KOLKATA: Microblogging site Twitter has added a couple of new features to create a more interactive experience for the platform’s users this cricket season for. Among the new features, Spaces, the social media giant’s new Clubhouse like feature, has generated a great deal of buzz among Tweeple.
With cricket being such a huge passion point on Twitter, teams have already started making the most of Spaces to connect with and engage fans on the service. Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) recently hosted a Twitter Space with Zaheer Khan (@ImZaheer) – #TwitterSpaceWithZak – becoming the first sports club in the country to do so. The Space had Zaheer interacting with fans and sharing plans for the upcoming season.
Twitter has launched eight new jersey emojis for all the teams in English and six Indic languages. Fans can simply tweet with the team hashtags to unlock these emojis and participate in live conversations. Here are some of the hashtags that will unlock the team emojis: #IPL2021, #MumbaiIndians, #OneFamily, #WhistlePodu, #விசில்போடு, #WeAreChallengers, #HallaBol, #RoyalsFamily, #PunjabKings, #SaddaPunjab, #KKRHaiTaiyaar, #KorboLorboJeetbo, #YehHaiNayiDilli, #OrangeArmy, and more.
Topics allow people to follow conversations on specific subjects. Using machine learning, Topics pull out related tweets on a subject, letting people follow numerous interest categories. When you follow a Topic, you will see tweets from a number of accounts – whether you follow them or not – on the shared interest. Last year, Twitter introduced several Topics for cricket – one for the series and several others for all of the teams - so people can stay up-to-date with all conversations around cricket.
Additionally, there are Twitter Lists - a compilation of Twitter accounts, which lets people put together their favourite accounts to follow for tweets on a specific subject and populate a separate timeline for the List.
Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals will be hosting live shows to bring fans closer together. The shows will involve commentary and watching the game virtually along with a select group of fans every match day. Whereas, ESPN Cricinfo (@CricinfoHindi) will be sharing Hindi videos this season from their new Hindi handle.
