Gathering the Clouds

Gathering the Clouds is a weekly entry that scours the web bringing together the most important links on sports and social media.

• Maria Burns Ortiz (quickly becoming one of my favorite writers on sports and social media) has a piece on professional sports league's social media policies and the important differences between them. It goes on to list the biggest offenders of the social media policy for each league. Biggest loser: University of Idaho basketball player Kashif Watson who was suspended indefinitely. 
• After another tough loss, this time to the Detroit Lions, Cowboys QB Tony Romo needed a little comforting. Good thing Dirk Nowitzki is there for Tony with a tissue and a tweet.
• Article by Jason Peck about fans checking into MLB stadiums using foursquare, Facebook Places, and Gowalla. I honestly have not cared about sites like foursquare that have fans "check in" to places to share to their network they are at the stadium or bar watching their team... but I can't ignore it, especially if the incentives to "check in" get richer and richer.

Should Sports Teams Move to Google+?

So I've blogged about Facebook and Twitter, but there is a huge elephant in the room that can't be ignored: Google+.

No sports teams have moved onto Google+ yet, but the shift will happen soon. Google+ is putting into motion "Entities" which are basically brand profiles onto Google+. Google+ has exploded in its initial launch, but will not get any traction until they can make these Entities pages. But, watch out Facebook, once this gets going, you know Sports Teams will be all over that. The elephant is about to be released.

The Next Twitter Revolution: Connect with Jets

The NY Jets have launched Connect with Jets that allows fans to connect to all Jets players including Mark Sanchez, Derrell Revis, and the NY Jets official Twitter account.

With just one click, you can immediately get all the Twitter accounts for a team. Good money says all NFL teams with have this technology by the end of the season. Just brillant social media marketing.