Post by QPR Report on Mar 1, 2009 15:44:47 GMT
The Observer -
Facebook for athletes: a guide
Social networking is having disastrous consequences for sportsmen. Here are OSM's tips...
* Tom Lamont - * The Observer, Sunday 1 March 2009
Take particular care over status updates. These are announcements of activity, usually very literal ("Jenny is using her computer"), often illiterate ("Dave is finking abot going on holyday"). Footballer Ashley-Paul Robinson revealed last year - "Ashley-Paul Is Travling 2 Bath With Fulham" - that he intended to train with Fulham, despite being contracted to Crystal Palace. Almost 3 million people received the update, including bosses at Palace. "It's probably better that he looks elsewhere to further his career," said manager Neil Warnock. "Ashley-Paul has been very naughty" is how the player updated his page. He now plays for Conference South side Bromley.
A useful Facebook feature is the ability to upload pictures, but select them carefully. Pictures of yourself cuddling a pet are fine; pictures of you hovering over a drunk and unconscious man whom you have covered in felt-tip shmekele es and swastikas are not. American football cheerleader Caitlin Davis was fired by the New England Patriots last year after snaps of her in just such a scenario were found on Facebook (she later complained that she had posed next to the sleeping man, on whom it had also been penned "I love cock", because she "found it humorous how badly he was drawn on").
Embarrassing, if not career-ending, pictures should be filtered out. Last April, snaps of swimmer Stephanie Rice dressed as a naughty policewoman made it into the Aussie tabloids after being uploaded to Facebook, and Swimming Australia promptly issued a lockdown on the social networking activities of its athletes. (The country's women's hockey board should probably have done the same: in Beijing, Australian hockey player Nikki Hudson was forced to apologise after announcing on Facebook that she would like to be "impaled" by members of the Spanish men's team.)
With Jadene Bircham in mind, it is tempting to recommend that people in sport avoid joining groups; Jadene, wife of former QPR and Yeovil footballer Marc Bircham, was branded a racist after joining a Facebook group called "If you don't like England then F*** off back to where you came from". ("I'm going to be leaving the group," promised Jadene when the tabloid press picked up the story last year. "I didn't even like it.") But the case of Bryan Gunn, recently installed as manager of Norwich City, offers a happier perspective. He got the job in February, shortly after his daughter Melissa had launched a group called "Bryan Gunn for manager". It was joined by nearly 3,000 people, and Gunn later said he'd buy Melissa a car in thanks.
The selection of relationship status can be tricky. Ask Sunderland striker Michael Chopra, who discovered in February that his seven-month marriage to wife Heather was over when she changed hers from "married" to "single". He cancelled her phone contract and changed his page to announce: "Heather will have a new number tomorrow, ha ha."
Experiencing the reverse problem, Roma midfielder Alberto Aquilani listed himself as "single" on Facebook last year. "No, my dear Alberto," wrote girlfriend Michela on his page, "you are very much in a relationship with me."
Private messages enable users to keep in touch away from prying eyes - or at least that's the idea. Boston Celtics basketball player Gabe Pruitt thought he was communicating privately with an amorous girl called Victoria in 2006. Then a student at USC in California, Pruitt wooed Victoria for weeks before discovering that she was the creation of pranksters from rival university Berkeley. Pruitt was playing at Berkeley when the crowd began passing around transcripts of the seduction ("I want to c u so bad..."), then chanting the girl's name and Pruitt's phone number. He performed terribly and his team lost.
Finally, there is the thorny issue of Facebook friends - a very public barometer of how popular you are as an athlete. Since becoming an Olympic superhero last summer, Michael Phelps has garnered 1.9 million Facebook friends (and that recent dalliance with a college honk pipe isn't likely to have harmed his allure). You'll never out-friend him, so don't even try.
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/mar/01/facebook-athletes-social-networking
Facebook for athletes: a guide
Social networking is having disastrous consequences for sportsmen. Here are OSM's tips...
* Tom Lamont - * The Observer, Sunday 1 March 2009
Take particular care over status updates. These are announcements of activity, usually very literal ("Jenny is using her computer"), often illiterate ("Dave is finking abot going on holyday"). Footballer Ashley-Paul Robinson revealed last year - "Ashley-Paul Is Travling 2 Bath With Fulham" - that he intended to train with Fulham, despite being contracted to Crystal Palace. Almost 3 million people received the update, including bosses at Palace. "It's probably better that he looks elsewhere to further his career," said manager Neil Warnock. "Ashley-Paul has been very naughty" is how the player updated his page. He now plays for Conference South side Bromley.
A useful Facebook feature is the ability to upload pictures, but select them carefully. Pictures of yourself cuddling a pet are fine; pictures of you hovering over a drunk and unconscious man whom you have covered in felt-tip shmekele es and swastikas are not. American football cheerleader Caitlin Davis was fired by the New England Patriots last year after snaps of her in just such a scenario were found on Facebook (she later complained that she had posed next to the sleeping man, on whom it had also been penned "I love cock", because she "found it humorous how badly he was drawn on").
Embarrassing, if not career-ending, pictures should be filtered out. Last April, snaps of swimmer Stephanie Rice dressed as a naughty policewoman made it into the Aussie tabloids after being uploaded to Facebook, and Swimming Australia promptly issued a lockdown on the social networking activities of its athletes. (The country's women's hockey board should probably have done the same: in Beijing, Australian hockey player Nikki Hudson was forced to apologise after announcing on Facebook that she would like to be "impaled" by members of the Spanish men's team.)
With Jadene Bircham in mind, it is tempting to recommend that people in sport avoid joining groups; Jadene, wife of former QPR and Yeovil footballer Marc Bircham, was branded a racist after joining a Facebook group called "If you don't like England then F*** off back to where you came from". ("I'm going to be leaving the group," promised Jadene when the tabloid press picked up the story last year. "I didn't even like it.") But the case of Bryan Gunn, recently installed as manager of Norwich City, offers a happier perspective. He got the job in February, shortly after his daughter Melissa had launched a group called "Bryan Gunn for manager". It was joined by nearly 3,000 people, and Gunn later said he'd buy Melissa a car in thanks.
The selection of relationship status can be tricky. Ask Sunderland striker Michael Chopra, who discovered in February that his seven-month marriage to wife Heather was over when she changed hers from "married" to "single". He cancelled her phone contract and changed his page to announce: "Heather will have a new number tomorrow, ha ha."
Experiencing the reverse problem, Roma midfielder Alberto Aquilani listed himself as "single" on Facebook last year. "No, my dear Alberto," wrote girlfriend Michela on his page, "you are very much in a relationship with me."
Private messages enable users to keep in touch away from prying eyes - or at least that's the idea. Boston Celtics basketball player Gabe Pruitt thought he was communicating privately with an amorous girl called Victoria in 2006. Then a student at USC in California, Pruitt wooed Victoria for weeks before discovering that she was the creation of pranksters from rival university Berkeley. Pruitt was playing at Berkeley when the crowd began passing around transcripts of the seduction ("I want to c u so bad..."), then chanting the girl's name and Pruitt's phone number. He performed terribly and his team lost.
Finally, there is the thorny issue of Facebook friends - a very public barometer of how popular you are as an athlete. Since becoming an Olympic superhero last summer, Michael Phelps has garnered 1.9 million Facebook friends (and that recent dalliance with a college honk pipe isn't likely to have harmed his allure). You'll never out-friend him, so don't even try.
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/mar/01/facebook-athletes-social-networking