Football comes to Twitter through Fifa app

by Elizabeth Clifford-Marsh, revolutionmagazine.com 15-Oct-09, 12:20

LONDON - EA Sports has launched Fifa Earth, an app that aggregates Fifa data with real-time Twitter conversations, giving football fans yet another way to interact.

The beta release of Fifa Earth is part of Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam's 'How Big Can Football Get' campaign for Fifa10.

The site uses data driven by an estimated two million Fifa10 games played each day, encouraging players to share their opinions, passions, and dedication for their team.

Fifa Earth uses data from Twitter, tapping into tweet mentioning keywords or hashtags such as goals, football, soccer and uses geotagging, to show how the world talks about and plays both real and virtual football.

EA also aggregates game score from Fif10 matches, creating a live interactive competition. The better a user plays in Fifa10, the higher the team's ranking on Fifa Earth.

Joakim Borgström, creative director at W+K said addiontal functionality will be added to the site in the run-up to the next World Cup.

"We want to take this opportunity to really blur the lines between real and online gaming. Not only will we see the ‘real' team winners, but let the football fans show their team pride and player loyalty with who really is the biggest star in the football gaming universe," he said.

EA Sports is considering making the site into a more interactive social platform including competitions, community features and news. It will start to draw from a broader selection of digital news partners such as the clubs, news broadcasters, blogs, and social networks, to present an even more substantial live update of the new football world.