This year has seen the advent of a new phenomenon on Twitter, and it’s spreading from the US to us over here in the UK.  Twitter especially has been concentrating on bringing live events to another level by supporting new start-ups and promoting the tech evolution that’s taking place.

If you’re a basketball fan you may well have seen the cool innovation that was instigated by the NBA during March Madness.   Turner Broadcasting, who own the TV rights, teamed up with Twitter and Snappy TV on this occasion.  Their joint aim was to give fans quick highlights that they can access where it had not been possible before.  The added benefit is that the clip is easily shared and many more people will get to see it than may have otherwise.

I’m pleased that this has been picked up by a UK company and used around one of the maddest days in our sporting calendar, Transfer Deadline Day.  The company is Grabyo and the broadcaster who brought them in is, of course, Sky Sports.  The press release around the event declared;

“Following the recent launch of its consumer-facing TV clip-sharing platform, Grabyo Studio now enables broadcasters to select and share TV clips in real-time via a browser-based interface. Clips can be previewed and edited before being shared with hashtags and a description across Twitter, Facebook and their own websites. Thanks to Grabyo’s integration with Twitter, users can view clips as Twitter cards without leaving Twitter, as well as directly within Facebook’s newsfeed.”

Will Neale, founder at Grabyo said ahead of the launch;

“We’re really excited to be launching Grabyo Studio on transfer deadline day, one of the most important dates in the football calendar and a major social media event.  The real-time nature of our platform drives conversation by helping broadcasters publish live TV content onto these platforms faster than ever before. Broadcasters not only retain ownership of their content by releasing it before others, but also have the opportunity to monetise it with ads. We’re working with a number of broadcasters to launch real-time clip sharing on a wide variety of programmes in the coming months.”

The link up with SkySports is very cool.  They took the live feed from the broadcaster of all the action taking place at grounds around the country (with Jim White at the centre of it all of course).  The screenshot below shows how it looks to those behind-the-scenes as they are taking the content grab and placing on Twitter or Facebook or both.

It certainly pushed the digital boundaries and will have had a couple of big benefits.  1) They exposed themselves to a larger audience who may not have SkySports, in doing so pushed up interest and they would then aim for a rise in new subscriptions, 2) Opportunities for advertisers to get involved and thus create a new revenue stream.

I can see other broadcasters, brands and federations (who have the broadcast rights) using a service such as this.  It’s a big opportunity to offer quality, relevant and timely content to engage with fans using video their social media audiences.  This could be used in press conferences, games, training sessions, big match build up and much more ( for those could afford it).  This is just the start!

VIDEO: A busy day at #CPFC with a whole host of deals going through, and a few not quite making it. #SkyDeadlineDay https://t.co/tnUdKqLQQ7

— Sky Sports News HQ (@SkySportsNewsHQ) September 2, 2013

What do you think?  Did you follow it on Twitter?