Affinitive’s Social Media Playground

Like countless others, I’ve been glued to my TV for the past few days absorbing all of the Olympics action, from the opening ceremonies to the drama of the women’s snowboard cross final. At first it was fun watching the Twitterverse provide funny side commentary via the #Olympics hashtag (even I’m guilty of posting a few tweets during the opening ceremonies, hoping that the Canadian band Rush would perform along with their laser show).

However, the opening ceremonies were the last thing I watched “live.” Because I’m at work while many of the events are happening, I’ve made a habit of recording all Olympics coverage on my DVR, then camping out on my couch for a few hours each evening before bed to catch up on the day’s happenings. In addition to skipping commercials, I’ll skim through the less-exciting parts of events such as the biathlon (will skip most of the cross-country skiing sections, but will watch the shooting!).

But, for me, watching the Olympics has been somewhat bittersweet. No matter how much effort I make to avoid finding out any results in advance, I somehow keep getting spoilers, mainly because a good part of my workday is spent interacting online. It seems like just as I tune out one information spigot, another one leaks:

• Twitter/Facebook: The usual suspects. It goes beyond just monitoring the #olympics hashtag.
• News: I frequently access CNN and ESPN during the day to stay on top of the news, but when I see a headline on the homepage that says “Miller takes bronze in downhill,” it’s a bit of a buzzkill for the evening.
• Mobile: Mostly related to international soccer matches we might get on delay here, but I’ve gotten text message spoilers from friends with game scores/congratulations/condolences. I’m a big fan of the official Olympics iPhone app (I’ve been using the app to check out the schedules), but the other day came across the real-time results of the men’s snowboard cross (another buzzkill).

It’s forced me to take a self-imposed “Social Media Blackout” during the day (i.e., I’ll only check in during the morning when I know there are no events in progress, or, only push out messages from my phone so I can avoid seeing any conversation).

There are several ways that a person will encounter programming in a time-shifted manner:

• Consumer Time Shifting: People elect to manually record programming (DVR, VCR) to watch at a later time, at their convenience.
• Network Tape Delay: TV network determines that certain content will air at a later time, e.g., moving the men’s downhill finals to prime time.
• Location: People in later time zones are forced to watch network time-shifted programming so it falls in prime time (e.g., can’t air “Lost” at 5 p.m. PST).

While problem #1 is self-imposed by a person, they have no control over problems #2 or #3 (that’s the fault of the TV networks).

Therein lies the paradox. We live in a time-shifted world, yet we are getting our information in an increasingly real-time manner.

The repercussions go well beyond the Olympics, as this essentially impacts *all* entertainment we watch on TV (awards shows, “Lost,” sport events, etc.). In an effort to avoid spoilers, people will be forced to take self-imposed social media blackouts until they have watched their time-shifted entertainment. And for sports in particular, there will be repercussions to the networks, since the fact is, consumers will be less likely to tune in to something if they already know the result.

So, how can we prepare/deal with this problem? “Time delay” filters on Twitter and Facebook that will stagger tweets/posts from your east coast friends by three hours? “Hide results” options on sports news sites?

Please share your suggestions below!