Football fans will be able to watch the real time buzz around the FA Cup final on ITV.com thanks to a unique experiment.

The broadcaster is integrating applications built around the successful micro blogging tool Twitter to reflect the online ‘noise’ generated by the clash between Everton and Chelsea on 30th May.

Twitterfall – a site which cascades comments made on Twitter - will be embedded into the football section of itv.com of the day of the game, allowing fans to see ‘tweets’ about the match as it progresses.

A tool developed by London company thruSITES will allow fans to see which of the players is generating the most chatter on Twitter. The players’ names and faces will appear alongside bars which will move up and down to reflect the buzz around players during the game. The tool will be available after the match so that fans can scrub along a timeline to see which players caused a buzz at crucial moments.

Fans will also be able to submit their thoughts using web based audio comment service AudioBoo. The application will allow iPhone users to submit their comments to the site for other fans to hear.

The tools will be available on the site on a special FA Cup Buzz page from around 1pm on 30th May. The page will be accessed via http://itv.com/football.

Earlier in the year ITV experimented with Twitter by enabling fans of Primeval to comment alongside the first episode of the first series. The experiment helped to generate thousand of tweets about the series and was followed up with Primeval writer James Moran taking over the Primeval Twitter feed for an episode.

ITV has built up a considerable presence on Twitter, with feeds for all its major shows and a popular feed for the network (http://twitter.com/itvinsider).

Dominic Cameron, MD of ITV.com, said: “Our experiments with social media show that fans of our shows, especially the big live events, love to share their thoughts with others on the web in real time. Social media can really transform the way we all enjoy those memorable moments on ITV.

“This experiment is a great way of reflecting the buzz about the game on our site and if it’s a success, will no doubt pave the way for more efforts to engage football fans in new and interesting ways.”

This social media news release and more content is available at:-
http://socialnews.itv.com/?ReleaseID=12573