That Time Of The Year

Last night I got home to watch the World Series and turned on the TV and fired up Twitter. In addition to the Mets Royals, you had the GOP Debate, and fourteen NBA basketball games. Twitter was on fire. I didn’t change the channel once on the TV, choosing to continue my pain from the night before and watch the Mets lose back to back games to the ferocious Kansas City Royals. But my Twitter feed kept me apprised of everything else going on. The Knicks beat the Bucks, the Bulls beat the Nets, KD is back and the Thunder beat the Spurs, and, apparently, Rubio had his coming out party last night in the GOP debate. I’ve always thought the GOP race was eventually going to come Rubio’s way. He’s the best of the bunch even though I prefer Kasich.

This weekend will have the World Series at Citifield, NBA games galore, and the NFL in mid-season form. It’s that time of year when all the major sports are in action. It’s a wonderful time for sports fans and a wonderful time for Twitter too.

I will leave you with this. Twitter does SportsCenter.


#Sports#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. jason wright

    where’s the innovation in sports and politics?

  2. LIAD

    TwitterAct 1: Unbundle News/Publishing/MediaAct 2: Bundle News/Publishing/MediaEffing Genius

    1. awaldstein

      DunnoIt also feels like the snake eating its own tale and recreating what it disrupted in a form that represents what it is was prior.Trying to love Moments. Not feeling it,

      1. LIAD

        I’m a twitter purist. these initiatives don’t gel with me either. yet.from the collated vines though i can see how a ‘Moment’ – regardless of the stupid name, can give people an accessible and easily digestable mountain of signal and little noise

        1. awaldstein

          got it. Intellectually. needs to work emotionally.

        2. JamesHRH

          The name is brutal. It is a Jack Dorsey special: over-obviously intended to have emotional impact.Snapshot would be perfect, but, ummm, there could be some issues with that one.I like Slice, as in here’s a Slice of last night in the NBA.Here’s a Slice of the GOP debate.Or a Slice of the Pack & the Broncos game.We’ve sliced up Twitter into a billion topics, etc.The problem that both SC & Twit have with their approach to aggregation is that is lacks narrative. Its the news version of data.There is a reason that Paul Tudor Jones likes news writing, versus magazine writing – http://www.bloomberg.com/ne….

          1. Twain Twain

            During Twitter Q3 earnings call…”(Jack) Points out that Moments doesn’t follow Twitter’s reverse chronological timeline, so it’s more of a narrative.”* http://recode.net/2015/10/2…I’m trying to piece together the narrative of Twitter (from product, monetization, emotional engagement and UX perspectives).This is because I like learning from others and my brain is OCD about things making sense and being coherent & integrated if I don’t yet understand the story of something.

          2. Drew Meyers

            I like the brand slice way better than moments. But I care about the content in neither case 🙂

      2. Drew Meyers

        Regardless of how great the “moments” product is…I just don’t care about the majority of the content. I have the moments tab in my twitter app, it’s basically the real-time newspaper right inside my twitter experience. It’s overwhelming. Do they think they can convince people they “need” realtime news? There are plenty of 24/7 news channels on tv, and most people don’t care. Similarly, I don’t think most people care about that dynamic on their phone.

  3. awaldstein

    Agree nothing like Twitter for a lifeline to the rush of the world,To me Facebook is an emotional net and Twitter a real time informational one.The more each of those sticks to that core the better they/we are.Twitters new ad truthfully worries me, They know better than I but it feels like Microsoft chasing another’s market rather than themselves sticking to where they know their true core is.

    1. Twain Twain

      Exactly THIS: Facebook is an emotional net and Twitter is an informational one.While Twitter asks, “Why Twitter?”, Facebook asks, “Why do people care what content they get?”It’s even obvious in how FB and Twitter do polling differently.Here’s the thing. People in the know at cutting edge tech and Machine Intelligence believe the Emotional Internet is next:* http://techcrunch.com/2015/…Which companies are positioning themselves well for this? Certainly FB, Apple, Google (via Magic Leap) and others.

      1. Jess Bachman

        Its really hard to take tech articles seriously these days.”We are coming closer than we think to technology that can actually make us happier. It starts with machines, likely in the form of wearable technologies, that can read and interpret emotional information. Once we bring in the human element and share this information with each other, we will realize much broader implications.”I’m pretty sure the secret to happiness has been an open secret for thousands of years. The last thing we really need is some sort of tech-enabled shortcut.

        1. Twain Twain

          There’s no Machine Intelligence in the world that can replicate the embodied perceptions we feel — which is an integration of sense faculties (vision, hearing, smell, touch, taste, skin), mind, cultural biases, prior experiences and more because we’re made of adaptive, organic, subjective matter whereas machines are made from inorganic, objective matter (silicon, bits that register and adjust according to electrical but not biochemical signals).However, we do need the machines to be able to read and interpret emotional information because emotions (specifically some empathetic, remorse framework) are what can stop machines from killing us. Otherwise, we’re just obstructions in their optimizations and zero-sum game chess algorithms.It’s widely accepted the machines are “autistic” (IBM Watson’s creator even called it “akin to an autistic human savant) and Michael Lewis recently said this about Silicon Valley, “It’s basically a bunch of autistic people wandering around. It’s a hard place to write about because there’s a lack of emotional content.”Meanwhile, “Google’s top execs stand well above the average software engineer in skill. That trait, Bruno Bowden continued, does not often correlate with an above-average “emotional intelligence” — a capacity for empathy. … “He (Page) could come off as very harsh,” said one person who has had many encounters with Page over the years. “Until you realize it was more that he was completely lacking in EQ. I mean, zero.””* http://recode.net/2015/10/2…Now, systems and data are structured in the moulds of their makers so if the makers are lacking in emotional intelligence, so will the systems and data sets be.Let’s tie this in with Fred’s running theme du semaine of “Software is the new oil.”At the moment, what we have is crude oil and what a lot of the techcos are generating re Data is tarmac. Yes, it lays the roads of the Information Superhighway.However, don’t expect it to enable us to fly airplanes across oceans or space shuttles to Mars anytime soon.So… someone somewhere may have or may be building the fractional distillation system (hardware and software infrastructure) that actually manufactures that higher/highest grade and higher/highest value data oil and pipeline.That’s why in the post ‘Production vs Financial Capital’ I made the argument that we shouldn’t assume the Information Revolution is done. Yes, the tarmac version of data, access, networks, lots of apps driving along the networks etc of the Information Superhighway is in deployment phase.However, the version of information to make our systems FLY and able to understand emotion (especially in Natural Language expressions for Machine Intelligence) is far from done.We haven’t even started to think about the air streams, air traffic control, jets, helicopters etc of that Information Superhighway yet. The Data in Stratosphere version of the Information Revolution.It would require intelligent people to first discover the Data equivalent of gravity. Then they’d also need to re-frame the concepts of Fluid Mechanics, Materials Science, Power Generation, Quantum Mechanics and Probability in the way that hundreds of scientists did in those fields and Einstein did in Quantum Relativity…AND they’d need to simultaneously sketch the flying machine like Da Vinci, somehow make the component parts and assemble them, build and successfully fly-test it like the Wright Brothers and then commercialize it like St Petersburg-Tampa through to Virgin, Delta, Singapore Airlines, Ethihad et al.The emotion factors are sort of of getting us towards the discovery of the data equivalent of Gravity, by the way. You can bet FB is using it as a weighting mechanism in its content recommendation algorithms in a smarter way than Twitter and that’s also why Advertisers gravitate towards FB more than Twitter.@wmoug:disqus – Loving Fred’s “oil stack” analogy for tech.

        2. Drew Meyers

          “I’m pretty sure the secret to happiness has been an open secret for thousands of years. The last thing we really need is some sort of tech-enabled shortcut.”Completely agree. People/community/experiences make people happy. Not technology. Not physical things. Not anything else.

        3. CJ

          “I’m pretty sure the secret to happiness has been an open secret for thousands of years. ” Yep – Virtual Reality.

    2. Jess Bachman

      Looking at startups track records with TV ads, they could have done a lot worse. Funny enough, Twitters ad seems to encapsulate twitter well… a big raucous mess. Maybe thats what the kids are into these days.

      1. awaldstein

        dunno.twitter is all about following heroes as a flter, people notably people of importance are the filters.If you are important more than if you are interesting is how the ecosystem works.Just like life.

        1. Jess Bachman

          Yeah, they have the suggested follower thing down to a science in their onboarding. New users are spit out already following 100 or more accounts these days.I see this ad as them expanding their top of the funnel.

    3. Richard

      What seems hard to understand is not withstanding how awesome Twitter is and how much free PR they get ( from almost every legacy content channel), why they hit a bump in the road?The fix:1) Twitter needs to make is easier for new users to talk across (within) a community of followers.2) The feed should have horizontal (forward and backward) intra following feeds so that you don’t need to leave the vertical feeds to stay within a Twitter account.

      1. awaldstein

        After a career of building markets and brands I’ve learned never to believe I know anything about the internal struggles or data that they have on the inside.So I don’t know.But I know from the outside as well as they do from the inside what the core of the promise is about.And your #2 is not what Twitter is today in any stretch of the imagination. Not to say its not its future but it is not the magic that I experience today.

      2. Drew Meyers

        “1) Twitter needs to make is easier for new users to talk across (within) a community of followers.”This is exactly what FB groups is. Why duplicate that?People can already remain keep their stream completely private if they wish.

  4. TM

    My favorite: Switch on a TV Sports channel, mute annoying commentators, keep watching, let twitter comment real-time. I love the simplicity. Same feeling about Twitter Sports Center.

  5. James Ferguson @kWIQly

    Not sure I am seeing anything new – what I am missing ?I dont mean to pour cold water – I just am not understanding the benefit.To a cynical me it looks to me like saying ;”Hey we have a sports TV inside our walled garden thats as good as some on the outside – come in and watch (but its no good if you want to watch a match – its just highlights).”

  6. JimHirshfield

    Husbands everywhere disappearing into man-caves.

    1. Eric Satz

      keep on silent and view discreetly. no need to disappear. not saying it works well for me, but i’ve seen it work 😉

    2. jason wright

      and wives everywhere thinking…. “YES!”

  7. William Mougayar

    Yes. Fundamentally, nobody owns real-time like Twitter.To all the detractors, where else would you go to consume real-time news all together, in one place. (TV is not a valid answer unless you have all the international channels on it, maybe. And Web searching is not a good answer because you’d need to keep searching forever.)Twitter: The medium is the message. (McLuhan)

    1. awaldstein

      Agree and I”m a believer.The medium is not the message if the market is not large enough to sustain the medium.I think the answer is already there.

      1. William Mougayar

        It’s getting there. For its users, Twitter is the medium & the message.

    2. James Ferguson @kWIQly

      If someone said – I dont need to go to the match I have Twitter – I would laugh.If someone says I am going to watch on TV with some mates and some beers – I get it.Doesn’t this simply argue that TV has to change.A televised World Cup / Olympics has no peers – it just fails in delivering digests and gets bogged down by stupid copyright stuff

      1. pointsnfigures

        Watching a game on Twitter is awesome if you follow the right people. Curt Schilling used to tweet a lot about the finer points of pitching during baseball games. You seriously could learn a lot.

      2. William Mougayar

        Not for a full event, agreed. But where else can you get updated in real time in 5 mins about anything.And you can’t put a TV in your pocket. I’m thinking selfishly as a single user.

        1. Michael Elling

          TV in pocket is here. Availability, choice and performance isn’t. Twitter is default for now.

        2. James Ferguson @kWIQly

          I think 5 minute urgency/stress is (in most situations) an artefact introduced by the things we do – because we can – rather than as a response to a need.I prefer to watch a whole game (or none of it) and I like to be completely offline sometimes (often)Anything (incoming) for me that needs urgent attention is wholly unassociated with Twitter.How often do you think – “Hang on I have an urgent Tweet to read” – Really ?In essence Twitter is nothing more than a pastime for most users.Who would choose Twitter as an urgent communication medium – unless perhaps a journalist under threat wanting to get a message somewhere “out there” for the record – ie wholly untargetted.I accept it might be different if I lived in a media world of spin, and short-termism – but I don’t and believe most of the people don’t most of the time.So – If I am right – it looks like a solution looking for a problem (and a first world problem at that)

          1. Twain Twain

            Twitter completely missed a big opportunity.The people who need real-time urgency are the very people Jack talked about inspired him way back when he was listening into ambulances on CB radio.The medical profession and life-death situations like natural disaster recovery.

          2. James Ferguson @kWIQly

            Yup – But the tool is simply not fit for that purpose (the needs of responders) You might as well create a feed of car chrashes on the side of the road – it is a ghoul behaviour enabler – not a response service

          3. Twain Twain

            There are two valuable use cases for real-time:(1.) Accident & emergency & traffic control.(2.) Streaming financial news like Bloomberg.

          4. Stephen Voris

            Regarding (1), ideally zero user input would be required in the moment – you can’t text if you’re unconscious, but your phone, or your car, might be able to on your behalf. Not so much Twitter’s current use case there, though.

          5. Twain Twain

            I mean that Twitter could be a real-time paging system for doctors.That’s one of the potential utilities of Apple Watch & HealthKit. It could notify Accident & Emergency if your health signs (heart rate, arm slump, walking speed etc) showed unusual activity.The arm slump would one of the signs of a stroke.

          6. Stephen Voris

            Technically, doctors already get paged in real time – but I know what you meant. 😛 “You’ll be needed in the ER in half an hour” is a lot different than “You’ll be needed in the ER ten minutes ago”.I’m just not sure that Twitter’s the way to go for IoT alerts, health-related or otherwise. Or the flagship ‘hose of it, anyway.

          7. Twain Twain

            Interesting wrt “not sure that Twitter’s the way to go for IoT alerts”.What would be your alternatives?

          8. Stephen Voris

            Twitter-the-company could probably do it, thinking on it further: have tweets from IoT devices tagged as such, and then just filter those off from the main page (and then filter further based on, say, location and type of device). The main concerns relate to spamming and privacy considerations; if you think Twitter is a firehose now, just imagine when 90+% of the tweets are machine-generated… and publicizing information their owners may not have opted into revealing. “Trending” would probably also need tweaking to (dis)accommodate these.As for alternatives, I’m afraid I don’t have name brands for you (well, other than the one I’m working at now, but that’s industry-specific); it’d depend on the industry to some degree – which is where the consolidating opportunity comes in for Twitter, I suppose: “If you’re an EMT in Orange County CA, please follow the hashtag #orangecountycamedicalalert”… and on the device end, a method for auto-generating the appropriate hashtag.

          9. Twain Twain

            Thanks, that’s helpful.So … I like some of Twitter as a (very infrequent) user — I’m one of those people Twitter needs to convince I should be using it a lot more; I go weeks without even passively consuming its content much less tweeting something — and I’m interested in where the company’s been and where it’s going.Unlike some folks on AVC, I didn’t have a frame of reference for Twitter until recently. I am far from a core / power user.It was a company I’d occasionally seen the headlines for in tech blogs over the last 5 or so years but I never read the articles because it wasn’t relevant to me as a tool at the time.No investment in it beyond now trying to work out if it’s worthwhile to build with its API and developer toolkits.I think Jack Dorsey and his team have a tough road ahead of them and I’m pro-founder CEOs — especially artistic ones because there are already loads of engineer founders and it would be nice if Silicon Valley had a few more Artist Founders. This would be good for inclusion and diversity and I’m pro-diversity.The IoT piece is something I’m especially into. It’s not clear if this will add more noise and how it fits with the Media Content (and now Sports) focus of Twitter.

          10. Stephen Voris

            You’re still one up from me – all my information on Twitter is secondhand! That said, this is the internet – there’s a lot of secondhand information out there. Twitter’s features are easy enough to infer (with exceptions on details – for example, I have no idea whether it’s possible to “follow only tweets that have both of the following hashtags in them”, which is why I used “#orangecountycamedicalalert” instead of separate hashtags for #orangecounty, #california, and #medicalalert); judging from what I’ve seen on game forums, inferring feasible potential features is rather less easy.Tough road, agreed. As for artist founders, well, I can certainly see the overlap in mindset – have dabbled in the former and maaaay be looking to dive into the latter (gee, wonder why I’m so active here…) – but currently “starving artist” is a bit of a stereotype (along with its negative-connotation counterpart, “selling out”).

          11. Twain Twain

            Maybe that’s why engineering founders fare better with Wall Street?

          12. Stephen Voris

            One of the reasons, at any rate. Lots of room for little reasons that add up. One might well turn out to be that the drive to create art interferes with the drive to earn money (and/or vice versa). Or that artists are disproportionately non-networking introverts. Or it’s a temporary artifact of that whole “lack of internet” thing preventing artists from finding their relevant audiences (do composers count as entrepreneurs?).

          13. Twain Twain

            Some artists are introverts, some extroverts. For example, musicians often collaborate with lots of people whilst portraitists tend to work alone.An entrepreneur is anyone who works for themselves and provides a good and/or service for others, whilst earning a living.There are lots of artists who make use of the Internet to share their stories and talent — see ‘Zola’s Story’ tweets, the YouTube makeup artists and chefs, YouNow musicians.Artists can make lots of money: everyone from Taylor Swift to Robert Downey Jr. to Zubin Mehta to Jeff Koons.Ditto for engineers.

          14. Stephen Voris

            Actually, I suspect I may have been projecting for a good bit of that, particularly when it comes to introversion (the networking thing, well, working on that). Your distinction on the three defining traits of entrepreneurs is I think an illuminating one – as artists arguably can’t help but ‘provide a good and/or service to others’… it’s the ‘whilst earning a living’ that’s statistically – and historically – been the tricky bit.Though arguably given the statistics on startups, well – one does see more than a few similarities. Maybe not exactly a flattering light for VCs, though, being compared to the record labels.

          15. LE

            I lived through the CB radio craze I remember when my dad bought a CB Radio and iirc my first car had a CB radio. That fad came and went. Was born in the days of gas lines and 55 mph speed limit. In the end people didn’t need CBs enough to rig their cars with them.

          16. LE

            Junkyards could also use instead of the squawk boxes as in “Anyone have a front fender for a 77 Ford Mustang?”

          17. Twain Twain

            I’m crushing on the Sky Blue corvette in this image. This Corvette and the 77 Ford Mustang are way before my time.The squawk boxes I read about because there was “Open Outcry” on the exchanges until everything went electronic.When Twitter says it gives a microphone / amplifier / megaphone to every person on the planet, it’s like everyone has their 140 characters on stage (in the tweet stream) instead of Warhol’s 15 minutes.Now, with Editorial, it’s like Twitter is the stage manager queuing the order of who gets to go on stage.

          18. LE

            Exactly. It’s a “tick” in a way adapted by the lemmings. Unless you use it for business or if something happens in your particular neighborhood, school or office complex who needs to know these things in interuptive real time? Perhaps that is why it hasn’t become more mainstream and user growth is not good. Because the bottom line is it doesn’t fill an important need that people have. So it’s more like a popular show for those that are entertained by that stuff.

          19. Drew Meyers

            Amen.

  8. pointsnfigures

    Bulls! The World Series Game 1 was pretty amazing. Last night I was surprised the Royals hit the crap out of deGrom. He had typically hard stuff, but his ball wasn’t moving.I didn’t watch the debate either. Ted Cruz had a great moment when he took the moderators to task. Ironically, post debate my Twitter was on fire too. I have not watched CNBC in the last couple of years to get business news. It’s not even good noise. @PSPark17 tweeted at me, “What’s your “go to” for news? https://twitter.com/PSPark1… I answered Twitter of course. If I want to drill down into a stock, it’s Stocktwits. Benzinga has pretty good news too. Come to think of it, ESPN mostly sucks now too. TV is becoming a place for live sports, live action, streamed movies and shows, and that’s about it.

    1. William Mougayar

      It’s like the moderators at CNBC were asked to brush up on politics so they can ask good questions, but instead they asked some dumb questions. But it was interesting seeing many of the candidates defying the questioning. I’m not sure if Democrat candidates would be as defiant against Fox type of questioning.

      1. JLM

        .It was not just the subject matter of their inane questions, it was also the delivery and rudness of them. It is difficult to imagine what they were thinking of.Stupid questions. Constant personal affront. Rudely interrupting.When a fat guy from Jersey says you’re rude — well?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        1. LE

          Did you notice that with that opening question the only candidates that even came close to answering [1] were Trump, Carson and one other candidate that I forget. All of the others immediately launched into some memorized spiel. They simply, as politicians, couldn’t come close to just answering the f-ing question with at least a hint of truth.Worst was perhaps Kasick who went first. I mean if you want to not sound like a politician then don’t answer a question where you can sound human like a fucking politician. Use it as a chance to connect to the voters. Nobody is going to remember what you said anyway that sounds like yet another political speech.If I was the second guy I would have pointed out how Kasick didn’t answer the question and that is what people hate about politicians then I would have told them some fault that I had that people could relate to that didn’t sound stupid at the same time.[1] Was “tell us one of your faults”.

          1. JLM

            .And you demonstrate how inconsequential the debate was inasmuch neither of us can recall who said what on that subject.That is a perfect example of the media trying to be cute.I would have given them a long, long, long list of all of my faults. Everything you can think of. I would have gone on for three minutes.We are searching for the right person to be the most powerful protector of peace and freedom in the world and they ask that question?The media is populated by complete ass clowns.CNBC — Clowns, Nothing But ClownsJLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          2. LE

            In the end I am not sure if it even matters if we do know what they say. After all what they say and what they do or better yet what they are able to do (they are just one part of the puzzle to consider) are only loosely related. (Contradicting my Hillary point I am realizing now..)My wife last night was saying that she was voting for Hillary probably. I said “oh why because she is a woman?”. And she said “no” she just likes her and hasn’t seen anyone on the Republican side (she hates Carly for example maybe because I have brainwashed her..).But why does she like her? Because she likes the look and feel of Hillary the way that she comes across.Good about Hillary: No learning curveBad about Hillary: Like an old dude trying to do a startup. Knows to much.Which is the better choice??After I pointed out how our taxes would change if Hillary was elected I think I wiped that smile right off of her face. Believe it or not she hadn’t even thought of that.

          3. PhilipSugar

            There are two huge problems in politics right now. Politicians and press think they are lawyers, lawyers suck at getting to solutions. Politicians think the goal is to defend your point whether you are right or wrong and there is no middle ground. The press thinks they are there to make the news by asking a “killer” question versus reporting the news.The answer as business people is to listen, understand, and come to a solution, which usually is defined as: Did you win? No. Did I win? No. But can we both live with the solution? Yes.

          4. JLM

            .Agreeing more with you than you do with yourself.Well played.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        2. LE

          I am curious what the reasoning behind not simply cutting off a mike (automatically) after someone goes over a limit is. Seems almost to simple of a solution. Like giving a kid a time out.Most likely this dates from a day an age where technology wise this would not be an easy thing to do. You could easily do this by logging voice and timing it. Or some other method…Once again we will have self driving cars (hahaha not going to happen) but we don’t have a way to keep speakers on their time allotment.

          1. PhilipSugar

            I have never understood that either. I have been on tons of panels where the have a clock and when it goes to zero, your microphone goes off.

          2. LE

            A couple of thoughts (in addition to what I stated originally).- In the past when they tried to do this someone pulled a Trump and said they wouldn’t play if those were the rules. Perhaps nobody even remembers when that was. Or who did it. Debates just carry the way they have always been done (since Kennedy was on TV which was a different time..)- Something related to “dignity of the office”.- It makes good TV to have a moderator scold a candidate who goes over his allotment and shows his colors by rejecting the request of the moderator to stop speaking.Along the same lines “technology” I wonder why there are not cameras all over prisons recording everything so mythically prisoners don’t get raped (meaning that is what popular culture says). Reason for that probably dates back to having to use tape instead of what we can now do with low cost hard drives. But that’s recent, last 5 years maybe 10 at a higher cost.So since it’s grandfathered as not cost effective it’s not done and it’s hard to change prisons into spending the money to do it now, even though there appears to be obvious benefits. And prices have dropped so much.

          3. PhilipSugar

            The guards want everything recorded. My wife headed up the medical division for DE state maximum security prisons. Not nice places.

          4. LE

            NFW! Can’t imagine how depressing it must be to work in a prison.

          5. PhilipSugar

            Sorry meant don’t want. It is sticks versus fists and it gets very nasty. My wife is great at stiches

          6. LE

            Well like with that cop who flipped the disrespectful student at the desk in school having everything taped presents a unique set of problems. It opens events up for differing interpretations, lawsuits etc. Certainly something that a union would fight.Then you have pains in the asses (social media, commentators, simpletons, bloggers) chiming in about what the person should have done to prevent the escalation of the problem. Ridiculous. Simpletons just react they don’t think. Plus they are egged on by other simpletons.I am waiting for people to actually start to bait cops while someone records the incident so that they can have their payday by filing a lawsuit claiming they were hurt.We will now have training and an entire crisis team to deal with when a student won’t listen to a teacher. Bring in the hostage negotiators. More money spent to prevent what is clearly edge cases of abuse.

      2. pointsnfigures

        They should have let Steve Liesman and Rick Santelli ask all the questions.

        1. LE

          Santellis is like the nerd in high school that all of the girls wouldn’t even look at and had boogies hanging from his nose. (Confirmed by my wife …. as if that matters..)Cramer was hyper even for Cramer.

          1. pointsnfigures

            Ha, Santelli grew up near me and went to my high school. He’s older than me though.

      3. LE

        Fox was trying to put on an entertaining show. There is good and bad to that. If the entertainment value is high, then people might perhaps tune in the entire broadcast which is good for both the candidates and the network. Nothing wrong with that. If dull they tune out. And message gets lost. It’s a balance. Most of the candidates are dull so…..let’s spice it up a bit.I was surprised at how they wouldn’t own up to giving Trump credit for the strategy that led to the 2 hour debate decision. They seemed to deny that what he did (letter with Ben Carson onboard) had any impact. This article disputes that (written before the debate):http://fox2now.com/2015/10/…This really is the magic of Trump (which I agree comes with drawbacks as everything does). He is outrageous sure but he is creative and knows how to use leverage to his advantage even in a small way like this. And even if (like CNBC said) there was never going to be a 3 hour debate it still shows how he is able to use things like this for his benefit which is a great quality when trying to persuade people which is what politics is all about.The other candidates are non creative sticks in the mud. I mean really they are. Look at Kasick getting all bent out of shape over the noise instead of figuring out a way to spin gold out of it (which is what Trump does each and everytime..)Since I am in sales and negotiation I guess I have an appreciation for this because I see even with the things that I do how often it comes into play in deal making, problem solving and strategy.

    2. JamesHRH

      Having just watch the Jays get the Royal treatment, I was surprised by the way those cats can mash.Everyone talks about their bullpen, but they can hit.Escobar is a freak, Hosmer is an athletic John Olerud (wayback machine engaged) and Moustakas & Gordon are likely underrated.ESPN has gone the way of MTV….it shows about sports, not sports.

      1. pointsnfigures

        I don’t have a lot of room to talk after the Mets swept the Cubs. My first t shirt order on Etsy fell through. I think the guy has a bull store. Reordered a nice orange one from another store yesterday. Photo coming as soon as I get it.

    3. LE

      For me it’s important to watch certain news shows even if the info they are passing is bogus and/or worthless or redundant to my current knowledge.Why? Because I like to have a window into what others are being told that is important. As such I typically watch Hardball (Chris Matthews) which I always find entertaining even if I can puke at the way he supports liberal causes. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t also know that “Marco Rubio looks like someone’s son in law” (he said that the other night). Ditto for reading the print WSJ everyday (gets delivered to the house) and the NYT (online but print on weekends where I love how they shill NYC real estate and of course the style section).So yes, I like to see what they think is important that I know will then be stories that others follow. Or how late they are in the game talking about something that I knew 6 months ago.Same with the nightly news (Lester Holt). What stories made it past the network filter?The REI story I first saw I think on Hacker News. A few days later it made it to the Nightly Network News. Now it’s probably everywhere because other media pickup what the majors decided to follow that they passed the first time.

  9. Chimpwithcans

    Great use of the word “APP”rised. Twitter should take that and run with it 🙂

  10. jason wright

    twitter felt like a bottom-up process, but now it seems to be becoming a top-down process.

  11. Tom Labus

    The Royals are very good. The Mets better ask the Yanks about 96. I now I have to worry about the Nets too. The “Debate” was an embarrassment. Twitter needs to have a few blow out Q’s or they’ll continue to get punched around by the Market

  12. Eric Satz

    traveling so watching series in a bar. lots of screens/game so no volume. went to twitter to get the crowdsourced commentary.

  13. Brandon G. Donnelly

    how come there’s no twitter moment navigation button in canada?how come the raptors were excluded from the moment above?and damn, the royals are relentless.

    1. JamesHRH

      Raps didn’t dunk last night. D2 & JV were grinding.

  14. Bipper Media

    What I love here is the interesting dynamic of “future value”. While Twitter is on fire with a core set of users, it’s 6 month stock chart is down 26%. While the core user base seems to be engaging more, Twitter appears to be failing at growing the base overall. I’m sure Jack Dorsey and his team are making the same observations, and struggling to figure out solutions. The most compelling lesson is that Twitter continues forward with the “make / break” process, where I believe eventually something is going to click, and it’s going to be like the Wright brothers on that day when their “heavier than air” machine finally took flight!

  15. Lee Blaylock

    True post and the only bummer is it is golf silly season as opposed to the majors! Plus it’s always fun because tomorrow is my 50th birthday!

    1. kidmercury

      congrats on hitting the half century mark!

  16. Stephen Bradley

    Does anyone else struggle with the vertical video format, especially for sports?

    1. Salt Shaker

      The NHL, for example, has always done well at the box and less so w/ U.S. TV rtgs. because the sport historically hasn’t translated well to the small screen. It’s just too hard to track the puck on TV, a prob that’s only exacerbated on mobile, either w/ vertical or horizontal viewing.

  17. Salt Shaker

    Yahoo Sports paid the NFL $20M to ‘live’ stream Bills/Jags game from London. Speaks to the power of sports and how pro leagues can and will carve out OTT windows to extract new/diff revenue streams. The fear of cord cutting, the staying power of live sports and the leverage alternative screens provides to the pro leagues will continue to drive the cost of rights fees. ESPN will always be a monster, but their growth and the exorbitant affiliate fees they extract are gonna plateau, if they haven’t already begun to do so as demo by recent layoffs at the network.

    1. JamesHRH

      If you are in media today, Live Sports is the high ground.As Peter Thiel would say, Competition is for Losers (unless you own the competition you are televising).

  18. JLM

    .It is difficult to believe that the Clown Network (Clowns, Nothing But Clowns — CNBC) could possibly have done a more pathetically, transparent hit job if Hillary and Bill were crafting the questions. They effectively destroyed what little substance there was to their brand while making Larry Kudlow look like a genius. I have always liked Kudlow — not that that means anything.I am proud that Ted Cruz, and others, called bullshit on them. I don’t think this is the year for the “insiders” but Cruz may blossom before this is done. Everyone in Texas was surprised at the ease with which he defeated David Dewhurst (then sitting Lt Gov, very wealthy, GOPe choice) in his Senate race. He is a quiet assassin.Alan Dershowitz — no friend to a conservative — said he was the smartest student he EVER taught at Harvard.America is mad — not a new revelation if one recalls what happened in 2014 mid-terms. That mojo has not evaporated and it will propel the Republicans forward. Not saying they will win but it is a big wind at their back.Rubio may be President one day. Just not this time around.It is difficult to see what anyone ever saw in Jeb Bush. Shows how out of touch the GOPe (Republican establishment) truly is with their focus, energy, money, and insight into the electorate.America got a chance to learn a bit more about the Republican candidates. Time to thin the crowd — Jindal, Pataki, Graham, Paul, Gilmore <<< “turn in your uniforms, fellas.”JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

    1. Salt Shaker

      Someone needs to clarify for these “clowns” (Fox too) the role of moderator in these debates. They’re providing a public service, yet they all somehow think branding and image building of their talking heads should be the focal point.

      1. JLM

        .The Clown Network performance was the worst ever and failed to serve their own purposes. They looked obvious, desperate, rude, and amateurish.It is difficult to believe that CNBC had any level of supervision above those moderators. Middle school-ish.CNN did a journeyman like job on their debate. Don’t know how Fox figures in the picture.CNBC — Clowns, Nothing But ClownsJLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        1. Tom Labus

          Candidates no better. It was a draw in that respect

          1. JLM

            .Here’s who you want, Tom. The guys with the good looking girls?JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          2. sigmaalgebra

            Yup, good looking girls — one of the great old time glories of life left to enjoy! But that picture omits the children, and there are lots of those, too!

      2. JLM

        .Upon further reflection, I am going to have to agree that the Fox moderators were no better. Not as bad as the Clown Network but no better.Well played and a tip of the hat to the Salt Cellar.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

    2. sigmaalgebra

      Cruz? Bright but right, that is, right of Genghis Khan; so, no judgment.Rubio? In Sen. Marco Rubio’s address on U.S. foreign policy by Sen. Marco Rubio 04/25/2012AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY: RUBIO REMARKS AT THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTIONhttp://www.humanevents.com/… it looks to me like Rubio is another Dick Cheney who wants the US to police/save the world.Protect and defend the US? Sure. Pursue US interests? Okay. Police/save the world? Hell no! Not a minute of time nor a dime of money, and certainly never a single drop of blood.We did Viet Nam and made the lessons very clear. In Gulf War I we applied many of those lessons.Already by Gulf War II, we’d forgotten those lessons.I’m outraged, torqued, pissed off.Rubio? No way.There’s a rumor that Rubio wants to triple H1-B visas. No way. Period. Since I’ve always been an employee, of course, HELL NO. Even if I become an employer, still, what the heck, no way. Not interested.I can understand and communicate easily enough with people from the US, Canada, Australia, England, and most of Europe. Maybe also Israel. For the rest of the world — nope. And I don’t want to go to the trouble to learn.On the front page of his Web site, Trump now has an expanded statement of his immigration ideas. The ideas are detailed; the background information is quite good; and the writing is polished, i.e., much different from his speaking style. He is NOT joking about immigration, and his points are solid. It is difficult to see what anyone ever saw in Jeb Bush. They liked and saw the brother and the father and assumed that, of course, they could have a third, no problem. “They” were out of touch.I don’t know if the problem is the paleo diet, but Jeb looks really slow, very slow, witted. Maybe in a month or two he can see why it was a bad idea to occupy Iraq:Let’s see: The main culture there is just Islam. It’s 500+ years out of date, is determined not to move forward even one year, much less 500, and runs everything from dress codes, diet, architecture, public behavior, and eduction to marriages, the legal system, who can drive, foreign policy, and religion. Except there are two versions, Sunni and Shiite, and they have little they would rather do than kill each other. So, they keep all the women pregnant, send the sons to die in Sunni/Shiite battles, keep all the excess girls/women in harems, etc. They would be beating camels, living in tents, drinking muddy water, and cooking with camel dung except for oil.Germany is discovering that their Arabic immigrants have open TB, syphilis, AIDS, and more.The place was in a simmering civil war, with at least three sides, and in a big fight with their neighbor Iran. The place was kept together, barely, by sadistic thug Saddam and his Stalinist tactics, secret police, torture, murder, etc.So, W concluded that “The Iraqi people are perfectly capable of governing themselves.” Wolfowitz thought that a carefully considered 500,000 US troops to occupy the country and provide police and government was “wide of the mark”. Bremer decided early on to disband the seven million man army and put them on the streets with no income but with the weapons stores unprotected.And then we were going to give the grateful Iraqis, who would “greet us as liberators”, a constitution, parliamentary democracy, and free elections. Then all the Iraqis would sing “Why Can’t We Be Friends” and “Kumbayah”.Results? Reignited the multi-way civil war. Enabled Iran to have a good shot at taking Iraq from the Persian Gulf up to and including Baghdad. Stimulated al Qaeda. Enabled ISIS. Stimulated the fighting in Syria. Scaring Turkey, Israel, and the Persian Gulf Sunni states. Giving Iran a shot at influence all the way west to the Mediterranean. Giving more influence to Russia.Cost the US thousands of US lives, tens of thousands of casualties, and in net present value $2-3 trillion dollars.”Hell of a job”, W!The place is an oily toilet. We expected something else?It was bad, an oily toilet, but it was relatively stable and was a big part of keeping the Mideast relatively stable.Look, the Mideast is a bunch of Medieval, fresh from beating camels in the desert, wackos playing with matches on a powder keg, or, if you prefer, in the world’s largest gas station, about ready to explode. The place is still right out of Lawrence of Arabia except now has the world’s largest reserves of oil.In Iraq, we needed someone to control the place, a way to keep the place from exploding. Saddam was doing that. He was awful, but he was being successful, keeping the place under control, and was a lot better than the alternatives. To control that place, it needed a Stalinist iron boot — Iraq had the government it deserved.We left Iraq as an oily toilet, but an even worse toilet, and unstable. It was really, really bad, awful; we made it much worse.Saddam with nukes? Now ISIS is saying loudly that it will nuke the US ASAP.Gulf War II? Dumb. Just at a glance, dumb. From the start, dumb. Totally obviously dumb. Brain-dead dumb. Delusionally dumb. Demented dumb. Dangerously, disastrously dumb. Just GD DUMB.And poor, slow witted Jeb, even now, needs weeks even to begin to see the disaster of Gulf War II. Barbara, what happened? As a child he was dropped on his head?And, at home W obviously had an outrageous, dangerous — threatening a second Great Depression — deliberate via Fannie and Freddie, housing bubble blowing, unemployment problems, immigration problems, etc. So, W totally fails to get it on the essential wisdom of local school boards, comes up with, right, No Child Left Behind” and shoots nearly all of US K-12 education in the gut.Obvious housing bubble? As from Richard Kovacevich, Chair, Wells Fargo (2001-09), athttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pag…And we would just go around the room. And when they came to me, I would say: “This is toxic waste. We’re building a bubble. We’re not going to like the outcome. I’m very concerned.” So, with these problems at home, W believed it would be much nicer to solve the problems in Iraq. Did I mention dumb?But, for whatever reasons, some people really liked Bush 41 and Bush 43 and wanted a Bush 45.Trump? He has some obvious faults. While his speaking is high on ambiguity and mangled syntax, his written policy statements on his Web site look okay. It looks like in some important ways he’s a very nice guy, is darned good at running organizations to get work done with good quality and on time and under budget, rejects much of the politically correct nonsense our public discourse has tripped over, is darned determined, and really, really cares about the US and wants to help us, especially the poor and middle class. He’s basically asking us to look at his background and statements and then trust him. We could hope for better, but, if he is even 50% as good as he tries to look, then he will be one of the best at POTUS. Whatever he is, IMHO, the rest look much less good.E.g., in a recent newsie-Trump Q&A, the newsie poked Trump with the old newsie, politically correct way of grabbing people by the heart and gut saying that Saddam was a dictator, thug, tortured, shot, and gassed his own people, etc. Right, Saddam did those things. Saddam was a sadistic thug and an egotistical maniac. And his sons were even worse. So, that politically correct heart-gut grabbing is part of how we got suckered into letting W, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bremer throw our blood and treasure into that oily toilet just to make it even worse. Then Donald totally refused to go along with that politically correct (in the world of Pollyanna Whittier or Dorothy Gale there would be no such problems) newsie grabbing and flatly stated the obvious — the US, the Mideast, and the world were better off with Saddam in power than since. It’s strange and weird, but, still, it’s totally obvious, flatly true, and darned important. Trump is no doubt one of the very few public figures ready, right away, to speak the obvious truth in the face of some provocation of dangerous, deliberately brain-dead, manipulative, politically correct nonsense.As long as the US is willing to let our public policies be driven by newsies looking for tricky ways to suppress the obvious and to get headlines to grab people, eyeballs, and ad revenue, we will keep destroying our country by throwing away our blood and treasure making really bad, horrible, medieval, sickening places in the world much worse. We’ve just flatly got to STOP that total BS, no hesitation, right away.Trump totally gets it. Jeb is still struggling with the totally obvious. Jeb could easily be suckered into throwing away our blood and treasure like his brother did. I’m concluding that the US voters totally get this point.One of the main reasons we have our democracy is to keep our leaders from bleeding our country white on absurd “foreign adventures”. From plenty of examples from history, our Founding Fathers knew that danger and gave us a good solution. Now, as voting citizens, we have to follow through. We have a darned good democracy; to change course, all we have to do is pull a lever in a voting booth; but very much we need to pull that lever or get the government we deserve but very much do NOT want.

      1. JLM

        .A lot to absorb. Thanks.What is interesting is that nobody rises to champion Jeb Bush. Nobody.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        1. sigmaalgebra

          What is interesting is that nobody rises to champion Jeb Bush. Nobody.”Interesting”, terrific! IMHO, the voters are not as dumb as most of the media and politics believes.And why “nobody”? My guess:Jeb could easily be suckered into throwing away our blood and treasure like his brother did. I’m concluding that the US voters totally get this point.

  19. rfreeborn

    Errr….I liked the story right up until you compared Twitter to SportsCenter. With this feed, Twitter is nothing more then an ESPN app with video only. You may be long Twitter, but that is a stretch even for you.

    1. Collin

      Totally disagree (and agree with Fred)!The beauty of Twitter is that its curated exactly to my tastes. Twitter has the potential to be SportsCenter, but curated specifically to the teams I’m interested in. In this way, it becomes a more valuable platform to me than ESPN. Obviously, if I don’t care about sports, then I can tailor my feed to whatever it is that I am interested in. Given how Twitter has emerged as the primary source for breaking news and the platform of choice for media personalities to opine and engage with readers, Twitter can easily create a more valuable media platform than anything else that exists today.I’ll even take Fred’s argument one step further, using a parallel to Netflix’s relationship with TV networks: Today we witnessed Time Warner retreat from content licensing arrangements with Netflix, underscoring a broader trend that confirms these Netflix licensing arrangements are not in the long-term interests of TV networks (i.e. audiences migrated from TV to Netflix). Similarly, if Twitter produces more timely, relevant, and curated analysis in sports/entertainment/politics and starts siphoning audiences away from ESPN/E!/CNN, will these media platforms find it contrary to their long-term viability for their on-air talent to have a presence on Twitter? I don’t think it’s a stretch to envision a world where ESPN/E!/CNN prohibit their on-air talent from publishing on Twitter! What was once an effective medium to engage with audiences has become the primary competitor!

  20. Tyson Krah

    Great fight between them

  21. JLM

    .The shot caller:http://www.breitbart.com/bi…The Donald pegged it before the horses left the gate. Soothsayer? Fortune maker/teller?CNBC — Clowns Nothing But ClownsJLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

  22. Tim Ribbons

    Fred, No matter what you try to explain here , Twitter still does not have an identity even after these many years of existence. Forget about the revenue model , I am sure Twitter will wind up in the year to come

  23. pointsnfigures

    Knicks will make the playoffs this year.

  24. jason wright

    i still think twitter is making a massive mistake here. shareholders treating users like peasants to be pooped on from a great height.

  25. Vasu Prathipati

    Interesting combo:1) Amazing time of year for sports2) But I cut the chord – the worst time not to have live TV3) So, I get all my sports news digitally from Twitter Moments and Snapchat Live Stories, which are both better than ESPN online (no ads, lots of highlights, etc.)

  26. Richard

    Twitter should implement horizontal scrolls within the vertical feed to allow you to stay within tweet storms or an account you are following.

  27. Dave Pinsen

    Rubio is the most polished debater and orator among Tarkio College alumni. But, policy-wise, he’s Chuck Schumer minus ~20 IQ points.It was fun to see him body slam Jeb though.

    1. kidmercury

      lol good burn!

  28. Dave Pinsen

    Twitter has to drive live TV viewership. I might have caught the GOP debate on replay before Twitter, but Twitter makes you want to watch it live and follow the stream. If Twitter finds a way to fully monetize the value it adds to TV, it will be set.

  29. kidmercury

    i was thinking about voting for ted cruz in the primary. but still not sure. if any cruz haters can share their logic, i would appreciate it.

  30. aboer

    I liked Kasich, but he looked desperate and played the same tune for the third time in a row. Fiorina’s answers were just excellent last night. But I guess if she isn’t playing the Trump dragon-killer and attacking him on gender issues, no one cares about her. Rubio sounded great and everyone attacked him (making him look stronger) but I don’t feel he is passionate about a single issue that will define his presidency.Off the top of my head, here is what I know about the candidates’ passions.Trump (immigration, trade agreements, a wall, carried interest, anti-SuperPac’s/lobbyists),Christie (SS&Medicare)Paul (debt, social libertarian ),Huck (social conservative)Fiorina (tax reform)Kasich (debt, bi-partisanship)Carson (defense, theocracy?!)Cruz (defense, Social conservatism)Trump’s list is by far the longest, and I think that speaks volumes about why he is still the leader.I like Rubio, he feels like a safe choice and competitive w. Hillary. But I don’t see an agenda. (I’m sure he has one, I just don’t see it).

  31. creative group

    Fred:this entire blog entry was actually directed to us (In our mind only). There is no doubt the erudite contributors to this blog are into sports on a cursory level (Assumption). Their passion may be spent elsewhere. (Building hobby locomotives, solving how to get to Mars, etc.) This blog entry is for the average Joe who received solace in viewing and following Baseball, Football, Basketball and Hockey. The true supporter of sports teams, who never wavered or strayed to teams not in their state, region or market, that maintained a bond with the same squad and team through good times and bad this blog entry is for us. (Yankees in 2016 build farm system for pitchers, Giants in 2017 after drafting Eli’s replacement and letting GM Reese and Coughlin go-Thanks for the two current Super Bowls, Knicks-Sell the team Dolan is definitely the worst owner of all sports, Rangers-2016)

  32. Douglas Crets

    Twitter is like a remote control with multi-screens, on the actual remote control. Revolutionary.

  33. Tyro Kasmir

    Year for joyness

  34. Quin Mene

    Cool pics

  35. Hingle McCringleberry

    Nice play stage

  36. Gaston Pat

    Great team

  37. Merlin Hus

    i agree this championship

  38. Chimpwithcans

    They combined the 2?

  39. jason wright

    new country, old ways.

  40. William Mougayar

    +1

  41. JamesHRH

    Nothing new here in those arenas.Keynsians are back in favour at the front end of the Millennial boomlet, just like the Keynsians who were in charge at the front end of the Baby Boomers boom.In 20 years, some form of conservative will be back to clean up the books.

  42. jason wright

    politics is sport, no?

  43. LIAD

    not sure it matters.

  44. LE

    About Bread:http://www.nytimes.com/2015…As of now no comments on the article. Good PR if you can work your company name into the comments now by saying something intelligent on the subject matter.

  45. LIAD

    ;-(i meant whether they got their because of their plan or despite their plan is irrelevant IMO.