Twittering the Super Bowl ads
If you're the kind of person who likes to watch football games with a laptop sitting beside the chicken wings and popcorn, then you may want to add Twitter to the party mix for today's Super Bowl.
But will you be watching the game, or the commercials? For some of the Twitter crowd -- as is true for many others watching the game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers -- the big deal will be the ads.
Hence, the 2009 Twitter Bowl, the second annual microblogged "conversation about Super Bowl ads," where participants will discuss and rate the ads by adding "#superbowlads" to their tweets.
Writes PR maven Brian Solis, who'll be involved in summing up the results:
This year, we've also rallied the support of Louis Gray, Guy Kawasaki, and Jesse Stay, founder of SocialToo. Since Twitter is rooted in public interaction and provides the ability to extend its functionality, I wanted to find a Twitter application that would allow us to not only monitor discussions and ratings related to #superbowlads, but also provide the ability to capture and present votes. This might be one of the biggest "social" focus groups to date...
Here's one response to an ad early in the game from automaker Hyundai, from Twitter user practicalwitch: "Um, my Hyundai doesn't look nearly as cool as the ones in these commercials. Can I get a ruling here?
Meanwhile, there seem to be a number of general Super Bowl threads at Twitter, including one from the NFL itself.
Jonathan Skillings is managing editor of CNET News, based in the Boston bureau. He's been with CNET since 2000, after a decade in tech journalism at the IDG News Service, PC Week, and an AS/400 magazine. He's also been a soldier and a schoolteacher. E-mail Jon. 
