Twitter takes the Tour de France on new course

Posted by Bill on Jul 17, 2009 in MeshBlog | 0 comments

CNET looks at how Twitter has changed how fans can follow the Tour de France:

In the not-so-distant past, the only way to follow the Tour de France was through TV, newspapers, or radio. People in the U.S. (lucky enough to have cable) would wake up before dawn to watch the race in real time. Then came the Internet, which made stats and information on the race course and teams more readily available. Technology continued to expand, and last year the big advance was Google’s Street View of the race.

But, now there’s Twitter, which takes it to a whole other level. No longer are riders’ recaps spliced into packaged sound bites, or multi-bike crashes simply breezed by and forgotten. From wind resistance to inside jokes, the kind of information fans can get has broadened as dozens of cyclists tweet their views and thoughts throughout the course of each day.

From a social media perspective, it’s worth nothing that one of the photos illustrating the story was provided by a fan via Flickr, the online photo-sharing site, not a professional photographer.