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No Surprise: PGA Sees Huge Leap in Online Video Consumption

April 17, 2012 by

Here at Mobile Sports Report we know that many of you like to watch golf online. We know that because basically anything we write about where to watch golf gets good traffic. Now the PGA has provided some facts to back up our observations: According to the PGA, viewership of its Live@ online live golf action coverage is up more than 100 percent compared to 2011, part of an overall traffic surge to the PGATour.com site.

Mobile app activity is also up by a triple-digit margin, thanks to the PGA’s excellent Android, iPhone and iPad apps. Some highlights from the press release:

• An all-time record quarter with more than 5.8 million average monthly unique users, up 40 percent vs. 2011.
• March 2012 set an all-time record with 7.5 million monthly unique users, an increase of 62 percent vs. March 2011.
• An increase of 105 percent for video consumption over last year.
• PGA TOUR mobile products have also seen triple digit growth (139 percent over last year).

Now what we need to see from the PGA is a more thorough and comprehensive online strategy — currently the tour only broadcasts select tournaments online — perhaps embracing the wonderful online coverage from the Masters and making that the PGA standard. An online fan can only hope.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Golf, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, PGA, Tablets, The Masters Tagged With: , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Preliminary Windows 8 Tablet Specs

April 16, 2012 by

Intel takes wraps off of Windows 8 tablet specs
Intel has showed the expected features and capabilities of the Windows 8 tablets at its Developer Forum in Beijing last week, a nugget that was dug up by Cnet. Not surprising is the chip powering these next generation devices will be Intel’s Z2760 ‘Clover Trail’ processor.

The chip is a multithreaded dual core processor with a feature called ‘burst mode’ that enables it to accelerate performance for short periods of time. There will be two basic designs, one a 10-inch model and the second a slightly larger 11-inch that will feature a keyboard.

It will have an estimated 9-hour battery life, support 3G/4G and also have NFC (near field communications) and Wi-Fi Direct. Its weight will be roughly 1.5 pounds and it s expected to be 9 mm thick. A second half 2012 release date is expected for the tablets based on the specs, but that is based on Microsoft releasing Windows 8 in that time frame.

Expect a wave of tablets of all size in next few months
A host of tablet manufacturers have tablets in the pipeline and they will start appearing on shelves very shortly, according to multiple reports. Samsung, Nokia, and even possibly Apple have products that should be are nearing the market.

The Asus Transformer Pad 300 is expected to hit the streets next week with a 4G LTE supporting pad that is expected to have a $399 price tag for a 32GB model. Amazon reportedly has three Kindle Fire models on the designing board including a 8.9-inch one.

Then there is the long awaited Google Nexus Tablet that has been rumored for some time and s expected to be built by Asus. It is believed to be a 7-inch tablet that will have a $199 starting price point. For more information on these and others including Nokia, Apple and Samsung’s potential offerings head over to the International Business Times site.

Apple loses appeal on ‘push’ email
Chalk one up for Motorola Mobility as a German court has upheld a ban that prevents Apple from using ‘push’ email in its iCloud and MobileMe service in Germany. The court, based in Mannheim, confirmed that Motorola owns the patent and that Apple must pay to use it.

The ruling keeps the services shut down in Germany and Apple is liable for damages and has been ordered to provide information that will enable the courts to determine the amount of the damage.

A look at how the current patent wars are hurting the market
A nice, general piece on the growing problem of patent conflicts and how it has erupted into major warfare. The rise of patent trolls, including corporate ones and how companies now go out and buy patents simply for protection. Nothing groundbreaking but nice to see that the issue is making more news.

On the same topic the fact that most of the patents in the smartphone area are held by international companies could stunt the growth of home grown developers in China, the world’s largest smartphone market.

Local handset manufacturers sold 455 million units last year but have been warned that they may be violating copyright laws with their devices. The news came from The Mobile Terminal White Paper, issued by the China Academy of Telecommunication Research.

Twitter tried to buy Instagram first
I did not hear about this when the huge deal went down with Facebook but apparently there was more than one company lining up for the photo sharing company. Seems that Twitter co-founder and Chairman Jack Dorsey had tried in the past to purchase the company, but failed to get any real traction on a deal.

However, since Dorsey was one of the investors in Instagram, he will be seeing a pretty penny from the deal. For a nice look at Instagram head over to the NY Times for this piece.

Pew study highlights technology rift
A recent study by the Pew Research Center shows how much of a gap still exists between have’s and have not’s in terms of technology. While a full 19% of Americans now have some form of tablet, be it a fully loaded Apple iPad or a bare bones Barnes & Noble Nook, a greater percentage, 22% do not even have Internet access.

The report is focused on digital access in this country and provides some great snapshots of who uses which technologies including cell phones and laptops as well as tablets, and that is broken down by a variety of demographics.

It is interesting to see that a fairly large number of adults that do not have Internet access do so because they believe that it adds nothing to their lives. Also the rise of mobile Internet access has helped level the playing field in areas that had traditionally lagged n terms of access and use.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, Asus, Barnes & Noble, Facebook, Google, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Lawsuit, Motorola, Samsung, Smartphone, Social Media, Tablets, The New York Times Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Grabfan Looks to Build Fan-Against-Fan Betting ‘Challenge’ Network

April 13, 2012 by

Grabfan app screen grab

Don’t call it betting! That’s the legal mantra but in reality what the new sports social media app Grabfan wants to do is make fan-against-fan betting more relevant and fun by rewarding correct predictions. That’s “predictions,” otherwise known as “bets.” But don’t call it betting! At least not for now.

Set to launch (hopefully) with the San Francisco Giants’ home opener later this week, Grabfan is an app developed by two lifelong friends, CEO Steve Smith and COO Cassidy Lavin, who loved fantasy sports leagues but hated how they worked — or didn’t work.

“Fantasy sports have been around a long time, but they’re broken,” said Lavin in a recent phone interview. “If you’re out of it by the ninth week of a season you don’t care about your team any more. What we want is something that lets you feel like how you feel on that first Sunday, the excitement of the first week of the season — we want you to feel like that every day.”

Enter Grabfan, an app that aims to let fans make daily predictions about how their teams will fare, and reward them for correct calls. According to the Grabfan site, app users can create their own predictions on parts of a game small or large (like the final score, or whether a certain player will get a hit) and then “challenge” a friend or anyone who thinks they might want to verbally contest the choice. You can then also set a “confidence” level which corresponds to “Grabbucks,” the virutal currency awarded for correct choices.

According to Grabfan the Grabbucks can be redeemed for prizes like merchandise (think watch bands and sunglasses) or maybe free drinks at nearby bars. The app is available now for iPhone and iPad devices, with an Android version in the works.

While much of the Grabfan enterprise will be created on the fly as the season unfolds (the duo hope to add a lot more bells and whistles, like integrated chat, Vegas betting lines and news for that day’s games), the founding duo will be extremely active online and on the roads surrounding the home of their hometown San Francisco Giants, AT&T Park. Driving around in the yet-to-be-seen “Grabfan vehicle,” a chopped-roof VW bus with orange flames, the Grabfan founders will will conduct random giveaway contests (for orange sunglasses) for folks who do some unspecified social-media trick like text #Grabfan to promote the app. There will also be Twitter giveaways where the company will award its lower-level box seats to each Giants home game. It’s all kind of seat of the pants at the moment but there is no mistaking the Grabfan enthusiasm.

“We’re going to be heavily focused on the Giants at first,” said Smith. “Everyone in the city likes the Giants, and we’re going to drive around so if you see the bus tweet a picture of it and you might win tickets.”

Smith and Lavin also hope to add a Foursquare-like checkin functionality to the app, both so that fans can find others close by to bet with (ahem, to challenge with predictions) and to have localized sponsors like bars who might offer free drinks or meal discounts for Grabbucks. At some point in the distant future there may be a way to involve real money online — in fact some legislators in California just submitted a bill to move online betting into the real world — but that day is not here yet for apps like Grabfan. The key right now, as the founders well understand, is to keep the app’s virtual currency completely virtual and random in its worth, in order to keep the operation in the legal clear zone.

Otherwise it might look too much like betting. And that would be illegal. For now, anyway.

“Don’t call them bets!” Lavin said.

OK, we won’t. But others will. You can bet on that.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Baseball, Fantasy Sports, iPad, iPhone, Major League Baseball, NBA, San Francisco Giants, Sports Betting, Sports Social Media Tagged With: , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Who gets Hard Knocks and Tablet Sales Soaring

April 13, 2012 by

Nike’s push to establish its FuelBand, a rubber wrist band that it is seeking to establish as a standard piece of wearable sports technology continues to move forward as the APIs for the device have been given to developers, according to an article in PSFK.

The FuelBandAPI will enable developers to create a range of applications that reach from a user’s iPhone out to the FuelBand and back, not only for sports related apps but also ones that could provide access to music and other iPhone features.

Are four cores twice as good as two?
Have you ever wondered what the difference between a dual core processor and a quad core processor, aside from the very obvious in terms of number of cores? Well Cnet’s Jessica Dolcourt has taken the time to break down the issues and lay them out in a piece entitled 7 Myths about quad-core phones.

She looks into issues such as app development, impact on battery life and top down development of the cores, all with interviews with developers to fill in the gaps. After reading this you might not rush out and buy the first quad-core smartphone on the market

“Hard Knocks” heading to Atlanta?
ESPN is reporting that HBO has asked the Atlanta Falcons to be the subject of this year’s “Hard Knocks” a series that follows one NFL team throughout its entire preseason training camp. There have also been stories that the Jets management wanted the program again while the team’s coach did not.

And speaking of pro football don’t forget that it is just a mere two weeks until the annual draft. Get ready now to ridicule either a) your team, b) the sports channel you watch the event, c) one specific draft expert or d) all of the above.


Intel to push tablets in education
Intel has delivered Studybook, a ruggedized tablet for the education market that is part of the company’s Intel Learning Series family and will come with a range of software designed specifically for the education space.

The tablet features a range of education software including the Intel Learning Series software suite for both students and teachers. The tablet can also serve as an ereader and has an estimated 5.5 hour battery life.

It is powered by an Intel Atom Z650 processor and features 1GB DDR memory, a choice of 4GB, 8GB, 16GB or 32GB storage, a 7-inch 1024 x 600 resolution multitouch display, with optional front and rear cameras. Intel will license the reference design to company’s working in the education space and the tablets can run either Android or Windows tablet operating systems.

Tablets sales soaring-Apple leads the way
A recent report from market researcher Gartner Group shows strong growth in tablets from last year to this, from 60 million units to an estimated 118 million, and it shows that Apple’s iPad, not surprising, leads the way.

Gartner estimated that Apple sold roughly 40 million last year and will account for 73 million, or 61.4% of all tablet sales this year. By 2016 Apple is estimated to still be the market leader, but Android is expected to make a strong push into a very solid #2 position.

Microsoft’s forthcoming tablet OS and accompanying hardware partners will see it gain a very distant third by 2016, with estimated sales of 43 million, or slightly better than what Apple did last year. Head over to look at the charts here.

MLB.TV Blackout Rules in need of a revamp?
While we here at MSR are pretty big fans of MLB’s wide variety of tools and apps that allow access at some level to baseball, one that has always been an issue is its blackout rules for MLB.TV, which seem more than a bit arbitrary.

A post by Chad Moriyama recently brought home a major flaw in the program. He was informed that the newly revised blackout rules would not only block Dodgers and Giant games, but all West Coast teams as well as some others for a total of nine teams, including games in Texas.

So you might wonder if he lives in some wonderful central location that enables him to easily drive a wide variety of parks, possible the Springfield that the Simpsons live in. No, he lives in Hawaii, 3,000 miles from a Dodgers game.

If Internet Commentators were around then…
The Sports Pickle has really hit it on the head about Internet commenting, not just on sports but on pretty much anything these days. I always seems that you cannot get 10 posts before one is a troll, and trolls attract more trolls.

Even so this recreation of what comments would look like for four famous events- The Steelers Immaculate Reception, US beats USSR in Olympics hockey, Frazier beats Ali and Lou Gerhig’s farewell at Yankee Stadium are all spot on.

How many smartphones?
Analyst estimates are always to be taken with a grain of salt, at a bare minimum, but no matter which estimation you believe smartphone sales are continuing to grow at a very fast pace. Credit Suisse is predicting that sales will grow 46%, to 687.9 million units this year. It estimates 1 billon sold in 2014.

Gartner has estimates that last year all forms of mobile phones reached a total of 1.8 billion units. Then there is Cisco, which has forecast that by 2016 there will be 1.4 smartphones for every person on the planet. Head over to Mashable to look at all of the numbers. I imagine that half of them will be lost in the back of a cab.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Humor, iPad, iPhone, Major League Baseball, Mashable, NFL, Tablets Tagged With: , ,

MLB.Com At Bat 12 Popularity Soaring

April 12, 2012 by

Bad weather is always an unfortunate fact of life, even more so when it coincides with the start of the baseball season. The joys of watching your favorite team play can be severely dampened by an early season rainstorm.

Yet fans are watching games in record numbers, by using MLB.Com At Bat 12, an app that baseball’s interactive media arm MLB Advanced Media, has been publishing for the last five years.

As the time has passed the popularity of the app has grown tremendously and this year the app passed the 3 million download mark, fur months faster than it managed to achieve last year. And yes. Last year was also a record pace for the program.

Fans are not just downloading the app, but they are using it with great regularity, unlike all of the education apps on my phone. MLBAM has reported that the service is seeing an average of 800,000 live audio and video streams daily since the season began.

We covered most of the details here earlier this season, but in a nutshell it is an app for Apple’s iPhone and iPad as well as Android devices and costs $19.99 a month or $109.99 a season to watch games.

This shows how multifunctional users are finding their smartphones and tablets and how a sports league can meet the fans needs at a price point that does not break the bank for fans.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball Tagged With:

The Golden State Warriors Continue Focus on Reaching Fans

April 12, 2012 by

While some believe that the Warriors are tanking in order to move into a potentially better lottery position and so keep the pick, the team and its new owners are definitely still working to connect with fans with the latest effort a mobile app.

The team has launched an app, Golden State Warriors Mobile, now free at the iTunes store. The app pretty much does what you would expect by providing scores, schedules access to buying tickets, videos and the ability to connect to a variety of social media related to the team.

The team is not unique in this as a quick look through the iTunes store shows that several other teams have apps such as the New Your Knicks and the Utah Jazz and this is a good move because so many fans now use their smartphones and tablets, to increasingly access information on their teams online.

Not surprisingly for a franchise that has had a recent history of failure and uncaring owners, the Warriors can and do get beaten up online quite a bit. However that has not stopped it from using a variety of social media avenues to connect with its fans.

In other news it looks like the Warriors may join the exodus out of Oakland as the team has been reportedly seeking a site in San Francisco for a new arena. If the proposed site they are looking at works out it will have them joining the Giants on San Francisco’s waterfront.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Golden State Warriors, iPad, iPhone, NBA Tagged With: , ,
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