• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, August 2, 2009

Backed by start-up incubator Y Combinator, social platform FanChatter has officially launched to help sports fans connect during and after games using popular connecting tools like Twitter.

Working directly with sports franchises, clients already on board include the Minnesota Twins, the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the University of Oklahoma. Industry blog TechCrunch was first to report the launch.

The company -- and its ChatterBox widget, which displays a stream of tweets relevant to a particular topic -- attests to being more than just another Twitter aggregator.

"We're pulling in select blog links and soon we'll be grabbing Scoreboard Photo Sharing photos and relevant content from other social media sites, all in real-time," according to a post on FanChatter's corporate blog on Saturday.

"We also let fans connect with Facebook or sign in with Twitter -- or, coming soon, BOTH -- and chatter directly with optional posting back to those sites -- allowing for faster chatter during games and events."

FanChatter was formed back in 2007 as a mobile social network for sports fans. Mobile photo sharing apparently inspired an idea to display fan photos on stadium's Jumbotron at games.

The Minnesota Twins were the company's first Scoreboard Photo Sharing client in 2008, while the Minnesota Timberwolves have signed on as its first ChatterBox client.

FanChatter is not alone in the sporting events-focused social space. Earlier this year, Octagon Digital -- part of the Interpublic-owned sports marketing agency Octagon -- launched an aggregation engine named Twackle.com, which is built for sports-related content on Twitter.