This post is not about Superbowl ads, but rather how people watched, discussed and rated them...

Being that: 1) I live in London, 2) I don’t have a TV and 3) I don’t watch football (unless it’s with Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights), I was pretty out of the ad watch this year....

Anticipating that I’d wake up and YouTube the Superbowl ads and reviews (because that’s what really cool people do…) I was happy to see that Mullen and Radian6 had done some of the work for me, with BrandBowl 2010.

The BrandBowl site aggregated and analyzed tweets from thousands of people mentioning Super Bowl commercials (tagged as #BrandBowl) and translated them into a real-time, top-10 ranking of each brand’s popularity.  Where some people hash-tagged once or twice, others were involved in fast-paced, play by play advertising commentary.  

Some thoughts on BrandBowl behaviour and Twitter:

In reviewing the #Brandbowl conversation it’s crystal clear that Twitter’s search functionality could use a face lift.  And boob job.  And some botox.  I’d like to see a new hashtag-like trending tool for entire conversations, such as BrandBowl 2010, so that I can review tweets by timeline, person and shout outs (both during and after the event is over). 

Whether that’s in the form of a new platform altogether (which aggregates conversations), or acts as an extension on Twitter itself, I don’t care.  I just want an experience that allows me to filter through a discussion and pull out some main points, both during and after the fact. 

On a research level, I’m often at a loss scanning the Twittersphere, where I can only search back a few days.  Twitter is the ultimate real-time research tool and should be saved for both social and anthropological research, so that in another 5 years (or 5 months), the new “digital natives” can look back and ponder on how a little birdie changed the way we interact – not only with other people – but with programming. 

Hats off to Mullen for piggybacking on the “Oscars of Advertising” and flexing their social media muscles by demonstrating both creativity and success at harnessing a massive conversation.  In addition to creating and hosting this experience, they offered the last place finisher, Budwiser Select55, free creative services for next year's game.  Nice touch.

Do you agree in terms of reviewing the Twittersphere??

What do you think BrandBowl 2010 says about Twitter's power to connect communities???