Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business, Revised and Updated

Chapter 7. Winners and Losers in a 140-Character World

Today there are websites that reduce or make URLs tiny 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, making the URL tiny. This is necessary in today's soundbite world and is a reflection of a societal shift from the languid days of sipping lemonade on front porches to multi-tasking in WiFi-enabled Starbucks. In a world where everything is condensed and hyper-accelerated, who wins and who loses? In this section, we will 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 1980's. As a result, in 2008, ESPN started to dedicate more of its television programming to discuss 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 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 Football ...