Facebook has announced over 1 billion likes, posts and comments regarding the World Cup, the biggest sporting event in the world this year. In an obvious poke to Twitter and other social networks, Facebook is trying to show they can be a news and content source, not just used for personal conversation and updates.
This is a huge number for Facebook in just over two weeks, since the World Cup began. The reactions from fans has been immense, with new penalties, goals and even more vulgar things like Luis Suarez biting an Italian defender making everyone talk.
The World Cup this year has had a lot of shakeups, Spain, England, Portugal and Italy all went out in the group stages, losing to teams not as well known. We expect the game between France and Germany to be one of the most exciting in the World Cup, potentially hitting new records on Twitter and Facebook.
Facebook does have news aggregation on the right-side of the Web service, allowing users to check currently trending topics for user statuses and news links. Most of these are filled at some point with World Cup news, since one match is played almost everyday.
The World Cup’s most talked about moment appears to be the Brazil vs Chile match, Twitter announced this was the most tweeted real-time event, but we have yet to hear if the same hype happened on Facebook. Real-time events are something Facebook desperately wants to get into, to compete with Twitter.
Twitter still seems to be the place to be when it comes to real-time conversation, while Facebook offers web links and some statuses, most Twitter accounts are not private and it gives a more informal view on the World Cup, instead of Facebook where the user will get Web links.
