WWE's love of social media sites is paying off. Eight months ago, WWE entered into a partnership with YouTube for a channel with exclusive video content in return for a several million dollar advance. Now their popularity on Twitter is paying dividends too, as they've hooked up with the site to develop new expanded tweets, probably for a similar fee:
Starting today, you can discover more interactive experiences inside any Tweet on twitter.com and mobile.twitter.com. When you expand Tweets containing links to partner websites, you can now see content previews, view images, play videos and more.
You've probably expanded Tweets before to play videos from YouTube or see photos from Instagram. Now, a diverse and growing group of new partners like the The Wall Street Journal, Breaking News, and TIME also deliver rich content inside Tweets containing a link to those websites.
It's easier than ever to discover breaking news and bylines. When you expand a Tweet linking to a news article by The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle or Der Spiegel Online, you can see a preview with the headline, the introduction and sometimes the Twitter accounts of the publisher and writer. You can continue to read the article, follow these accounts, and reply, favorite or retweet the Tweet.
You can also see exclusive photos from inside the WWE ring, or images from sources like BuzzFeed and TMZ.
This sounds like a great opportunity for WWE to get their foot in the door with a popular platform that is trying to monetize its content and to be at the cutting edge of modern technology. Maybe a partnership with facebook will be next?
Perhaps the only drawback is that with this deal WWE may go back to the dark days where they went overboard with the onscreen Twitter hype. Though it now provides them with another supplemental income and is a useful tool to promote their merchandise and flesh out their storylines, it is no substitute for a compelling television product, which is what sells them pay-per-views and gives them their largest rights fees.
What do you think Cagesiders, will you be interested in this convenient new method to follow the goings on at WWE or will you give it a miss?