerships launch they opened in 10 cities across the globe. By today's date I am sure that they have put this as a possibility in many more cities. I think that it is the innovation and creative thinking that is keeping both Uber and Spotify at the front of their respective industries. I will be monitoring this deal and am interested to see how it progresses and if this partnership will lead to a significant increase in each companies revenue streams.

March Madness is here

It is finally time for March madness. After the NFL ends, and before baseball begins there is a lull in the sports world. There seems to be nothing interesting on at all. Especially in Atlanta where there is no longer a hockey franchise. We had the Hawks and their streak kept things interesting for us at least. As a nation as a whole however it is a tough few months. Then March comes along. The NBA nears the playoffs and the intensity picks up. Spring training starts for baseball as teams begin to scrimmage. Also the NHL season is nearing an end and the playoffs are almost upon us. While all of those things are notable to call march "March Madness", the one true meaning for "March Madness" is the NCAA basketball tournament.

I get excited for this every year. In most sports the playoffs are fairly predicatable. There are always great games and a few surprises, but none of them compare to the intense 64 team playoff that is the NCAA mens basketball final tournament. That is what March Madness is truly about. With the greatness of this tournament there are always ups and downs. There are cinderella teams that shock the world. There are players that become legends. There are teams that become historic. That is what this years Kentucky team could be. If they win the tournament (which they are favored to do) then they will be 40-0 this year. That is a feat that has never been accomplished and will be fascinating to watch.

While the basketball is interesting, so is how the world of social media transforms during this time. The people of this nation frantically fill out their brackets in order to try and pick the winner. Whether it is to try and win a company pool, or just for yourself, or a bet with some friends, millions of people fill out a bracket each year. Last year Warren Buffet offered 1 billion dollars to anyone who filled out a perfect bracket. Like always, that didn't happen. You cannot go on any social media outlet without seeing information about "bracketology" and links to fill out your bracket. Like always this year, March will surely be mad.

LiketoKnowIt app

The other day I was informed that my roommates older brother was the creator of the app Liketoknowit. I had never heard of the app before because it is in the fashion industry. That is not my area of expertise in any way. The more I read about the app the more genius I thought it was. I also found out that it was recently mentioned in a post by the Wall Street Journal. I think that is a mark of a successful business. This app is based off of the social media app Instagram. When I brought up this app in class, multiple girls immediately started talking about how great the app is.

Liketoknowit is an app where you can look at the products that girls are wearing on instagram pictures. If you like a picture and use the #liketoknowit or send like it, the app will then send you an email about the products in the pictures. It is all about convenience. It is an easy way for girls to shop for products on social media. If you see a picture of something you like, while using this app, you can find out the necessary information to purchase those clothing items online within minutes. Once you like or comment on the specific Instagram post, you get an email instantly from Liketoknowit.

I think this is a genius app. It makes shopping easy for girls. There are a ton of products and it makes finding those products easy. I can see this app taking off. I think it could be big in this fashion industry. I have heard that the majority of the apps consumers consists of fashion bloggers and females. I was interested in the app when I heard about it, and while I don't think that I will use it, I see how it will be very successful.

Celebrity All Star Game

This weekend was the weekend of the NBA all-stars. While in most sports that includes just a game of the leagues best competing in what is usually a joke, the NBA all star weekend is just that, a weekend. I am very bias and believe that the MLB is the only major professional sport that does the all star game the right way. They have all of the best players and the game actually has some sort of meaning. That is the only game where the end of the game has an influence and the athletes put forth their most sincere effort. While the NBA all star game may not live up to the high level of play that baseball has, it wins as a weekend in whole. The saturday of the weekend was talked about for weeks. It was not the day of the game, but it was the skills challenges day. While the dunk contest has lost a lot of its intrigue because of the lack of star participation, the 3 point contest was arguably the best ever. The lineup was incredible and filled with the most even playing field the event has ever seen. While this all was great the event that I am talking about today is the event that occurred on friday night. That was the celebrity all star game.

I am not talking about this event because of how fascinating it was. It was not the best thing on TV this weekend. It was probably not even the best thing on in that time slot. What it was, was pure entertainment. The game is filled with stars from all corners of the entertainment spectrum. It had musicians, athletes, actors, owners, and politicians. You get to see people bond over something that they all love, basketball. Kevin Hart is an always entertaining presence at this event. He loves basketball, and surprisingly while he is very small in stature, he is not a bad player. His matchup with the newly famous little league star Mone Davis was the one that was talked about the most. While she had the play of the night he out-shined her and the rest of the field and won his 4th MVP of this game. This goes back to a main topic of social media today and that is engagement. The MVP is based on audience voting. That is how this event could see how many people were watching and engaged in this game. I watched the entire game and I don't think based on play that Kevin Hart should have won again, but he is very popular and got the people to vote. He is a pure entertainer and he definitely engaged the audience in the game. This is a great weekend that overall does a great job engaging its audience with the events.

Stephen Curry tweet at Tiger

Athletes these days have been changed by social media. At first it never seemed like a big deal, but now athletes in every sport use social media outlets (especially twitter) as a way to create content and get their opinions out in the public view. They have millions of followers (especially the star athletes) and everything that they post is heavily scrutinized. Tons of athletes and owners have been getting in trouble because things that they have posted on twitter. Some of it is justified but other times it is just the media trying to make something out of nothing. A week ago one of the top high school recruits de-committed from a school via twitter. Social media is an outlet that college coaches and recruiters have to look at now these days before offering a kid a scholarship. Who would have thought that ones twitter account could be the reason you are not offered a scholarship?! Sadly that is the case.

This past week one of the rising stars of the NBA Stephen Curry trolled the PGA superstar Tiger Woods on twitter. This past weekend Tiger Woods once again withdrew from a PGA tournament. He has failed to finish 3 of his last 8 tournaments. One might think that Tiger never will be back because he is now too old and injury prone. This past weeks injury was an unusual one. He said that "he could not activate his glutes" and that was leading to some back pain. He said that he tried to activate them but couldn't and he had to withdraw. Maybe that was an excuse for is poor performance and he just didn't want to finish.Who knows. This monday before the Golden State Warriors game (the team Stephen Curry plays for) he went to twitter and tweeted #glutesactivated. The social media world exploded and called that shots fired at Tiger. People had all sorts of reactions to this tweet by Curry. I personally think it was just a joke. I think this is one of the cases of the media making something out of nothing, but who knows. This is just one of the many cases that show how twitter has changed the sports world. 

Snapchat News Update

Snapchat has been the source of some great controversy over its relatively short lifespan. The CEO was under some huge scrutiny when he turned down multiple 3+ billion dollar buyout offers. Personally I thought that he should have sold it and tried to keep a little bit of equity so he could still have a say in his business. At the time of those offers Snapchat also had made 0 dollars in profits because they had not sold any advertisements. What Snapchat recently did in its latest update me and I could finally see how they could reach there really high profit goals that their IPO suggested. A few months ago Snapchat created a thing called snapcash where you can pay your friends through the snapchat app. I did not think that was going to be successful, but their newest update was (in my opinion) brilliant.

Snapchat is now a news source. It is not only for sending outrageous pictures to your friends. Credible news sources like ESPN and CNN are now working with Snapchat to publish 5-10 interesting news related articles/pieces a day. Tons of other companies are already doing this too. Some of the other companies that are participating in this are Comedy Central, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic, the Food Network, and several others. All of these articles are easily accessible on Snapchat under the "Discover" section of the app.

The great think of this new update is the revenue it will bring to the app. Snapchat and whatever company has editors producing content (CNN, etc.) will split the revenue from the advertisements they have 50/50. The fact that Snapchat is so hot right now and has billions of users makes those advertisement spots very valuable. I think with this change Snapchat will finally start to make a bunch of money and it will be an interesting thing to follow. 

Jimmy Kimmel mean Tweets segment

     It was time for the 2015 national championship game between Ohio State and Oregon and the hype for the game was through the roof. It was time for the first ever finale of the college football playoffs. Everyone who turned on a tv weeks in advance of this game heard some type of talk about the game and how it was going to be historic. Since there was a ton of coverage about this game, all of ESPN's commentators and different personalities weighed in on what they thought about the game. Every possible aspect of the game was covered by many of their announcers. This led to another segment of mean tweets from Jimmy Kimmel. I thought that this segment was great the first time that I watched it, but this time was even better for me. The hype around the game led to a ton of entries for the segment this time. For those that are not familiar with this segment, it is where Jimmy Kimmel shows people some tweets that have been posted on twitter. These posts are usually very negative and are people who do not like the tv personality mentioned in the tweet. In this segment that specific tv personality reads the tweet out loud and their reactions are priceless.
   
     This was a perfect thing to put in the pre-game program for a couple of reasons. I think that like most people, I was getting sick of hearing all the different people say the same type of things. For example the hype was all about Heisman winner Mariota vs. the inexperienced quarterback for Ohio State making only his third start. That was one of the few things that I heard from what felt like 1,000 different people around 1,000 times in the week leading up to the game. This segment was a great change of pace. While the game is so serious, this segment was so goofy and fun. Seeing all of these people react to what was said about them was great. The best part about it was that they all reacted in different ways when they read about their "criticism". Some of the personalities laughed and agreed. Some could barely even read the entire tweet because they were laughing so hard. Others seemed a little ticked off (in a joking manner). I think my favorite was the criticism of Tim Tebow. It was not the funniest, but as a Georgia bulldawg I am always up for someone ripping on the guy who destroyed our program for 3 years. Overall I really enjoyed this segment and it was great to see the influence that social media can have on an event. I know they had a ton of material to choose from because this game produced a ton of social content. I know it was hard for the producers to weed through all of the data and find the best "mean tweets".

Atlanta Hawks Tinder Night

     Atlanta sports have been the subject of criticism from their fan base for many years now. While they seem to put together many solid teams only the 1995 Atlanta Braves have won a championship. I am a fan of all Atlanta sports and feel like a major market like Atlanta should have many more titles in many more sports. The question being asked right now is "Are the Atlanta Hawks really title contenders this year?" I would like to say yes to that question. I believe that we have a chance. 
     
     The Hawks are not only playing extremely well on the court, but off the court they are getting some attention as well. That is the subject of this blog because the season the Hawks are having right now is worth much more than one short blog post. On January 7th of this year the Hawks hosted the Memphis Grizzlies in Phillips Arena. The theme of the night featured the dating app called Tinder. The Hawks encouraged people who use the app to come to the game and set the radius to 1 (which means that all the people who pop up on the Tinder page are within 1 mile). This event shows the power of social media. Just one little app ended up packing Philips Arena that night. Not only did the Hawks play a good game, but the place was packed with people participating in their themed night event. Throughout the game people were using the app to meet other single people in the arena. The Hawks didn't just leave it at that. They went above and beyond and had a suite with roses for people who "were a match" on the app and they could go meet at halftime. People were actively posting pictures of themselves and their "matches" at the game. Other people got in on the fun as well. Some people not even at the game were aware of this night and shared some satirical pictures as well. One person watching the game from home shared a picture with a slice of pizza and said that they were a perfect match. The Brooklyn Nets also saw this as an opportunity to poke fun at the Hawks by commenting on their strange theme. While Brooklyn may have gotten a nice laugh I am sure that they would love to be the Hawks right now. The Hawks have the best record in the eastern conference and have found a way to pack Philips Arena. Wether you think it is weird/creepy to have a tinder themed night you cannot ignore the results. It ended up getting national attention and was all over ESPN the next day. This is one season where the Hawks seem to be doing everything right.