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Friday Grab Bag: More Thursday Night Football? New land speed record set

October 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment

In case you were dying to know which of the new iPhones from Apple is the top seller, wait no more. Computerworld, with an assist from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners has done the heavy lifting for you.

The results are really not that surprising, the high end iPhone 5S is outselling the much less expensive iPhone 5C by better than two to one. It said that 64% bought the 5S, 27% bought the 5C and the remaining 9% bought the older 4S.

Lack of viewers leading to more Thursday night games?
According to the Wall Street Journal the NFL is looking at adding additional games to its slate of Thursday night broadcasts, adding to the 13 games that are already broadcast on that day of the week by making some doubleheaders.

The WSJ said that the reason is that the league is disappointed in the ratings that its broadcasts bring in, which while high for that day of the week are lower than Sunday and Monday. The NFL is denying the rumor saying that it is false.

Of course it could not end there. So Jerry Jones, the Cowboys owner said that the league is indeed thinking about starting to play doubleheaders on Thursday, which the league again denied.


Jessi Combs sets land speed record
Time to reset the clock to count down when the latest land speed record will be broken, as Jessi Combs driving a converted F-104 Lockheed Starfighter, just broke the women’s land speed record, one that managed to last 48 years, according to Gizmag.

The old record was 308.51 miles per hour set by Lee Breedlove in 1965 on Utah’s Salt Lake Flats. Combs hit 392.954 mph running at Oregon’s Alvord Desert course. The vehicle had a mere 52,000 hp, without the afterburners going.

Will the latest version of Android and a new smartphone arrive this month?
There are hints that the next generation of the Android operating system, version 4.4 and a new Nexus smartphone, will be announced on Oct. 28, due to hints that have been found in a number of Google’s Twitter messages.

The rumor campaign is based around KitKat, the code name for the next version of the operating system, and yes it is based on the candy bar. According to the LA Times the tweets could contain cryptic clues that point to the rollout. Well we have two weeks to see if that is true.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Athlete to Follow, Basketball, Bonneville Salt Flats, Dallas Cowboys, Google, iPhone, NBA, NFL Tagged With: , , , , ,

Topps Uses Technology to Reach Out to Fans

July 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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Do you remember baseball cards? Many of my friends collected them when younger but as it became overly commercialized with too many companies selling too many versions, so that what was once a childhood rite of passage slowly became an overly complex market that collapsed in on itself.

According to the piece that ran in Bleacher Report a few years ago the market topped out at $1.2 billion in 1991 and then collapsed to its current position of under $300 million. It has been trying to reinvent itself ever since.

Well credit Topps, one of the original powers in this category to adopting new technology to help promote a very non-technology offering, pieces of cardboard with baseball players stats on one side and their picture on the other.

The company has incorporated two short range communications technologies in a display at the 2013 MLB All-Star Fanfest with QR (quick response) codes and NFC (near field communications) incorporated into huge cards of the games All=-Stars that were on display at the event.

The first of the technologies, QR codes, for those of you that do not know are those boxes that look like an overgrown bar code, could be scanned by fans attending the event with mobile devices equipped with a scanner, and in doing so put themselves in the running for prizes such as card sets, Topps’ new Big League Minis and autographed memorabilia. Alternately a fan could use the NFC function of their mobile device, if so equipped.

The interactive effort, spearheaded by partner Scanbuy, is part of a larger effort by the card company to appeal to younger fans that are tech savvy. It will be interesting to see if the company publishes the final results and if we will see a new generation of cards with embedded technology.

Filed Under: All Star Game, Apps, Athlete to Follow, Baseball, Major League Baseball Tagged With: , , , , , ,

MLB Home Run Derby App has Real Prize

July 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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Leading up to the annual Major League Baseball All Star game is the Home Run Derby and the league is made alterations to its mobile game based on the event with a contest that can send a fan to the World Series.

The updated mobile game “MLB.com Home Run Derby”, produced by MLB Advanced Media, the league’s interactive arm, is a free app that is available at both the App Store and Google Play and available for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and select Android devices.

The latest version now includes this years’ eight players that will participate in the event, which is scheduled for this evening as well as include all 24 players that participated in the event in the years between 2010 and 1012. The ball park has been altered so that it now is a recreation of Citi Field, the park where this years’ derby and All Star game will be staged.

However for fans playing the mobile game there is a bonus. Fans with a valid account in MLB.com Home Run Derby playing the game, up until July 18 at 11:59 pm EDT that wins five multi player matches will be automatically entered into a sweepstakes for the chance to win an all-expenses paid trip for two to Game Two of the 2013 World Series.

So see if you can have Prince Fielder defend his individual title that he earned last year at the event or if one of the seven other players participating will wrest the title from him. The other sluggers are David Wright, Robinson Cano, Chris Davis, Yoenis Cespedes, Bryce Harper, Michael Cuddyer, or Pedro Alvarez

Filed Under: All Star Game, Android, Apple, Apps, Athlete to Follow, Baseball, Major League Baseball Tagged With: , , , , , ,

NASCAR Names Hewlett-Packard a Technology Partner

July 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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Hewlett-Packard has expanded its relationship with NASCAR, originally formed last year, which will partner the two in devising ways that HP technology can enhance and advance the sport of auto racing with a focus on both engaging fans more closely and bring advertisers to specific segments of the fan base.

The move is part of a growing movement among sports teams and leagues to partner up with leading technology companies to take advantage of their expertise in a range of areas from fan engagement to operational efficiencies.

NASCAR has named HP an Official Technology Partner in a 3-year deal that will have the two engage in developing and using technologies that NASCAR says will catapult the sport to a new level via the adoption of cutting edge technologies.

Under the terms of the new agreement, NASCAR has named HP as an Official Technology Partner, underscoring a joint commitment to accelerate innovation and the adoption of cutting-edge technology across the sport of NASCAR.

While the details of the agreement are vague, expect to see enhanced digital presence at NASCAR tracks with high speed wireless capabilities. NASCAR has a huge following but has seen a steady erosion of attendance at its events. Long traffic lines, limited views and none of the advanced ambiance that fans are now expecting at football and baseball stadiums can take its toll in term of attendance.

That will probably change, and for that matter has already started to change with the original agreement between the two last year that lead to the formation of the Fan and Media Engagement Center (FMEC). The FMEC is a tool that measures and analyzes information from a wide variety of media including video, social media, digital, television, print and radio. It takes the information derived from all of these sources and uses it to help further engage fans with NASCAR.

NASCAR has said that it is already seeing results from the FMEC with information tailored for specific segments of the NASCAR audience that can be used by NASCAR and its partners. The new deal will in part be an expansion of the FMEC effort as well as looking at new areas that the two can develop solutions.

In the past sports entities went about moving into the digital age quietly, adding a bit of Wi-Fi, a Facebook page or a mobile web site. They had partners for these efforts but they remained in the back ground for the most part. Now the partnerships are at the forefront as the advantages that the tech partner brings, as well as the prestige of the name, help increase fan awareness of the moves that the team or league is undergoing. Expect to see more along these lines such as the recent SAP/San Jose Sharks deal.

Filed Under: Apps, Athlete to Follow, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, NASCAR, NHL Tagged With: , ,

On Deck for MLB: The Chatting Cage

May 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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I spend a lot of time on Major League Baseball’s various sites and use one of its apps when traveling to listen to ball games but I was surprised to find that it has a whole level of social interaction with fans that I was unaware of until this weekend.

When looking around its video section for a highlight from a game last year I came upon an online chat with Mat Latos of the Cincinnati Reds that had been recorded earlier this month. It is part of MLB’s continued effort to use social media as another way to engage fans and is called The Edward Jones Chatting Cage, online video chats that has fans talking with players, coaches, managers and team executives.

The program was started last year but if you missed it that is understandable, (I did) it debuted without a great deal of fanfare in late September. But it is going strong now and you can view old conversations as well as participate in future ones although it is not entirely intuitive.

Going to the MLB page and you can find a section for videos. In videos you can find the Edward Jones Chatting Cage link. Click on that it takes you to the archives. There you can find past episodes where a variety of players and management answer fans questions. However there are no instructions on how to participate that I could find.

However if you follow MLB’s Facebook page it does alert users to when the next Chatting Cage will be held, although you might need to search for it since they do not occur very often. You have to scroll down quite a bit to before the Latos interview to find out about the last one. No special section highlighting the event or mentioning when the next one will occure. You can submit questions via Facebook for the chats. Looking elsewhere I found that you can use Twitter with @MLB using the hashtag #chattingcage.

When you watch one of the archived shows it is obvious that fans can also log in using a web cam and ask live questions to the players and how they do that is not obvious, or if it is I am completely missing it.

However I like the concept a great deal. Of course it leaves itself open to trolls, as can be seen in some of the Facebook comments, but is a great way for fans to ask real questions of players and management, something they cannot do with any real chance outside of this program. If other sports pick up on this idea, and it’s hard to see why they would not, it could spell the death of all of the independent apps.

Filed Under: Apps, Athlete to Follow, Baseball, Facebook, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, Sports Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: , , , ,

San Jose Sharks Enlist Wayin for Twitter Hub

May 15, 2013 by 1 Comment

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ESPN’s deal with Twitter the other day was an expected development as there is a growing desire to hook into social media by sports franchises and broadcasters and another that is following on that same path is the San Jose Sharks Hockey team.

The Sharks have teamed with a Denver-based startup called Wayin using that company’s social media engagement hub to create a Twitter hub for fans of the team and of the National Hockey League.

The Shark’s Wayin hub, called the Sharks Game Day Hub, is more than just a central depository for all of the twitter activity that naturally follows a team when it is in the playoffs. It serves the fans a central site where they can gain a degree of control over what they are following.

The hub features both team generated content as well as a variety of other information including tab on Tweet volume, Twitter activity from players, coaches, broadcasters and Sharks staff, imbedded broadcast video interviews, and fan Tweets. The hub also supports Instagram so that fans can also follow along on images and photos posted by others.

While the casual fan may not have heard of Wayin, in part because it’s a startup and secondly by being located in Denver it is off the beaten paths for most new tech companies. However it has a prestigious foundation starting with co-founder and Chairman Scott McNealy, former top honcho of Sun Microsystems. Anyone from the Bay Area could tell you that McNealy is a huge hockey fan and that once for April Fools played hockey with former pro hockey players with Sharks players in attendance.

It will be interesting to see how a hub such as this will compete with the emerging class of apps that put fans in connection with athletes. A number have emerged over the years in the app space but none seem to have caught the attention of the mainstream. By bringing a team into the mix fans might be able to connect more directly with players using this type of hub.

Filed Under: Apps, Athlete to Follow, Instagram, NHL, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Stanley Cup, Startup, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,
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