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Twitter Fans of Bubba Watson’s Masters Victory Can Win Too — From Motorola

April 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Bubba Watson did not just win the Masters and its impressive trophy and the fabled green jacket but he also stands to make 10 Twitter followers winners as well due to his partnership with Motorola Mobility and its recently introduced MotoActv Golf Watch.

Watson had just announced his partnership with the company prior to the event and so to celebrate both the partnership and Watson’s achievement Motorola has launched a program that will enable 10 fans to be among the first to try out the Golf Watch.

To participate all a user needs to do is follow @MOTOACTV and retweet #10under, which represents his score for those of you who do not know, for a chance to win one of the Golf Editions of the MotoActv,.

The golf watch, which sells for $299.99, enables users to track and measure a number of factors in their golf game, including providing 20,000 course layouts, serving as a virtual caddie and providing distances to front, middle and back of greens.

Filed Under: Apps, Contests, Golf, Motorola, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

MLB Continues Strong Push in Social Media

April 6, 2012 by 1 Comment

While doing basic baseball research, i.e. watching a bunch of Opening Day games on television, I noticed a funny thing happening on Twitter, as a huge number of postings were coming with the #MLBTVme hastag.

The hastag is apparently part of a bigger effort to promote MLB’s MLB.TV according to a number of sources, which all seem to lead back to Mashable. The official site for MLB.TV had no press release on this topic, at least one that is easily found.

Apparently what is happening is that MLB’s @MLB account tweeted a number of trivia questions, and fans that answered correctly were entered into a drawing for a number of nice prizes including iPad and Xbox 360s.

The network used a very clever ploy to get the event out in front of fans that use Twitter. The longer the hastag trended at Twitter’s national and global trending charts the more prizes were awarded to fans that participated. Since it was a trivial contest, and most baseball fans that I know love baseball trivia (and most other forms) this was sure to be a hit.

According to the article MLB has also launched a series of social media correspondents at each of the ballparks, and if you are interested in what it takes to be one some of the job listings are still available online. There will also be a tumblr and pinterest accounts for each team.

I was amazed at the range of additional offerings that MLB has for fans. While I dig around at its site fairly regularly, there were a number of offerings that I was not aware of including a variety of contests, including one where fans pick a player a day and see if they can get a hit with each one until they pass Joe DiMaggio’s famous hit streak.

In addition, for those of you that like to follow individual players on Twitter, here is a pretty good list, courtesy of the MLBLogs Network of almost 300 MLB players that have twitter accounts as well as a few additional important baseball hashtags that you might want to follow.

As we have noted n the past MLB has been very aggressive in pushing all forms of social media and interactive content in the last decade and this is a extremely nice push. Fans love their teams and can now show it in additional ways, helping to strengthen the bond between them, while at the same time rewarding the fans for participating.

Filed Under: Apps, Athlete to Follow, Baseball, Contests, Live sports via mobile, Major League Baseball, Mashable, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: ,

It’s Madness Time: Join the MSR Bracket, Follow the NIT @ ESPN

March 12, 2012 by 2 Comments

Is anyone getting any work done today, or is everyone filling out brackets? If you are looking for a place to show the world your NCAA hoops savvy look no farther than the inaugural MSR Bracket Challenge. Hosted over at ESPN, of course, the group is public so come one come all. If you are searching for the group its title is the “MSR Bracket Challenge.” We’ll think of some cool prize for winning; if any sponsors want to step up with some schwag hit me with an email to kaps at mobilesportsreport.com.

Also: If your team didn’t make the dance (Sorry Washington fans!) you will probably be headed over to ESPN since the WWL has the rights to the National Invitation Tournament, including some games shown only online at ESPN3. Here’s the full NIT broadcast schedule.

And here’s a great post from The Big Lead showing NCAA broadcast times and (most importantly) which announcing crews will be on hand.

UPDATE: How cool is this? A CBS Sports interactive map of the tournament field.

Filed Under: About MSR, Contests, ESPN, ESPN3, NCAA Hoops, The Big Lead, truTV, Turner Sports, WatchESPN Tagged With: ,

Friday Grab Bag: London Olympics will be on YouTube

March 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment

YouTube and NBC to team on Summer Olympics
NBC will be taking advantage of YouTube’s huge online popularity to help drive traffic to NBC’s home page during the upcoming Summer Olympics in a move that looks to benefit both players according to reports from Sports Business Daily.

The deal calls for YouTube to promote NBCOlympics.com on its home page and to direct visitors to live and highlight videos of the London Games. YouTube will be providing the player that users will need to view the video.

For YouTube it is a further step up into the big leagues as it is replacing Microsoft’s MSN portal as the player of choice. MSN had the 2008 and 2010 Olympics. For NBC it gains a huge presence on the Internet.

According to comScores Media Matrix NBC Sports is currently 6th for the US audience online with 14.7 million unique visitors in February 2012. While it will undoubtedly get a huge boost regardless of any deal due to the Olympics it still trails market leader Yahoo Sports by a significant amount- Yahoo with 50 million users.

US to insist on digital app security?
“Oops your data was stolen again-my bad” may not be the correct response to all of the constant leaking of data from smartphones and other devices. At least one US Senator, Charles Schumer, has taken up the call and has asked the FTC to see if the manner that Google and Apple are running their operating systems violates users’ privacy.

While not a big fan of government intervention I have to agree with this statement from him about apps that steal data- “beyond what a reasonable user understands himself to be consenting to when he allows an app to access data on the phone for purposes of the app’s functionality.”

He is asking that the government agency to force smartphone developers to add safeguards that require expressed consent before allowing access to personal information. It seems that more than these two are guilty and usually all we get are crocodile tears from them when caught. I wonder if this FTC effort will get out of the noise stage?

Apple drops Google Maps
Apple has dropped support for Google Maps in its iPhoto for iOS technology. The move is most likely partly caused by the company’s lawsuits against Google and leading Android users and Google’s fighting back via lawsuits filed my Motorola Mobility, soon to be a part of Google.

However Apple has also purchased mapping technology via its acquisitions of Placebase, Poly9, and C3 Technologies. Apple still offers Google in a number of other ways in its OS and platform offerings so be careful reading too much into this.

Is this a major win for Apple in its Patent battles?
A Google and Motorola Mobility have been ordered by Circuit Judge Richard Posner to disclose details of the development of the Android operating system to rival Apple as part of Apple’s ongoing patent lawsuit over the development of Android.

The case has been ongoing since 2010 and has resulted in a satellite of additional suits by all involved. This will probably add fuel to the fire but not clear if it will have a meaningful impact as there are a number of rumors that Apple may be looking to settle.

What are the best baseball books?
This is always a topic that incites my baseball loving friends- what are the best books on baseball? Well Jeff Polman is the latest to tackle the topic in a blog post found in the Huffington Post. He positions it as the 25 Baseball books that you would want if you were stranded on a desert island.

I really enjoyed the list but like most fans feel that there were favorites that he omitted, some that are worthy and at least one that is a favorite for immature reasons (Seasons in Hell). I do think that Ball Four cannot be omitted no matter what the reason. There is a good conversation on the topic ongoing at Baseball Think Factory at this time. Drop in and make yourself known.

E-Reader use continues to grow
According to a recent Harris poll the growth in e-reader ownership and usage portends good news for those in both markets. Just seven months ago 15% of Americans had one of these devices and now that number has almost doubled to 28%.
What is very good news for companies in this market is that the growth does not appear to be constrained to any one particular age segment with users in the ages 18-35 and 36-47 categories slightly ahead at 30% currently and that number just drops slightly to 28% among ages 67 and older and 24% of those in the 48-66 age category. Typical users read more than non-users as well.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Barnes & Noble, Baseball, Baseball Think Factory, Contests, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, Microsoft, Motorola, NBC Sports, Olympics, Yahoo, YouTube Tagged With: , , ,

Golden State Warriors Giving Fans Instant Social Media Payoffs

February 2, 2012 by 5 Comments

With a new coach in Mark Jackson and some new owners at the helm the Golden State Warriors are trying hard to forge a new way to make the NBA playoffs. But while the team so far is struggling to find a winning combination on the court, in the world of social media the Warriors are scoring big with some well-thought promotions that are giving fans instant gratification — like going on the court to shoot free throws — for simply connecting via social media.

I’ve been following the Warriors on Facebook and it seems like at every home game there’s a different promotion. But unlike some team promos that are hard to value, the Warriors seem intent on giving their fans access to things that used to be off limits — like letting them sit in on post-game interviews, or the latest one shown in these pictures, letting the first 200 fans who check in on Facebook on the Oracle Arena parquet to shoot some charity shots post-game.

I am in favor of promotions that give fans something cool to do (meet players, run laps on a baseball field) instead of some of the other ones surfacing these days where people need to sort of act like trained monkeys to win. I’m generally don’t like “contests” that award some prize to the person who shoots the funniest video, or wins fan voting to get a social media job. That seems like rewarding people for being social media experts, with a prize that’s not really fan-based.

Instead, I admire giveaways like the Warriors’ which may not be high in value but connect directly to what a fan wants to do: Be more immersed in the team they love. And by running the promos through Facebook check-in the Warriors are making them easily accessible to any fan with a mobile device (meaning everyone) and via the application (Facebook) that everyone already uses. In other words, no need for extra heavy lifting (shooting a video) but instant fun for fans. Social, mobile and sports. Go Warriors.

UPDATE: Just saw this relevant tweet:

Filed Under: Contests, Facebook, NBA, Sports Social Media Tagged With: , ,

SeatGeek Insider Offers Mobile Sports Fans $50 for Best Idea

September 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

 

Chad Burgess, SeatGeek's corporate blogger

Chad Burgess: SeatGeek insider goes to sports social-media community to win contest

SeatGeek, which helps fans forecast the best prices for sporting events, is running an internal Hackathon contest, and Sept. 21 one of the company insiders asked sports fans to step up and provide ideas to help him win. A $50 Amazon gift card will be provided if you help deliver a winning idea, and the idea could be implemented before kick-off of week No. 3 NFL games on Sept. 25, SeatGeek said.

Writing on SeatGeek‘s corporate blog, company insider Chad Burgess is asking sport fans to send ideas on Twitter @SeatGeek. He promises that any original idea that helps him win the corporate prize — a free iPad — will get the $50 Amazon gift card, and says that he’s acting completely outside the bounds of the company to use the blog to get ideas from the public.

“I am going Rogue on this one (aka dark for Jack Bauer fans). The contest is sponsored by me, not SeatGeek,” Burgess writes.

SeatGeek  collects and filters data to allow fans to predict the prices of tickets. It is considered by MobileSportsReport.com to be one of the top sports-industry start-ups. Even if you don’t have any ideas for innovation, SeatGeek is worth a visit as you optimize your smartphone, iPad or tablet sports viewing experience.  

MobileSportsReport would like SeatGeek to provide a “fan interference” prediction function, where they calculate the number of fan interference incidences at ballparks, stadiums and arenas and provide fans with the likelihood that they will see a similar incident at the game they are about to attend. But that’s just us.

You probably have a better idea, and can twitter them to @SeatGeek through Friday September 23. So, if you figure out what you would like to see SeatGeek, consider letting it fly like an Andrew Luck out pattern to Chris Owusu. Not only will Burgess get an iPad, but you’ll be $50 closer to the fifty-yard line. Burgess posted the rules and additional details on the SeatGeek corporate blog.

Filed Under: Contests, iPad, SeatGeek
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