WSJ taunts the NFL with couch-based live-blogging

Filed under: Web services, Social Software, web 2.0, Web, Microblogging

At the end of August, the NFL decided to institute a number of rules prohibiting the use of social media by teams and referees on match day - as well as rules that banned the media from providing live play-by-play coverage of matches.

As was pointed out at the time, the rules are easily imposed on officially-sanctioned media reps at matches - but what's to stop the average Joe in the stands updating Twitter or their blog as the match goes on, or mainstream media who want to provide play-by-play coverage online by sitting on their couch at home and blogging? That's exactly what the Wall Street Journal's Peter Sanders did in the recent New York Jets / Tennessee Titans match.

Of course, the NFL is simply working to protect its lucrative television revenue deals (and, ironically, the couch-based writer is part of that revenue stream), however the crackdown on live-blogging certainly seems futile given that only forces the hand of bonafide media at matches - and the NFL certainly can't control or crack down on every Twitter user sat watching a match and sharing scores...

[Via TechDirt]

WSJ taunts the NFL with couch-based live-blogging originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 04 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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