Alum Separates Fact From Fiction on Twitter

All around the world people are connecting on Twitter. For many athletes, it is a great way for them to reach out to their fans in real-time at a grassroots level.

Brendan Wilhide ’05 of Avon, Conn., is one of those fans. Even before it became mainstream to “tweet,” he was constantly searching for his favorite athletes on Twitter to get information, in many cases, before some media outlets.

“If a player is injured or traded, they will tweet about it almost immediately,” he said. “You get the facts before anyone else.”

While having that cutting-edge information at his fingertips, Wilhide questioned the legitimacy of the content. “It is easy for someone to create a fake account under an athlete’s name. I wanted to find which ones were real,” he said.

After creating a directory of all known athletes on Twitter, he contacted the players' organizations directly to verify which players really had accounts.

“They were happy to let me know which accounts were real,” he said. “They want fans to have the right information.”

After his list was updated, he had to decide what to do with it.  In its infancy, he shared it with friends who used his information to follow their favorite athletes on Twitter. Wilhide was sure that many other sports fans were looking for the same type of information, which was how Sportsin140.com was born in March.

“The site has an updated list of athletes on Twitter and blogs that discuss tweets as they happen,” he said.

He also interviews teams and players about their Twitter habits. Because of his ongoing relationship with many professional sports teams and leagues, he has access to some of the information that was once only found in the locker room or the front office.

“For instance, Matt Hasselbeck of the Seattle Seahawks has a Twitter account and will update me when a teammate or a friend from another team has joined,” he said. 

Wilhide’s site, which began as a hobby, recently garnered some national media attention. He will be featured during a segment on ESPN’s Outside the Lines that will air this summer. The segment will discuss sports on Twitter. 

“I talked about emerging trends, how to verify an account, and most importantly, how easy it is for someone to set up a fake account,” he said.

Check out Brendan Wilhide on Twitter at BrendanWilhide or Sportsin140.