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MLB Fans Increasingly Watching Games via Mobile Devices

March 27, 2012 by

Major League Baseball opens its season next week with the Champion Saint Louis Cardinals helping the Miami Marlins christen the new ballpark that is opening down in Florida on Wednesday April 4th, followed the next day with six openers on Thursday and nine more openers on Friday.

Yet fans are already tuning in to games, with many of the Spring Training games being broadcast on the leagues MLB Network channel, if you are lucky enough to get it as well as many local stations. When the season opens this is a good place to get a quick look at all of the teams.

However there is a rapidly growing section of the fan base that is mobile and wants its games and information mobile as well and baseball is increasingly catering to these fans.

For the fifth consecutive year mobile users will also have the option of using MLB.com At Bat 12, giving users the ability to watch it not only on mobile devices but an increasing range of connected devices as well.

The release of the latest version, which coincided with the start of Spring Training, shows the increasing popularity of watching sports, and in this case baseball, on a variety of devices. The first weekend it was available there was 2.9 million downloads and users received 450,000 live audio and video streams, increases of 132% and 83% respectively over the first weekend of Spring Training games in 2011.

The app is available for Apple’s iPhone and iPad, Android phones and tablets, Kindle Fire, and BlackBerry users with a Windows 7 Phone version expected by Opening Day. It costs $14.99 and provides home and away radio broadcasts, pitch trackers, breaking news alerts and a range of additional features. The features are not standard, with some devices offering more than others.

Then there is also MLB.TV. It comes in two basic flavors, regular and premium. The regular version, which costs $19.99 a month or $109.99 a year allows users to watch games on their computer and features a set of DVR functions that allow a user rewind live game action. It also provides the ability to display games as PiP, split screen or mosaic.

The premium version brings much more to the table, starting with a free subscription to At Bat 12. It is supported on connected devices aside from the computer such as the Xbox 360, Sony Playstation 3, Roku, Apple TV, select Samsung and LG connected televisions and Blu-Ray players and it provides both home and away feeds as well as all of the features available in the basic version. The program costs $24.99 a month or $124.99 a year.

Baseball is doing a very good job of making the sport widely available and on wide variety of devices from television to smartphones. The fact that for less than $3 a month a user can listen to games, something that is much less demanding on a data plan than watching streaming video should draw fans. I have seen some reports that baseball’s hardcore fan base is getting older and I suspect that the expansion of the broadcast to these platforms will appeal to a younger set of fans.

Filed Under: Amazon, Apple, Apps, BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Microsoft to Conquer China?

March 26, 2012 by


RIM takes steps to expand app library
Research in Motion, struggling to remain relevant in the smartphone space has started seeding software developers with an early version of its next generation BlackBerry 10 device. The move is designed to help jump start the software app space, an area that the company has lagged its major platform operating system rivals Apple iOS and Google’s Android.

The company plans to provide developers that attend its annual BlackBerry World conference that will be held in Orlando, Fla. in May with the prototype, called the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha. The company expects to deliver the final version of the BlackBerry 10 late this year.

The company also has helped refund the BlackBerry Partners Fund II that is being run by Relay Ventures, but that fund will also look to fund app developers on rival platforms, something that it did not do in the first round of funding.

Mobile security increasingly in legislators’ cross-hairs
Going hand in glove with the increasing news about apps and ads stealing personal data are legislators seeking to get involved. A pair of congressmen has sent letters to 34 social apps develops for Apple’s iOS platform asking about their information collection and use practices

The companies included Apple, Twitter, Foursquare, Hipster, Linkedin, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram and the letters were sent by Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman and Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee Ranking Member G. K. Butterfield.

This request is separate from the one launched a week ago from U.S. Senator Charles Schumer who has asked the FTC to look into the manner Google and Apple’s operating systems run and f they violate users privacy.

In a somewhat related note Pinterest has changed and updated its terms of service, acceptable use and its privacy rules-in part to help prevent copyright material from being pasted onto pinboards.

iPad eats data plans due to streaming video
This is no real surprise to anyone that has used their smartphone or a tablet to watch live streaming video over a cellular network- data plan limits are just demolished often resulting in costly bills and the need for additional capacity.

One of the selling points of the latest iPad was its ability to connect to high speed LTE networks, and with that comes the ability to watch sports and news programs live over the network in great clarity due to the device’s high resolution screen capabilities.

One study has found that the downloading of a single HD movie download could cost as much as $50, and could cause throttling to ensue from the carrier. Of course all a user needs to do to avoid this issue is ensure that they are using a Wi-Fi connection rather than a cellular one.


Boombox the fasted adopted technology?
An interesting little factoid over at The Atlantic, which they culled from the ever popular Journal of Management and Marketing Research shows that among consumer electronics technologies that have been introduced in the last 50 years, the fastest to see wide spread adoption after 7 years on the market was the boombox with an over 60% market penetration. Boy that is a bet I would have lost. The next four are CD Player, DVD Player, VCR and portable CD Player.

Use your smartphone primarily as a camera? HTC wants you.
HTC has just shown a new smartphone, the HTC X One, a model that can take as manay as 4 four digital photos a second. The phone, powered by a quad-core processor and featuring a 4.7-inch screen can also snap photos while the user is viewing video.

The iPhone 5 is coming!
And already the rumors are flying! We will try and avoid doing weekly updates on the rumors, but I do wonder if Apple will follow the example it set with the latest iPad, simply calling it an iPad rather than iPad 3. Will the next iPhone be simply known as iPhone? Could be.

Microsoft to conquer China first
I guess that Microsoft is not taking Vizzini’s advice about never get involved in a land war in Asia. The company’s executives are claiming that its Windows Phone operating system will enable it to pass Apple’s iPhone in market share in China.

With low cost options available from its partners that come in significantly lower than Apple’s offerings the company said that it will first surpass Apple and then will have its sights set on the Android space, which it believes it will also surpass, at some unnamed point in the future.

The importance of the Chinese market should not be underestimated since it is now the world’s largest market for smartphones even though its market penetration is significantly lower than in the United States.

Will American’s really lose $30 billion worth of phones this year?
They will if you believe a piece in Silicon Angle. That is a lot of phones. I have no idea how accurate that info is, but I will say I have found an iPhone 4 and a phone from Nokia in the last two weeks.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, AT&T, FTC, HTC, iPad, iPhone, Microsoft, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , ,

Sunday Sermon: Bleacher Report’s Team Stream Shows Us How to Share Content

March 18, 2012 by

I have seen the immediate future of sports content sharing, and if it’s not the ultimate winner than Bleacher Report’s Team Stream feature will be something others will quickly copy. The main reason why I think it will be so successful? The best part of Team Stream is B/R’s willingness to embrace content that isn’t solely its own, to better serve the fans. That sharing attitude is going to make Team Stream a go-to feature that may eventually be more popular than any single site’s collection of reporters and columnists.

If you haven’t seen Team Stream yet, just go to the B/R site and set up a “stream” for yourself. It works either online, in an email newsletter, and most importantly, on mobile devices. The basic premise is, B/R’s team of web-watching editors sifts through everything that is out there and sends you a bundle of content centered around the teams or sports you are most interested in. The key is that unlike other media outlets, some of whom won’t link or mention competitors, B/R provides links to anyone and everyone, from major content creators to bloggers and tweeters. That’s the secret sauce that will make Team Stream taste great.

A screen grab of a Bleacher Report Team Stream newsletter on golf.

My blogging mentor, Om Malik, had one big rule for creating content — don’t waste the reader’s time. Team Stream embodies that ideal perfectly. Instead of me having to maintain links to multiple web sites, follow multiple people on Twitter, I can just “stream” the best stuff for my teams and save myself a lot of hunting time. And after visiting the B/R offices last week to see their energetic, massive bench of editors engaged in finding the best content out there I’m pretty confident that they’re going to serve up enough good stuff every day on my teams and topics to keep me from needing to go everywhere else.

So far I’ve been following the Chicago Bulls and Golf Team Streams as a test, and I can say right off the bat the golf one is a champ. Today’s newsletter, for example, gives me links to stories from Bleacher Report itself, but also from Yahoo Sports, from PGA.com, from Golf.com and from the AP — a much better mix than any traditional newspaper or sports site, which primarily include content only from their own staffs or partner “wire services” like AP. And I haven’t yet tried the new iPad version of Team Stream but I can only guess that the bigger screen size will make activities like watching video replays just that much easier.

Keep your eye on Team Stream, and see how many folks try to copy what Bleacher Report is doing. The power of sharing and smart editing is a winning combination.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, bleacherreport, iPad, iPhone, Sharing Sports Media, Sports Social Media Tagged With: , ,

PumpOne teams with Cybex for Advanced Exercise Workout Apps

March 16, 2012 by

With the long winter almost behind us, the issue that many face (not me of course) is that they might have put on a bit of extra insulation as they watched the seasons change from warm to cold and are now looking to remedy that situation.

There are a number of methods to pick up an exercise regime, and one of them is to use apps that were designed by any number of health and fitness gurus. A new one has entered the mix, and during the winter months you may have seen the products used on the television show ‘The Biggest Loser”

Cybex International is the official fitness partner to the show as well as a manufacturer of exercise equipment and has teamed with PumpOne, a developer of training programs for both professional athletes as well as the weekend type, to create apps for personal training.

There are several ways in which the two are partnering. PumpOne already has an app presence with its FitnessBuilder platform and has iPhone, iPad, and Android apps available as well as pod casts already available with a total of 2,000 exercises.

Cybex will be adding to the exercises featured in the apps, but that is just part of the story. There will now be full workout programs available in the future available from FitnessBuilder. The programs will be designed by Cybex Research Institute, Cybex’s research arm.

This seems to be a natural merging to talents and it will be interesting to see how well this works out. A major issue that will be facing them is just to overcome the sheer amount of releases you see in an average week in all areas of apps. It is increasingly hard for potential customers to judge what is, and is not a solid app, or one that meets their specific needs.

The fact that the two have been around for some time and have a history in their market has to be viewed as a major asset. Of course television coverage does not hurt either.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, iPad, iPhone

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Mashable to sell for $200 million?

March 12, 2012 by

TV makers missing the boat on apps?
The NY Times has a nice, short pierce on how other forms of streaming video are increasingly sidelining television viewing and that they need to add a greater degree of connectivity to compete with developments such as Apple TV and even smartphones. It asks some of the questions that likely be the basis of this conversation going forward.

How is Twitter’s Finances?
Gawker has come forth saying that the micro blogger’s revenue and profits are poor, based on leaked information that that site has received. Twitter has been pronouncing that it has seen an uptick in its performance but Gawker says otherwise.

It claims that in 2010 Twitter had total revenue of $28.5 million, a pretty good number for a startup until the fact that it had to spend three times that to earn the revenue and that for the year it reported a net loss of $67.8 million.

The company, which has 100 million active users, does not appear to have a comprehensive plan to maintain steady revenue, according to the article, which claims that it could be the greatest tech bust ever.

March Madness is here- so are the apps (for iPhones)
Appolicious has taken the time to track down and do a nice short write up on 5 apps that can help you track the tournament and follow your teams. They are both free and paid apps and cover just scores to ones that include analysis, news updates and bracket creators and tracking information.

Generation C?
Labeling generations seems to be an art, although I have always wondered why the first I had heard of was Generation X. I mean why start at the bottom of the alphabet? Well the good folks at Nielsen have come up with another, Generation C.

At least this one makes sense as the C stands for connected and its members are Americans in the 18-34 age group, or 23% of the overall population. Gen C make up 27% of online video viewers, 27% of those that visit social networking sites, represent 33% that own a tablet and 39% of the smartphone owners.

Mashable on the block?
Reuters is reporting that CNN is in talks to purchase social media news site Mashable for more than $200 million. Mashable covers a range of areas in the tech and social media sector including startup news and issues related to major players. CNN declined to comment.

One interesting aftereffect of the big Apple iPad announcement is that it seems to have unleashed a wave of rumors about pending rival products. While there is always talk about company A planning to do such and such with its next generation platform, it seems much more pronounce these days. Of course it could be that I am just now paying more attention, anyway here are a few of the more interesting ones.

Google and Asus to team on 7-inch Tablet?
DigiTimes is reporting that Google and Asus are teaming to deliver a 7-inch Android tablet that will be shipping in May. Targeted directly at the e-reader space that is currently dominated by two players, Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook the tablet is reported to be in the $199-$249 price range.

Padfone to ship in April?
It looks like Asus will be delivering its Padfone convertible next month, at least in select markets. I have to say that this is the device that I am very interested in getting my hands on. The reason is that the phone snaps into the tablet and the phones processor powers the entire device. This way a user can get a tablet with 3/4G without a separate contract, a major drawback on connecting tablets to digital networks.

The Padfone is a three piece product with the first being 4.3-inch smartphone designed for the Android 4.0 operating system powered by a Qualcomm 1.5GHz dual core processor. That can be inserted into the top of a 10.1-inch tablet, and there is a keyboard dock as well

This and that

Instagram looks to Android
Instagram is coming real soon to the Android. Founder Kevin Systrom showed, but did not give a full demo of the app at SXSW. The company said that it currently has 27 million users.

Some iPads will be late
Apple’s recently introduced iPad, set for delivery this Friday, will be missing in some areas due to an overwhelming demand for the product. The company said that it has sold out and that some buyers will have to wait as long as three weeks to get their orders.

Nvidia vs Apple Rd 1
Nvidia disputes Apple’s claim that the iPad is 2x faster than nVidia’s Tegra 3 processor. Its response can be boiled down to simply- let’s see the data. Wonder if this is the first shot in a benchmark war a la Intel/AMD from a decade ago?

Path now syncs with Nike +
For users of the iPhone app that makes a journal of your life for your friends it now enables you to share your workout stats using Nike’s Nike + technology, with more forthcoming when Nike releases the Nike + Fuelband product.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Barnes & Noble, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Live sports via mobile, NCAA Hoops, Smartphone, Tablets, The New York Times Tagged With: , , , ,

Apple Delivers Latest iPad — 4G LTE Connectivity and Tremendous Resolutions are Hallmarks

March 7, 2012 by

Apple has taken the wraps off of its latest iPad, chock full of new features from a high end display to faster 4G connectivity as the company seeks to maintain its huge lead in the tablet market, a space that had languished for years until Apple’s entrance two years ago.

With typical panache Apple did not give the latest offering in its iPad family a name such as iPad 3 or iPad HD as had been expected but rather called it the iPad all day as the company laid out the newest features in its latest offering.

The iPad is powered by an A5X quad core processor, similar to what powered the iPad 2 and the iPhone but which has been modified to better run high end graphics. It will need that graphics power with the Retina display that enables 2048 x 1536 pixel resolution. To give you an idea of how this compares to earlier models, this is 4x the number of pixels in the iPad 2.

It includes a 5MP iSight camera that has the ability to capture 1080HD video and the iPad can play back 1080p video. There is also a second, much lower end rear facing camera that has 0 .3MP capability for video chat.

Two of Apple’s carrier partners, AT&T and Verizon will be selling 4G LTE versions of the iPad but no word yet if its third iPhone partner, Sprint will sell one when its network is up to that level. The coverage now available includes support for HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA, so that both CDMA and GSM iPad users have the ability to easily roam internationally.

Apple did not port Siri, its voice technology so popular on its iPhones to the iPad but the device does support diction and note taking verbally. Apple claims that a user should be able to get 10 hours of battery life.

The new iPad Wi-Fi models will be available in black or white on Friday, March 16 for $499 for the 16GB model, $599 for the 32GB model and $699 for the 64GB model. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G for either AT&T or Verizon will be available for $629 for the 16GB model, $729 for the 32GB model and $829 for the 64GB model. In addition Apple has cut ithe price of its existing iPad 2, which will now start $399.

As Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO took center stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco he received a very different reception that the late Steve Jobs did just about two years ago when he debuted the original iPad.

Hard to remember now the cynicism and disdain that the original was greeted with. Remember all of the bad iPad jokes? People claiming that they could see no real use for them? Now flash forward a bit more than two years and market researchers are claiming there is a pent up demand for this product.

Apple now refers to this as the post-PC world and well they should. Cook said that the company sold 172 million post-PC products which accounted for 76% of the company’s revenue.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Apps, AT&T, iPad, iPhone, Sprint, Tablets, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: ,
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