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Does the Indy 500 'get' social media?
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IndianapolisMotorSpeedway.com
With the 93rd Indianapolis 500 happening next Sunday, I figured that it was "now or never" for a review of social media associated with the Centennial Era of the venerable motorsports event.
The short answer to the question posed in the headline is "sorta".
Before I give you my long answer, let me preface my review with a disclosure that I am NOT much of a race fan (believe it or not, such folks DO live in Indianapolis! :-) Therefore, you should realize my "limitations" and I do recognize that I might be overlooking some social media features associated with the event, but of course, I am certainly qualified to evaluate social media!
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) has featured the social media aspects of this year's race. They include a Facebook page and a Twitter account affiliated with the Speedway. Notably, a number of the IndyCar drivers and teams have a Facebook presence and/or Twitter account. While watching the tweetstream today (rather than watching the last day of qualifications), I was struck that IMS is missing a golden opportunity because it does NOT seem to be engaging its fans very actively and on its Facebook feed, it isn't doing much better. Therefore, I have to conclude that the Indy 500 doesn't really "get" social media!
To help out, I have "thrown together" an Indy 500 social media presence similar to the one that I'm building for "Indy Social Media" that leverages social media aggregation services fed by user-generated content, e.g. Flickr photos and Delicious bookmarks. I have also included some aspects of the Twitter timeline, including the drivers' tweets. Unlike Indy Social Media, I have just put this together for the sake of demonstrating how we might get a better feel for what is happening in the social graph associated with this significant event. An even "rougher" mobile-friendly version is at http://m.indy500info.info
Let me know what you think of it and I hope that it helps the social media-savvy Indy 500 fans to get more out of their festivities during the coming week. I hope that it also helps the Indy 500 to "get" social media!
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