‘Bangladesh’

Following the recent complete shutdown of the Internet in Egypt to curb political unrest, comes another ban on the use of Twitter. This time around the ban on Twitter seems a bit more legit. The ICC announced earlier this week that players will be prohibited from using Twitter during matches at the 2011 Cricket World Cup. The Cricket World Cup will be co-hosted by Bangladesh, India, and Sri-Lanka and will run from February 19 to the 2^nd of April 2011.

The ICC has decided to ban Tweeting by players and officials while playing matches to curb down on corruption involved. The risk of match fixing, which is associated with the large illegal betting network in India, is hoped to be minimized. Although one may not gamble in India, reports of wide spread betting on matches between Sri Lanka, Australia, Pakistan, and South Africa have made the rounds. To keep the game clean and minimize the possibility of a match official or player being lured into fixing a game while their team is playing, a total ban on the use of Twitter seems in order. The ICC has said that the ban is not on Twitter as such, but rather on the use of Twitter during games.

The call is not unfound since the Australian team manager; Steve Bernard is a regular tweeter during matches. The officials don’t even want a hint of match fixing or involvement in any bets by staff or players during the Cricket World Cup. Many players are known as regular tweeters and as such the concern by the ICC is not unjustified. Tweeting will still be allowed by players when their teams are not playing.

How Powerful Is Twitter?

The social media networks have been in the news on numerous occasions during the past two or three years and it is reported that Facebook has officially gained more visitors on one day earlier in this week than Google. Although not all Internet users have the same search skills and many don’t even use online banking and ecommerce facilities, they do use Facebook and Twitter extensively. It has become the gossip vine, just faster and perhaps also a bit more truthful.

The people of Egypt used Twitter to communicate with their friends and the world about events in Egypt and to air their dismay with the government. Twitter as a communication medium has proven to be rather effective in getting the attention of the Egypt government and the world. It has also been used in alleged match fixing and sport corruption. The immediate communication to large groups of people does seem to have an extreme amount of power. The ICC officials have thus made their choice based on past events involving Twitter and as such their decision is certainly justified.

Twitter Links South Africa To The World Cup Cricket Games

With not that many South Africans able to attend the World Cup Cricket games, Twitter will be a useful link to the events as they happen. The South Africans that will attend, will also be able to keep South African fans at home updated not only in terms of the matches, but also any interesting events during their stay in any of the host countries.

Twitter will thus be our link to the outside world. Just as powerful as Facebook can be, so is the immediate communication through Twitter. South Africans will be able to follow their team and ensure that they don’t miss anything of importance by following the Tweeters.

Is The Hype About Twitter Worth It?

With Twitter becoming the next hot trend in social connectivity, just about everyone and every event can now be followed. Just a quick search on the Internet regarding Twitter for Sport is needed to realise exactly how big the application has become. Twitter ensures full engagement of the crowds, to engagement of fans at home, joining of fans into a community, and it widens the sport audience. It is an inexpensive method of communication, which also spans all geographical boundaries.

ICC Website

South Africans that want updates and more information about various aspects of the World Cup 2011, will be glad to know that the ICC has a rather user-friendly website, packed with up to date information. The site which can be visited at http://icc-cricket.yahoo.net loads fast and features an easy to navigate menu linking to pages on the latest cricket news, match zone area which includes important ICC events, and a specific section on events where users can locate information on the ICC 2011 Cricket World Cup.

The ICC 2011 Cricket World Cup page is the page to visit if you want schedules of players and games, updates on scores, want to buy tickets, go mobile for cricket allowing you to get scores during the match, videos, games, and an online shop. With the website the ICC makes it possible for fans worldwide to stay up to date with the events at the World Cup in real-time. If you want to learn more about the teams, simply navigate to the Team section for a complete breakdown of all the teams, details about the players, rankings and top scorers. South Africans can also find information on upcoming matches and matches already played.

Gone are the days of having to wait for TV reporting and news articles to know what will happen at major events. The Internet has truly brought sport into the homes of fans world-wide. Fans can even get all the information on the go by connecting mobile. Even though the games will be played thousands of kilometres from home, the interactivity and communication brought about through the ICC website, in conjunction with usage of Twitter and Facebook enables fans to be participants in the events.

What Will The Implication Be Of A Twitter Ban During Games?

Fortunately players and staff who are not immediately involved in a game will still be able to tweet ensuring that the latest application in social networking can still be used to communicate with fans and the sport community. As such other than preventing game corruption and game fixing to suit bests, fans will still be able to use Twitter to the fullest.

From the moment it was announced that South Africa would be hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup the world has been completely abuzz, especially as this was set to be the first time this prestigious sports event was going to take place on African soil. There was another factor that was sure to set this world cup apart from its predecessors though. While the 2006 FIFA World Cup was relegated more towards television media coverage, the 2010 world cup definitely enjoyed a dramatic change as millions of fans turned to the World Wide Web for their full spectrum of world cup news.

As expected Google was at the forefront of keeping a watchful eye on the global search trends as the world cup was nearing. Up to now the results proved to be quite surprising with Botswana, Bangladesh, South Africa, Fiji and Nepal leading the way as the countries doing the most searches over the last 12 months for key phrases such as “FIFA world cup schedule”, “2010 world cup” and other related queries. As far as stars go the one that soon stood out the most was in fact the vuvuzela. Yes, this ubiquitous – and controversial – horn blew its way to the top of the searches, nearly overtaking the official song of the 2010 World Cup, Waka Waka by Shakira.

Apart from the vuvuzela there have been a number of controversies cropping up throughout the world cup which of course sparked a rise in searches. On the 18th of June, for example, the search volume for “world cup referees” surged after a Slovenian goal was disallowed by a controversial offside call during their game against the USA, one that hugely affected their fate within the tournament. As far as participating teams and individual players go the French was sure to make things interesting both online and off. Searches for “Thierry Henry handball” increased as well as “refusal to train” and “anelka” when the French player Nicolas Anelka had to go back home after he insulted the team’s coach.

While the world cup has been providing us with much entertainment, it also attracted cybercriminals, as usual, with their profiteering schemes to pull a fast one on unsuspected fans. In January 2009 these online criminals had their first run with a tried-and-tested technique in which a 2010 FIFA spam led recipients to believe that they had won an online sweepstakes draw. This was soon followed by two separate spam runs leveraging the upcoming world cup. While the one spam sample came with a .DOC file attachment, the second included a .PDF file attachment. The purpose of both these spam emails were to get recipients to open these attachments which would promise great winnings at the price of divulging personally identifiable information (PII).

Social networking sites on the other hand have been pulling out all the stops to reach fans in all four corners of the world with Twitter launching a whole new website solely for the FIFA World Cup and Facebook creating a new page called “Goal Leaderboard”. With the latter the purpose isn’t so much to track the actual goals scored throughout the tournament but to rather keep tabs on the popularity of the participating teams according to Facebook users.

Lastly but most importantly there is the official FIFA website. On this all-encompassing website fans are able to get all kinds of facts, figures and information, from your favourite player’s birthday to photos of yesteryear’s tournaments. As this sports event also draws the biggest crowds FIFA was able to help direct spectators to book their international- and domestic flights, find accommodation in all major cities in South Africa, rent a car, and of course how to buy tickets for the games.

When the tournament officially kicked off on the 11th of June, 2010, every fan around the world was glued to the screen. The celebrations began… and so did the anticipation as to how well your favourite team was going to perform. To ensure that people always stayed up to date FIFA.com teamed up with Google. Even if you do a simple search for the term “World Cup” you will be provided with the latest scores as well as the dates and time of upcoming matches at the top of the search results page. There are also a number of gadgets made available by Google like their Chrome extension where you can get a live feed of tournament’s results. With all this said and done though one can only wonder what is in store for the 2014 FIFA World Cup which will be hosted in Brazil. As the 20th World Cup it will be sure to be an even bigger celebration than before, and with it one can only imagine that it will be bring along a whole new bundle of online features to keep us on the edge of our seat as our teams set foot on the field. We simply can’t wait!