Twitter Is Nothin' but Trouble

It’s a craze that has captured the inhabitants of the sports terrain.

Athletes have fully embraced the new social media and now the bulk of athletes have an account. Shaq introduced me to this phenomenon waaay back in November. At the time somebody had been using Shaq’s name in his account and was saying un-Shaq like material.

So the Big Aristotle or Cactus or whatever he calls himself decided to set the record straight and create his own profile. The_real_shaq was born. Now he has plenty of company.

Not a day goes by in the summer of 2009 where the words “twitter” or “tweet” isn’t uttered by a sportscaster or writer. From the athletes perspective it is a great self-marketing tool, a terrific way to get out the real story. Too many times sports figures claim the media is miss-quoting or fabricating information about them.

Sounds good in theory.

But the problem is that it has become a case of too much information. Do you care what Chad OchoCinco had for breakfast (child please!)? Do you care that Lance Armstrong ran into the Austin mayor at dinner? Or that Baron Davis enjoyed a Beyonce concert?

More often than not the info is completely useless. And recently a lot of players have been getting in trouble through Twitter. Kevin Love of the Timberwolves broke the news that coach Kevin McHale was fired the day before Minnesota made an announcement. Whoops that’s a fine.

Charlie Villanueva caught some heat for tweeting during HALFTIME of a NBA regular season game. Sure sounds like he’s focused on winning. Have fun with the Rasheed Wallace clone Detroit!

J.R. Smith just shut his Twitter account down after speculation he was tweeting gang related talk. The controversy is due to the way he’s presenting some of his posts — spelling words with a “k” in place of a “c,” or removing the “c” altogether, which is commonly associated with the Bloods street gang. Doesn’t he play for a team with BLUE JERSEYS???

San Diego Chargers Antonio Cromartie was just fined $2,500 for using Twitter to complain about the food served at their training camp. Sources say the tweet associated the food quality with the Charger’s failure to reach the Super Bowl the past few seasons.

After hearing about the fining, Kawika Mitchell of the Bills defended Cromartie in his “tweet”: “It’s bullsh!t that the league is scared of twitter. We have opinions. We sit back and listen to all the bullsh!t media, coaches and fans have to say, so if the chargers food sucks. It sucks. Please! B mad at real sh!t.”

Numerous NFL teams have now banned them from using the site.

But the athletes aren’t the only tweeters catching heat from a higher power. In an attempt to contain its employees “worldwide” power ESPN laid the hammer down on NBA beat writer Ric Bucher. He had some “informal” thoughts on the NBA and got busted.

“The hammer just came down, tweeps: ESPN memo prohibiting tweeting info unless it serves ESPN. Kinda figured this was coming. Not sure what this means”.

Even when you're not working, you're still part of the World Wide Leader.

I am curious how long twitter will survive amongst celebrities and athletes, as it appears to be the root of recent problems for athletes who do not hold back their personal opinions and feelings.

Twitter lends itself to quick thoughts, quick reactions.

For some athletes, that might not be a good idea. Social networking like Twitter and Facebook have followers who will be willing to pounce on anything an athlete does.

Everyone -- non-athletes, too -- has to remember that anything that goes out over Twitter or Facebook is public domain and can go to anyone, even people who are not followers or friends.

Schools have started using Twitter and Facebook to recruit athletes. Or find out information about them. The social networks are not the best way to keep track of people. Stalkers unite.

Beware athletes, this problem will only grow worse.