'HouseCast 12: Kathleen Hessert Talks SportsCenter Blog Buzz, Athlete Tweets

The FanHouse Podcast: Because bloggers are much sexier on the phone.

Kathleen Hessert, the President of Sports Media Challenge, had a vision in 2004 of a technologically superior method of determining the "buzz" surrounding a particular athlete, organization or team. It finally came to full-on fruition this past week when ESPN began running their "Blog Buzz" segments during the morning SportsCenter.

Perhaps even more impressively, Kathleen is also responsible for bringing Shaquille O'Neal into the world of Twitter. And she was kind enough to take some time out of her busy schedule to talk with Ryan Wilson and me about the changing world of sports media, athletes on Twitter (and why Wilson should sign up; I'm already there as is FanHouse), the vision and history behind the "Buzz Manager," and the importance of fan-driven media in today's sports world.

If you care about the emergence of blogs and their co-existence with mainstream media, you'd be doing yourself a disservice not to listen.

Download the audio here (Right click to save)

Some contextual navigation that could help:

1:00 – Bloggers initial reaction to "Blog Buzz" & ESPN's response

4:35 – Origins of 'Buzz Manager'

6:30 – Technology can't do by itself/Need for people in the form of Media Analysts

8:20 – Algorithm for determining "buzz score"

10:45 – Partnership with ESPN

14:00 – How has the Internet & social networking landscape changed sport business?

18:30 – Twitter (Athletes, Coaches, etc.)

21:00 – Why should Ryan Wilson join Twitter?

23:40 – Facebook vs. Twitter

25:00 – Twitter vs. NCAA Compliance

28:10 – Characteristics of Sports Blog Index

32:00 – Future of Podcasting