The New York Giants announced today that they have teamed up with Mass Relevance, the technology leader in social curation, to unveil several new social initiatives for Big Blue fans attending games at the newly-named MetLife Stadium as well as for those watching the live televised broadcasts. Beginning with Saturday's pre-season contest against the New York Jets, these initiatives will continue and expand throughout the season.

The Giants social enhancements include the use of Twitter to engage and entertain fans who tune into the TV broadcasts of Big Blue's final two preseason games, as well as the integration of real-time fan tweets on MetLife Stadium's video boards and other stadium distribution channels. The Giants will become the first NFL team to use the popular social media platform as part of their TV game broadcast.

Additionally, the Giants will debut a new open voting system during the regular season that will allow fans to pick their player of the game in real-time using Twitter hashtags – and get a weeklong discount on the winner's merchandise from the Giants online store.  The initiatives are powered by Mass Relevance's scalable technology platform that allows the Giants to instantly aggregate, curate and deliver the best fan content into stadium displays, TV broadcasts and Giants.com.

"With over 6.4M fans in the tri-state area and one of the largest national fan bases in the NFL, our social media strategy is designed entirely around giving them the best way to share their passion – and the Giants experience – with each other," said Giants Chief Marketing Officer Mike Stevens.  "We have the advantage of playing in an incredible state-of-the-art stadium that lets us do some amazing things to share content to fans in the seats, as well as our viewers at home. This is a great value added for our fans and our organization."

"Whether it is entertainment, politics or sports, real-time social content plays a key role in enhancing the experience whether you are participating live, watching on TV or following online," said Mass Relevance CEO Sam Decker.  "We're really excited to work with the New York Giants to kick off an exciting strategy to build fan engagement and momentum in the run-up to the 2011 season."

The Giant's new social initiatives include:

* *

Bringing Social Content to the Game

• Curate and publish a live stream of fan content on LED video towers (pylons) at the stadium entry in order to pump up tailgaters and build even more excitement for the match up with the Jets.
• Display relevant live tweets on the stadium video boards, as well as on the "ribbon" LED display that separates the stadium levels.
• Stream fan comments to more than 2,200 flat screen TVs located throughout MetLife Stadium.
• During halftime, the Giants will provide an open Twitter Q&A session with the Radio Voice of the Giants Bob Papa and Analyst Carl Banks.
• With the Giants celebrating their 25th Anniversary of their first Super Bowl this year, fans will also get to have a live Twitter chat with a member from that team every home game.

* *

Real-Time Social Voting

• For each regular season game, the Giants will select three players and assign a Twitter hashtag to each.
• Each of the three players will accrue votes based on how many mentions each hashtag gets during the given time period.
• The micro site will show a running total of votes for each respective player.
• The player who receives the most votes will have their merchandise discounted for the following week at the Giants online store.

* *

On-Air Social Content

• The August 27th game will be broadcast live on NBC 4 New York, with full integration of hyper-relevant social content into the live broadcasts of the game.
• The Giants will integrate live tweets into their broadcast from fans during the most exciting moments in their final two preseason games.
• Fans will have the opportunity to have their own personal voices integrated into the broadcast experience – and benefit from the insights and comments of other die-hard Giants fans.
• The Giants will produce brand new live pre- and post-game shows that will incorporate live Twitter comments and Q&A's with the hosts.

* *

Powerful Back-End

• The Mass Relevance Platform uniquely combines a cutting-edge social technology that can instantly aggregate, curate and deliver the best content for any context with an enterprise SaaS infrastructure to meet the needs of the Fortune 500 – at a scale of tens of thousands of Tweets per second and less than a second to publish to a real-time experience.
• Mass Relevance has powered successful integrated Twitter strategies for media, entertainment and consumer brands such as Cisco, Dick Clark Productions, E! Online, ITV, MTV, NBC Sports and Pepsi.  The company recently partnered with Twitter to power President Barack Obama's July 2011 Twitter Town Hall.

Connect with the Giants

Follow the @Giants on Twitter
LIKE US on Facebook/NewYorkGiants
For latest news & notes, www.giants.com

About Mass Relevance

Based in Austin, Texas, Mass Relevance enables entertainment, media, retail, and manufacturing brands to drive real-time engagement through social curation. The company provides a flexible, robust platform to facilitate audience and consumer interactions in a relevant, moderated way that is proven to deliver measurable results.  Brands using Mass Relevance include RIM, NBC Sports, Xbox 360, Samsung, Cisco, National Instruments, and Golden Globe Awards, and the company recently partnered with Twitter on President Obama's Twitter Town Hall.