Ever since July 1st, the nation has been glued to the media in hopes of Free Agency confirmations, specifically regarding NBA superstar LeBron James. Although I am not a big fan of basketball, I have been sucked into the excitement and curiosity of the Free Agency buzz. With gossip and news spouting from every source, everyone has been on high alert for more regarding what was dubbed as "The Decision". However, it was the sudden use of Twitter that quickly created a LeBron James epidemic that became impossible to escape.   

Timing is everything; and that could not have been any more correct when it came to LeBron James' decision to join the Twitterverse. The "King of Akron" who has previously steered clear of the social web, made a splash by joining Twitter with the handle @KingJames on July 6, merely five days after becoming a free agent and one day after trending across the Twitter platform with a paid advertisement. NBA star and friend, Chris Paul, announced the arrival of LeBron to the Twittersphere, by tweeting it (of course), causing mass re-tweets and an overall hysteria in the sports world. Did LeBron join Twitter to announce where he would be playing next season? Would he drop hints as to where he might end up? Was it just a big PR stunt to create buzz? News channels helped spread the story like wildfire, leaving unanswered questions murmuring throughout the media landscape.

James' list of followers surged to an incredible 25,000 in just one hour after Chris Paul's announcement - even before a single tweet was posted on the @KingJames Twitter page. In the following seven hours, that number shot up to over 150,000 followers. This surpassed Twitter superstars such as Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears who took weeks to reach similar numbers.

James made his official entrance with his first tweet, "Hello World, the Real King James is in the Building 'Finally'. My Brother @oneandonlycp3 gas'd me up to jump on board so I'm here. Haaaa".

As is bound to happen with all major Twitter accounts and news stories, fake LeBron James pages popped up all over the web - most namely, @LeBronJamesEgo, with over 311,000 followers in just 24 hours. This page has been used to continuously poke sarcastic jabs at LeBron James and the hysteria surrounding his free agency and decision, much like @BPGlobalPR has done throughout BP's Oil Spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.

After less than a day on Twitter, LeBron's publicist confirmed that he would not be posting "The Decision" on his Twitter account, but rather with a one-hour special on ESPN. The formal television decision surprised many who expected the new-found Twitter fame to be a prime court for James' announcement. However, LeBron tweeted the morning of his big decision, that he would be answering questions from Twitter during his ESPN special. The integration with his massive Twitter following would come through use of the hashtag #lebrondecision.

With all eyes on "The King" - who is undoubtedly looking for that championship ring wherever he has considered playing - the timing of his announcements during this crucial time have been vital to his popularity and career. Rather than appealing simply to his hometown of Akron, Ohio and hopeful Cleveland Cavaliers fans, James encouraged fans from major cities all over the US to follow his every move (and tweet) to know if he could have brought the national title to their doorsteps. The unprecedented uproar from fans has presented James' camp with opportunities to integrate fans (and bandwagon fans) of all ages across many platforms.

On the night of July 8, LeBron's long awaited decision came, as promised, with hoards of media attention. James chose to sign a contract with the Miami Heat to join fellow NBA superstars Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. Eager and confident Miami Heat fans used Twitter and other internet outlets to tease the rest of the nation as their team builds on its already-existing star power. Meanwhile, this formation of what seems to be an unstoppable trifecta immediately upset anxiety-ridden fans all over the nation. Cleveland fans cursed James for his lack of loyalty and slathered derogatory remarks all over Twitter for abandoning his home team. Many posted photos and videos of James jerseys being set on fire and defamed in just about every way imaginable. Other eligible cities commiserated for not becoming the "chosen ones" and criticized his coward move to follow the leaders. The presence on Twitter and other social media outlets was inundated with the good, the bad and the ugly all aimed at LeBron James.

While "The King" and his camp deserve praise for their incredible PR feats and the LeBron James microcosm that they have so tactfully created, the work won't end now that the announcement has been made. If we think that the buzz was too much to handle a mere hours before his official announcement, the boundaries are now endless that our knowledge has been quenched. Expect LeBron to be a trending topic across the nation for days to come, with endless retweets and mentions from opinionated basketball fans and those caught up in the excitement of free agency. As LeBron continues to dominate the Twittersphere with no end in sight, the real question is, will his basketball legend mirror that of his recent social media title?





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As technology and social networks grow faster by the second, it gets more and more difficult to keep up with every update. "Content curation," or the input of internet content at faster rates than it can be consumed, is a legitimate concern right now for many online users. YouTube statistics reveal that 24 hours of video is being uploaded per minute; Twitter is now reporting 50 million Tweets per day; Facebook statuses are updated 60 million times per day. With social updates occurring constantly, it's no wonder that we can't keep up with our friends, let alone world news or current events. 

Being named "the Web's biggest challenge in recent years," content curation reveals the changing ways in which consumers search out and react to information. It also brings up some important concerns. Are there drawbacks to this overflow? And are we equipping ourselves in the right ways to handle this massive quantity of information? How do we determine what's relevant?

As social media junkies, we can see the benefits to continuous and perpetual streams of information. We eat it up as each new story comes; however, the average user does not have the time or patience to spend paging through each link or story to find exactly what they are looking for. In a world where time is of the essence, everybody must realize that the inundation of haphazard online content is going to keep growing and it's up to each of us to moderate web intake. But how? In a perfect world, we would want to combine efficiency, personalization and relevance as it relates to the news and information we find online. But that's much easier said than done. 

Enter Digg.com.

Over time, social voting website, Digg.com, has become a staple for technology lovers to find the latest and greatest, most relevant stories to hit the web. Recently, the site revealed its plans to begin filtering Facebook and Twitter links through a personalized home page based on the activities of friends. Coming in the near future, Digg will let you sign in using any of your existing social network accounts and allow viewers to "Digg" stories without even logging in at all. With the plan to not only share links and updates from social networks (and the usual Digg stories), but rank them as well, there is no telling how this re-positioning can enhance the relevance of Digg to web users.

By combining pertinent news, high-interest statuses, updates and photos of social network friends all in one place, Digg may have uncovered the cure to content curation. The not-so-easy fix of efficiency, personalization and relevance may come together, but we all know how unpredictable the internet can be. Related platforms like Google Wave and Flavors.me have also attempted to guide users toward a single location for all their social networking and content needs, but in many ways have ended with lukewarm results and little widespread knowledge. 

Until we know how successful the Digg undertaking may be, we will continue to take the heaps of internet content as it comes and try to stay sane in the process.

Image Source: http://langwitches.org

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