
Shaker, the winner of TechCrunch's prestigious Disrupt competition, launched the virtual pub on Sunday, ahead of the All-Star Game grand finale. The application includes a basketball arena and virtual rooms for users to interact in, compete in basketball trivia games and watch NBA games displayed on virtual screens. The application also has a Twitter Wall to display Tweets during the games.
Shaker's NBA application
NBA and Shaker jointly operate the application – the league will feed game highlights and trivia questions with Shaker responsible for design and operation.
The NBA launched Shaker's application as part of its new social media initiative which includes fan voting through Twitter in the Sprite Slam Dunk contest. NBA also launched an application for video content such as interviews and highlights.
NBA will not broadcast free content from the All-Star games. Fans that chose not to pay to watch the broadcasts will be able to view stills on the GameTime application.
Shaker has also created a virtual house for the current season of Big Brother as part of a joint venture with Mako, where fans can meet and interact.
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