A new feature from Facebook looks to harness the power of real-time and bring folks together through sporting events.
“Facebook Sports Stadium” is a new place where uses can experience live sporting events in real time together online. Instead of the traditional Facebook post and follow-up commenting, users will be able to communicate on specific plays, see expert opinions and view comprehensive game details.
Within the Sports Stadium, a unique navigation exists at the top of the screen. There is a specific match-up tab geared for play-by-play info that allows users to comment, like or share gameplay. A “Friends” tab lets users see their friends who are talking about the game. Users can click on the “Experts” tab for verified sports talk by experts, and the stats tab gives users the traditional ESPN/NFL style app experience.
The key behind Sports Stadium is that it is very much an organic Facebook experience. Outside of importing additional details and stats, this new experience helps to bring users already talking about an event to a centralized location for real-time talk.
Real-time has been the one source where Facebook has lagged behind Twitter. With so much segmentation across posts from profiles and pages, having meaningful live conversations on Facebook has been difficult. Sports Stadium looks to address these issues and do so in a way that’s repeatable for other non-sporting events.
If successful, this technology could help with similar events, such as award shows, elections and TV series.
Facebook Sports Stadium launches today, just in-time for NFL Championship weekend. You can find it by searching for “Sports Stadium” in Facebook. For more information, see the official post from Facebook.
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