if you haven’t heard of chatroulette, then i give it mere days before it has giant buzz. although coverage in the new york times about its 17 year old creator from moscow (pictured on bike), has already spiked its traffic over the last week. as the name implies, you sit at your computer and press the play button, and the game of chance takes over as you are matched with a stranger from anywhere in the world for a real live video chat. you can keep shuffling through people or engage via IM and microphone. there is  no need to register, log in or be invited. one simple click and you are live, which makes it dangerous for kids, since it has no screening whatsoever, and i will say that it can be a creepy experience.

when the pints gave it a whirl, we were hard pressed to find many women on it and there seemed to be a lot of teens in sunglasses and anonymous garb on the service. however, i couldn’t help but be fascinated since it appealed to my short attention span and i could shuffle through people without feeling rude or guilty. i can’t seem to do that as well at a cocktail party. today, i met an engineer from zurich, switzerland, a fashionable sunglasses lover in paris and a “pirate” from budapest who was on it “to steal everyone’s loot”. reminiscent of the age of chatrooms, folks can create their own interesting personas, but now they have a video camera in their face. it also makes geography less and less of an obstacle in terms of connections, not one person i connected with on chatroulette was in the USA.

while there is some advertising potential for this service to exist as a viable commercial business the anonymity, randomness and stranger interaction, while giving chatroulette its excitement, can also mean inappropriate behavior and huge parental fears. its young entrepreneur will have to address these issues, as well as the investment in scale, as more and more people start joining the chat gambling game. i predict his bandwidth and server needs will quickly outweigh his adsense revenue. however, kudos to the youngster whose project at its core, illustrates that humans are motivated by social connections and such simple technologies make it possible.

i often forget that the teams i’m watching duke it out on the court, are actual brands, but a look around the stadium will reveal logo hats, jerseys, blankets, and even cell phone covers. i just read an article about the way teams are branding themselves, without selling merchandise and tickets, and still improving their loyal relationship with their fans — they’re going social. with news coming out every week about the power of social influence marketing and web 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 (insert number here) features that have allowed brands to turn potential customers into die hard fans, it’s been no surprise to see some of blupint’s favorite teams and athletes turning to social media channels to better connect with fans, engage communities, and increase brand interaction. our research has yielded some interesting insight as to who is leveraging their communities well, and what opportunities exist.

one of the most active teams in the digital sphere, are the boston celtics. using celtics.com as their main portal they have launched a GameTimeLive application that aggregates tweets, blogs, posts, and videos for their digital fan. their youtube channel has locker room videos uploaded minutes before they are taking to the hardwood. they tweet about sick players and at-practice antics and their facebook is full of things happening in and around boston that the team is involved in. however, while the celtics are far ahead of most NBA teams in social media engagement, they are still lagging behind the los angeles lakers who have over a million twitter followers. why are the lakers more successful in the social media sphere? after all, the lakers don’t have a facebook page directly dedicated to their dancers or a 3 point app like the celtics do. well, a quick scan of each team’s twitter accounts illustrate that the lakers connect with individuals through more direct conversations, another illustration that personal engagement is the key to social media success.

while we’re on the subject, we should mention that twitter’s top trending topics of 2009 sports list shows that the lakers were the 2nd top trending team while the cleveland cavaliers were the 4th top trending team, pointing to the NBA’s ability to create social dialogue. interestingly, only kobe bryant crossed over as one of the top ten most tweeted about people, clearly too many ashton kutchers, tila tequilas and kim kardashians to compete with.

college athletics are following in the footsteps of some major sports teams and going social. NotreDameFalcons.com, for example, has encouraged both coach, fan, and player participation on the web. the pints know this to a be a needed move because falcon fans are online already, checking up on stats, scores, and information. their website includes many of the coaches twitter feeds and also includes several student-athlete and coach blogs to keep the fans updated. calbears.com, the official athletics website for uc berkeley, has dedicated a whole section to cal on social media, which has helped boost twitter followers to over 1,500 and facebook followers to over 7,200. some universities and sports teams have more followers than others, but keep in mind that social media pages aren’t there to simply create more fans, they’re also there to foster already formed relationships — and the falcons and bears are taking a step in the right direction by connecting with current students, alums, and fans with a click of a button.

we see a great many number of opportunities to connect digitally with fans for other major league sports by replying to fans directly on twitter, having contests via facebook, posting fun content on youtube, and coming up with some great smartphone apps. the pints are eager to see major league baseball and soccer teams getting more digital and more social! 2010 is a great year to start, get to it.