Sounds interesting, but will it actually work?

This morning I read an MSNBC blog post about building a social media command center at the Super Bowl. The Indianapolis host committee is investing what has to be millions of dollars into this endeavor — to monitor what is being said, as well as provide visitors information about events throughout the city. They also plan to use Twitter to get out emergency messages if needed.

It all sounds really cool but will it actually work? I don’t know about the rest of you but my experience trying to post to Facebook while at a sporting event with thousands of other fans has been nothing but frustrating. Rarely is there enough cellular bandwidth for it to work in a timely manner. When you only have one bar on your phone — because everyone else in the stadium is also trying to post something — often it takes several minutes for something to post, if it will even post at all.

So what do you think? Will the cellular network infrastructure handle the load to make this marketing effort a success?

If you weren’t able to see my recent photos from the Cotton Bowl, because I could get them to post to Facebook, here they are. Texas Stadium was awesome, too bad we lost.

Article:

Super Bowl gets a social media “command center”
The Super Bowl is going social, with a marketing team opening a 2,800-square-foot social media command center in a bid to increase online engagement with fans who are in Indianapolis for the game. The center, operated by digital marketing firm Raidious, will be staffed by a team of 50 people. “It’s the first time any facility like this has been built to manage social media for such a large event,” says Raidious CEO Taulbee Jackson. MSNBC/Digital Life on Today blog (1/23