Former MLBer Shawn Green has partnered with Brendon Kensel, a California digital media executive, to create JockTalk, a new sports-oriented social media platform. The pair has aligned with more than 60 current and retired pro athletes, including Marlins P Heath Bell, Celtics F Paul Pierce and Patriots WR Wes Welker, to contribute posts and other content to JockTalk. The site, funded by Green and Kensel without institutional funding, will feature videos, photos, blog posts and other material from athletes, not unlike other social media portals. However, the goal of JockTalk is to create a more two-way conversation between fans and athletes. Content created on JockTalk will automatically post on Twitter and Facebook. Like some other online sports destinations, JockTalk will also use a fan ranking system to reward more frequent users. "Things like Twitter are great for one-way content, but there's still not a lot of engagement there," Green said. "What we're trying to build is a publishing platform. We're not asking players to change their social media behavior. We're just looking for them to change the location of that behavior, but incentivizing them with a share in the revenue." Players involved with JockTalk will participate in a revenue-sharing agreement, with revenue created from advertising, e-commerce and syndication of the content created there to other sites. JockTalk, beginning this month with a private beta and expanding to mobile platforms later this year, will be free to users.
