World Cup: Twitter Launches Dedicated Site and ‘Hashflags’

Twitter is becoming the ‘pulse’ of the world. The biggest stories are always creating buzz on Twitter and, with the 2010 FIFA World Cup gearing up in South Africa, you can be sure that the site will go football-crazy for the next month. With 65 percent of its users being from outside the US, this is a given. Anticipating this, Twitter has launched a very interesting site dedicated exclusively to the World Cup, but built entirely on existing Twitter features.

“The Republic of South Africa will host representatives from thirty two nations as they compete for the ultimate international championship... Twitter's rapid international growth means we are part of this global phenomenon as people everywhere seek to discover what's happening with their favorite team, their favorite players, and breaking news related to this worldwide event,” Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone writes.

“Using live widgets, real-time search, and Top Tweets (updates that are currently catching the attention of many Twitter users) we've put together a special site to capture the spirit of the World Cup and it's already pulsing with activity,” he adds.

Over at twitter.com/worldcup, you can check out all the action from the Twitter perspective. On the main page, you’ll see a list of current or upcoming matches and some Top Tweets from popular Twitter users.

There are also dedicated pages for all of the teams involved. These pages display the teams’ upcoming matches, as well as tweets related to them. The fun part is that each one got its own special hashtag like #bra, #usa, #ger, and so on. What’s even cooler is that these hastags, or hasflags as Twitter calls them, show up with a small country flag icon next to them on Twitter.com.

Another interesting feature is the Twitter ‘match,’ where you can see live tweets from both of the teams in a match side by side. This way, the two countries can battle it out not only on the field, but on Twitter as well.

Other 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa coverage:

- Check Out the 2010 World Cup Stadiums in Google Street View and in 3D
- Google Catches the World Cup Fever
- Mozilla Kicks Off the Firefox Cup with 32 Country Personas
- Google Doodle, Search Story and Chrome Extensions (Video)