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March Madness Maintains Torrid Mobile Viewing Pace

April 3, 2013 by 4 Comments

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This year’s March Madness has been one of the best in over two decades in terms of television viewers but it is the best all time in terms of mobile access as increasingly fans use mobile devices to track games and video of their favorite teams or hot match ups.

The first week’s results were strong, as we recounted here, and things have not only not slowed, but as the tournament heads towards its final week viewership is increasing, even with fewer matchups to view.

The mobile and online viewership, which encompasses PCs as well as tablets and smartphones, has seen a total of 12.6 million hours of video consumed, an increase of 201% from last year with a total of 45 million live video streams for the first two weeks of the tournament, this represents a 158% increase over last year’s tournament viewership. Last year the event registered 18.3 million live video streams for the entire tournament last year.

Breaking it down to exactly what platforms are drawing the most users shows that broadband had 5 million unique visitors, up 139% while mobile apps had 3.2 million unique visitors, up 93% compared to the entire tournament last year.

If you have not viewed the games from the tournament on a mobile device but are interested there are several options. The March Madness Live app was developed in a partnership that included the NCAA, Turner Sports and CBS Sports and can be launched from CBSsports.com, NCAA.com/marchmadness or bleacherreport.com for computers and the mobile app is available from both the App Store and Google Play.

NCAA March Madness Live app has ranked No. 1 as the top sports app in the App Store and Google Play over the first two weeks of the tournament. It was also the No. 1 free app across all categories in the App Store during that same time period.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Basketball, bleacherreport, CBS Sports, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, Smartphone, Tablets, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , , ,

Favourit Bets App Draws Bettors to Gambling Platform

April 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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Favourit, a newly launched App from a pair of brothers in Melbourne Australia is reaching out to sports gamblers with an app that both brings together gamblers and sites to take the bets and friends that want to compete together using social media.

Founded in 2012 by brothers Toby and Josh Simmons, Favourit is touting itself as the Social sports betting network it has already attracted $3.6 million in Series A venture funding, a move that alone will help give it a boost over many rivals that are bootstrapping their way to market.

The concept is simple. Fans can gamble real money, where allowed, or virtual currency. The site sets fans up with betting operators for the real thing and with friends via social media for the all important bragging rights, and real betting as well if so desired.

It is designed as a global program, and while it covers some sports that Americans might not have a sporting interest in such as Australian Football League it covers a range of ones that might have a more direct appeal such as the NBA or the NFL.

While it has been available as a Web app and in HTML form for mobile users, studies have shown that increasingly smartphone and tablet users much prefer apps designed specifically for those platforms and that s what the company has done, creating a version that is currently downloadable for free from Apple’s iTunes store and that will run on Apple iOS devices.

Favourit includes real time virtual betting, as well as real betting via regulated partners and player to player bets. It includes stats, previews and live scores of events and has a social stream so that betters can chat and receive up to date news. You can also follow all of your bets and see social trends in betting and has a board that ranks bettors in terms of complexity and allows users to earn “BetIQ” points.

There have been plenty of apps that have sought to leverage the connection between social media and betting, and plenty that have focused just on the betting aspect of the equation. Apps such as 2Bet2, SideBet and others are already participating at some level and its been pretty clear that others are dying to get involved. A hold back, at least in the US, is that it is illegal to bet online. However that may be changing and other countries have already allowed it, as is obvious from what Favourit is doing.

I wonder if the push that the state of New Jersey is having about sports gambling will help open the door to more gambling in the US, particularly online? I guess only time will tell, but in terms of a head start for actual gambling, off shore sites like Favourit have a real advantage

Filed Under: Apple, iOS, Live sports via mobile, NBA, NFL, Smartphone, Social Media, Sports Betting, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , ,

MLB Updates a Trio of Mobile Apps Ahead for Opening Day

April 1, 2013 by 1 Comment

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Major League Baseball’s 2013 season has started and the league has updated a number of its successful programs from last year as it seeks to increase its appeal to fans that use mobile connected smart devices.

The heart of the effort is its MLB.com at Bat 13, which for most mobile users has been available since Spring Training started. At Bat has a host of features that we have recounted earlier so we will just list the basics here. It gives users the ability to listen to live games on a breadth of platforms including PCs and Macs, as well as most smartphones and tablets.

The platform has a wide range of features that will appeal to both serious and casual fans including individual team pages, player statistics, video highlights of current games as well as a classic games video library.

One new feature that is just ready for the regular season is support for the BlackBerry Z10, the latest platform to be supported along with Android and Apple’s iOS. If you already subscribe to MLB.TV Premium then At Bat 13 is free, otherwise it has a $19.99 one time annual fee.

A second app is At the Ballpark, which MLB is expanding to include more parks. The app is part journal, where you can record current trips as well as past ones as far back as 2005. The journal section includes the ability to share photos from the visits. It has a tickets purchase and upgrade sections for select clubs, a range of social media hooks and even allows users to hear ballpark and player entrance music.

The final app is one that can have a great payback for fans; MLB.com Beat The Streak presented by Dunkin Donuts. It is a game where fans pick players to get a hit and if they manage to beat DiMaggio’s consecutive game hitting streak of 56 games you can win a $5.6 million grand prize. No one won last year and a new rule has been added this year that if you forget to post for a day your streak will not end.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Athlete to Follow, Baseball, BlackBerry, iOS, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: More Smart Watches and Games to Play at Ball Parks

March 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Still a year out Google Glass is already raising eyebrows and causing concern in legislative offices locally and nationally. Already West Virginia is looking at banning them from being worn while driving, and that could just be the start.

We have long questioned what casinos would do with players that can instantly see the odds flashed on their glasses but it appears there is a whole realm of other uses, from invasion of privacy to electronic surveillance.

FAA to ease in-flight powered device rule?
It is starting to look as if you will soon be able to continue reading on a tablet while your jetliner is taking off or landing. The New York Times is reporting that unnamed Federal Aviation Administration said changes are in the works.

An FAA work group found that powered up devices caused no issues with the aircraft and that the agency is now looking to ease rules, possibly as soon as the end of the year. It look like the ruling will apply to reading devices such as tablets only.

Aim is important even in the minor leagues
In what has to be the oddest in-ballpark games I have heard about the Lehigh Valley IronPigs, the Philadelphia Phillies’ top minor league affiliate, has installed a ‘urinal gaming system’ that it is rolling out this season.

The gaming system, the details of which are few, is said to activate as a person approaches the urinal in the men’s restrooms at the Lehigh ballpark. The guy can aim left or right to control the action on the screen. Glad it is not a touch screen program.

Rumors of the week

The next Generation Galaxy Tab to have 8-Core processor
The rumor mill always loves Samsung and the latest is that the company is developing a next generation Galaxy Tab that will feature an eight core Exynos 5 Octa processor, a chip that has four low powered cores dedicated to handling low powered tasks in order to extend battery life.

While Samsung has been talking about the processor technology since the start of the year it has not named a product, as of yet, that it plans to use with the chip. SamMobile is now reporting that it will be in a Galaxy Tab to be released later this year that will feature either a 10.1 HD screen or a 11.6-inch HD screen.

LG to build smartwatch?
While Apple’s iWatch and Google’s smartwatch development programs are still only rumors and Samsung has talked about its plans in a relatively vague manner others are already joining into this (overhyped?) market. The latest is LG Electronics which is reported to be planning on developing a rival offering.

The Korean Times, via Yahoo, is reporting that LG is now looking at developing a connected watch that will compete with the smartwatches that are being developed by rivals. It said that company officials belive this to be the next must have device.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Contests, Google, Samsung, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , ,

March Madness a Huge Hit with Online and Mobile Users

March 28, 2013 by 2 Comments

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To the surprise of probably no one the first round of the annual NCAA Division 1 Basketball tournament has see resounding television viewership numbers (best in 18 years), but what might pass unnoticed is how strong its mobile and online viewership is as well.

Strong actually may be understating it, in the first week viewership via PCs, smartphones and tablets accounted for 10 million hours of video stream consumed by fans accessing all of the different online digital properties showing the tournament.

The results coupled with the strong online viewership the recent London Summer Olympics enjoyed should put to rest the arguments that making live sports action available for mobile and online users will hurt television viewership that some sports leagues still adhere to.

There were 4.2 million unique visitors watching games, and what is telling about how fast this has become an alternative method to watch the event, that number represents a 161% increase from just a year ago.

Broadband users were the top consumers of video averaging 105 minutes of viewing time while the mobile segment, the smartphone and tablet users, consumed 61 minutes per user.

The mobile aspect of this is increasingly important. Mobile viewers represented for 43% of live video streams on Thursday, 48% on Friday, 59% on Saturday and 60% on Sunday. These numbers both show how important reaching mobile users and that by addressing them how an event can expand its viewership by reaching fans that might be at work and prohibited from using work PCs to view or people that are out and about but still want to catch a game. Hopefully others, such as the NFL, will take this to heart and make more games available online.

Filed Under: Apps, Basketball, Contests, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, Smartphone, Tablets, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , ,

PCs Sales Suffer as Tablets and Smartphone Sales continue to Soar

March 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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A recent press release from market research company IDC highlights the growing importance of tablets to users seeking to stay connected with a smart device as they have become a driving force in a huge and growing market.

The latest results from IDC’s Smart Connected Device Tracker shows that overall shipments of smart connected devices grew 29.1% last year and that units edged past the 1 billion shipped level for the first time, with a value of $576.9 billion.

Tablet sales grew 78.4% compared to 2011, reaching 128 million units for the year. Smartphones continued to also see strong growth, increasing by 46.1% while the big loser were PCs, both desktop and notebooks, with drops in sales of 4.1% and 3.4% respectively.

And the forecast is rosy for tablets and not so good for the old stalwarts in the PC market. As the tablet space starts to mature sales will slow as a percentage of growth, dropping to an estimated 48.7% this year and 10.6% by 2017 while smartphones will drop to 27.2% growth this year and 9.8% in 2017. On the flip side of the coin desktop PC sales will continue to drop, seeing a 4.3% decline this year and a 1.0% in 2017 while notebook sales are expected to see some rebound to an increase of 0.9% this year and a 3.7% increase in 2017.

Part of notebooks’ issues can be seen in that tablets are now emerging as the go-to device in developing markets, but IDC estimates that users will often move onto, or add, notebook computers at some point in the future.

Amidst this shift, maintaining the functionality of these mobile devices is crucial, especially as they become integral to everyday life. A common issue faced by many users is screen damage, which can significantly hinder the usability of tablets and smartphones. This is where services like Mobile Screen Fix come into play, providing essential repairs that ensure devices remain in optimal condition. By addressing screen damage promptly, users can continue to enjoy the full capabilities of their tablets and smartphones, making these devices reliable tools for both personal and professional use. As the demand for mobile technology grows, so does the importance of accessible and efficient repair services.

IDC estimates that worldwide shipments will continue to remain very strong overall and should reach 2.2 billion units and $814.3 billion by 2017.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Intel, iPad, Market Research, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , ,
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