From the Sidelines: Twitter could improve Times’ sports coverage

Published 11:31 am Thursday, August 6, 2009

Technology has made yet another undeniable impression upon the sports media landscape. The arrival of Twitter and its subsequent embracing by professional athletes has led to a number seemingly frivolous stories over the last several months.

We’ve been privy to what Terrell Owens said about Tony Romo and what Chad Ochocinco said about wanting out of Cincinnati. And while those occurrences and their impact on major sports media are silly, Twitter does offer a lot of really great things for the sports fan if used properly. Here at The Demopolis Times, we hope to do just that.

Have you ever been at one high school game and wondered about the score of another? Maybe you’re at the concession stand and hear someone behind you asking about another score. Or maybe you are just at home sick or out of town on business and couldn’t make the Demopolis game.

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Well, Twitter affords us the opportunity to keep you updated.

This fall, our Twitter followers will receive score updates and other pertinent information from the games at which we have reporters. We will also relay other scores as we hear them. And at the end of the night, we’ll tweet all of the local scores.

So how does it work? Well, it is simple. And best of all, it is free.

Just go to Twitter.com to sign up. You will be prompted to create a user name and password. Your account will need to be linked to an e-mail address so that you can receive updates.

Once you are signed up, search for DTSportsGuy. After you’ve found us, click “follow.” Doing that will get you e-mail updates.

If you would like updates sent to your cell phone or mobile device, you can do that too. You will first need to go to your account settings and link up your Twitter account with your mobile number. Click to turn device updates on and then send a text message from your phone to 40404.

If you are all set up to receive device updates, hop back on over to the DTSportsGuy and click “Device updates ON” underneath the profile picture. That gets you all set. Now, standard text messaging rates do apply. So if you have an unlimited texting plan, then receiving tweets (the name given to messages relay via Twitter) will cost you nothing at all.

We will also send out other headlines and breaking news as it becomes available. You should also note that we offer Twitter updates on the news side of the house as well. You can receive those by going through the same process under the DemopolisTimes profile.

So check out Twitter and let us put the local scores and information right at your fingertips this season.