With Spain being crowned as the new world champion, we wrap things up for FIFA’s 2010 World Cup. A happy ending that leaves behind a new flavour. This championship is different from others because it tastes very much like social media for the first time ever.

For the first time we’ve gathered ’round to live and share our thoughts and feelings on every match. So not only did we taste something new, but also we learned a thing or two on making good use of  social media for future world cups.

Best example at least for me, was Site Point’s brilliant and envyable world cup book discounts, in which each team was one of their books and the closer they got to the final match, the bigger the discount.  Amazing work!

Site Point's brilliant idea goes across social media like lightning

Although many important social media names already existed back in 2006 during FIFA’s champioinship in Germany, following the tournament wasn’t nearly as massive as it’s been this year.

Just out of curiosity, I ran the hashtag #worldcup hoping to get some interesting stats and here’s the result:

source: http://www.wthashtag.com

source: http://www.socialmention.com

source http://www.tweetreach.com

Now we’ll have to wait for another four years to see how social media evolves to live the passion of a new world cup online rather than on TV.

So what do you reckon about this world cup?