You are here: Home / Archives for Twitter

Watching Golf this Week: The PGA Championship

August 9, 2012 by

Good news first: The 94th running of the PGA Championship will have a boatload of online and viewing options, and all kinds of web-enabled goodies to allow you to enjoy the year’s last major from the comfort of your desk, laptop, or iPhone or iPad. (Here’s the link to live video.) The bad news? It may not wrap up until Monday given the probability of thunderstorms likely to hit the Island Course in Kiawah, South Carolina. At least during the inevitable rain delays, you will have all kinds of diversions like the PGA’s new Social Caddy page to let you watch Twitter streams of players and caddies waiting out the rain.

A quick note on the online stuff — though we had written before that the PGA Tour and Turner Sports were parting ways, the relationship between Turner and the PGA Championship is a different beast — and as such Turner will be pulling out all the stops with TNT coverage Thursday, Friday and before CBS on the weekends, and a whole bunch of good website stuff, including lots of photos and videos.

Several things that we are going to look closely at for the live online video (which starts at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Thursday and Friday) are the multiple camera views and featured groups that Turner says we’ll be able to follow online. We were disappointed at the U.S. Open’s somewhat limited online options, so let’s see if Turner can do better at the PGA. So far, the Masters is still far and away the online king of majors. We are heavily disappointed that the PGA app is iPhone only — c’mon folks, there are a heckuva lot of Android phones out there. Bad form to not have an Android app ready. Like in gymnastics, we’re taking a full point deduction there.

As for the actual golf… once again it really is all about Tiger, and whether or not he can get the job done at a major. Kiawah really doesn’t suit his perfectionist game — weirdo target golf — but when he is on, he really is the Usain Bolt of golf. I think it’s good to note here that had he not three-putted on that disaster bunker hole and not gone over the green on the par-3, Tiger would be your defending British Open champion. Just saying, the guy didn’t have anything near his “A” game and he still almost took the jug. He’s still the rock lock on my ESPN Fantasy team, but behind him I see… maybe Jason Dufner? An incredibly consistent year and good performances in the majors. Like last year, he could be standing near the end while others are falling.

Who else? I like Dustin Johnson’s ability but fear that Dustin is his own biggest enemy. At least there are no sand-trap rules for Johnson to worry about. Unlike the PGA two years ago where there were bunkers everywhere, there is a lot of sand at Kiawah but… according to some weird rule none of the sand is a bunker. So expect to see a lot of guys grounding their clubs, and a million calls to the PGA offices to follow. Watch the video and learn why it’s not a problem.

Finally my dark horse pick: Someone who historically plays well in South Carolina coastal courses, someone who has been surprisingly sharp at times this year… while he puts together his Ryder Cup team. That’s right, I am giving some love to the Captain, DLIII, Davis Love the Thirdly, to find another rainbow and win a second major in the gloaming of his career. I watched Love for a hole at Olympic during the Open, and his game seemed anything but old, striping a 2-iron off the tee and outhitting a younger playing partner who went 3-wood. Nice. In reality Love will probably be on the sidelines Saturday and Sunday, watching to see if Phil Mickelson can give him a reason to make him a captain’s pick for the Ryder roster. Enough Olympics already. Let’s get this war by the shore started.

Here’s where to follow the action:

94th PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

(all times Eastern)
TV COVERAGE
Thursday, Aug. 9 — TNT, 1 p.m. — 7 p.m.
Friday, Aug. 10 — TNT, 1 p.m. — 7 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 11 — TNT, 11 a.m. — 2 p.m. — 7 p.m.; CBS, 2 p.m. — 7 p.m.
Sunday, Aug. 12 — TNT, 11 a.m. — 2 p.m. — 7 p.m.; CBS, 2 p.m. — 7 p.m.

RADIO
SIRIUS XM (Satellite)
Coverage starts at 12 p.m. Thursday & Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

ONLINE
As we said above, there is going to be a lot of online video, including marquee groups, par 3 coverage and press conferences. HERE IS THE LIVE VIDEO PAGE.

PGA SHOT TRACKER
No Shot Tracker this week.

FACEBOOK PAGE
If it looks like the beach, it’s the PGA Facebook page for Kiawah.

TOP TWITTER FEEDS TO FOLLOW

HASHTAG FOR THE PGA IS: #PGAChamp

Geoff Shackelford — well known golf writer. If you’re not following Geoff you are missing the online boat.
Golf Channel — official Golf Channel feed
@PGATOUR — official PGA Twitter feed
@StephanieWei — great golf writer who is a Twitter fiend. Who won’t be going back to Akron anytime soon.
Doug Ferguson is the lead golf writer for AP. Good Twitter insights that often aren’t part of your wire-service lead.

WHAT’S THE COURSE LIKE?
You’re kidding, right? Like you haven’t heard of the Island Course. Or seen numerous recaps of The War by the Shore. Well here is the official page, knock yourself out.

WHO WON THIS THING LAST YEAR?
Keegan “long putter” Bradley. Outlasting our man Duf.

FEDEX CUP LEADERS
1. Tiger Woods, 2,204 points
2. Zach Johnson, 2,018
3. Jason Dufner, 1,983
4. Hunter Mahan, 1,739
5. Bubba Watson, 1,712

See the full standings for the FedEx Cup points list.

WORLD GOLF RANKINGS
1. Luke Donald; 2. Tiger Woods; 3. Rory McIlroy; 4. Lee Westwood; 5. Webb Simpson.
See the official World Golf Ranking list.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, CBS Sports, Golf, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, PGA, Tiger Woods, TNT, Turner Sports, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

PGA Goes Big With Social Media at Golf’s Final Major

August 8, 2012 by

Screen grab of the PGA's Social Caddy page. Credit: PGA

We’ll have a separate Watching Golf this Week post tomorrow with all the details as usual, but I think it’s worth taking a quick look today at how the PGA is going big with social media for the year’s last major, the PGA Championship, which starts tomorrow.

Aside from the usual flurry of tweets and posts from the tour, it appears that the PGA is leaving no social media stone unturned this week. Starting with something they are calling the Social Caddy — a catch-all portal page with a bunch of links to things like Twitter streams and Instagram photos — the tour also has people roaming around grabbing fun, pointless little Viddy videos like this near-worthless “inside” meetup with World No. 1 Luke Donald.

There’s other stuff too, like assigning a writer to capture the predictions of fans from the PGA’s Facebook page. Pretty neat. But I’m not sure where I stand on the whole Social Caddy page idea — one thing I hear from a lot of people is that they are at the social media exhaustion level, and the idea of having to monitor or join one more place to share is not very appealing. But that may just be the media/golf insider thing. It may very well be that there are a lot of golf fans who are new to things like Twitter and need a helping hand to find Twitter handles for players, golf writers and other interesting folks who might have something worthwhile to say. (It looks like a lot of self-promoters and golf advertisers have found the PGA’s “fans” column on the Social Caddy Twitter feed so I am not sure how worthwhile that stream will be going forward)

So far it also looks like most of the “social” content is being generated by PGA.com types, which can be amusing (there is a Viddy clip of someone standing at the back of the driving range, challenging players to hit him) but will probably get stale soon. It would be much better if the PGA’s Instagram page, for example, had Instagram pix from the players themselves — as we’ve learned from Kevin Love and the Olympics some of that real-insider stuff can be pretty good and bring us a lot closer to the athletes than ever before.

Though golfers are notorious for being cell phone addicts — like Rickie Fowler, who tweets from his private plane — I also seem to see that most of them shut down the streams when the tournament starts. And it’s really not so hard to assemble your own golfing social caddy, by just finding and following people who are interesting in your main Twitter feed. And, I am guessing a lot of this effort is going to be lost anyway due to the atttention conflict with the last weekend of the Olympics. But when it comes to social media, clearly the PGA is trying hard.

Filed Under: Facebook, Golf, PGA, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Startup, Turner Sports, Twitter, Viddy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Wi-Fi Police Patrolling London Olympics For Pirate Hotspots

August 8, 2012 by

Is it a return to Lost In Space? It is a newfangled directional signal? Is it a metal detector or a antenna to attract signals from outer space?

In actuality, the odd-looking device and the guy carrying it around London and his colleagues comprise the London Olympics’ “Wi-Fi Police.”

Sadao Turner of Ryan Seacrest Productions tweeted this accompanying image of a member the enforcement corps carrying the bizarre detection device.

Wireless interference is a concern at the London Olympics. But BT, which runs approximately 1,500 paid Wi-Fi hotspots, is also part of the equation since it does not wish to lose income.

The Wi-Fi police will remain engaged throughout the remainder of the competition.

James Raia is a California-based journalist who writes about sports, travel and leisure. Visit his cycling site at tourdefrancelife.com

Filed Under: NBC Sports, Olympics, Twitter, Wi-Fi

Do Pro Golfers Tweet from Their Planes?

August 5, 2012 by

Do pro golfers tweet from their private planes? Apparently so. Not sure if they are using a Wi-Fi service in their charter, or if they are just doing the in-flight cellular thing. But they are tweeting from the air. Check out this picture from Tweeter Bubba Watson, of Rickie Fowler and Aaron Baddeley apparently tweeting while in flight:

Which Rickie apparently confirms, saying Bubba stops tweeting when they hit a few inflight bumps:

Since cell phone usage from planes can really mess with the towers on the ground… let’s hope the lads are using a Wi-Fi service from the plane.

Filed Under: PGA, Twitter, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , ,

Olympic PoolCam Reveals Strange Creatures Via Twitter

August 3, 2012 by

Creature in the Olympic swimming pool?

Amid various athletes taking verbal swipes at each other and the paranoia of network PR types overreacting to 140-character opinions is the beauty of Twitter, photography and swimming at the Summer Olympics — direct from a submerged camera.

Specifically, throughout the swimming competition, the Twitter feed L2012 (@L2012PoolCam) has posted 17 tweets — all stunning images from the bottom of the pool at the Aquatic Centre in London.

The image to the left is captioned: “Aargh, what creature is this that’s upon me?”

The Twitter’s description, without human identification, reads: “I match the world’s best swimmers, stroke for stroke. They speed along on top. I race along the bottom, always looking up – and always wet.”

Here’s another sample:

The feed has attracted a wide following of more than 17,000 since the Summer Olympics began. And although the swimming competition largely concludes Aug. 4, two events will remain, the women’s 10km on Aug. 9 and swimming’s concluding event, the men’s 10km, Aug. 10.

James Raia is an editor and publisher in Sacramento, California. Visit his site: www.tourdefrancelife.com

Filed Under: Olympics, Social Media, Sports Photography, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Samsung, Lenovo Tablets-Seattle bickers about stadium

August 3, 2012 by

We mentioned last week that there is now an ongoing attempt to build a new basketball arena in Seattle and then land a new team. From this article in the Seattle PI it looks like the Seattle City Council could be a roadblock.

While the county commissioners are expected to give approval to an $80 million contribution to the building, the city looks like it might want a better deal for the $120 million that it is being asked to throw in as well. The city wants better protection from financial fallout among other issues.

Microsoft wants broad patent licensing deal with Motorola
After winning cases at home and abroad regarding its patent portfolio Microsoft has said that it wants to sign a deal with Motorola that will end the legal disputes between the two companies. Microsoft already licenses its ActiveSync technology to others including Samsung and HTC, according to IT World.

However in the case of Motorola, Microsoft is looking for a more all-encompassing deal, one that will include not just a select few patents but rather a great deal of their respective portfolios in order to achieve what Microsoft calls “A solid foundation for patent peace.”

Larger tablets can be heavy

Samsung thinking big with next-gen tablet?
Kudos to the Verge for digging into all of the documents from the ongoing Apple vs. Samsung trial in San Jose, Calif. Among the nuggets it has mined is the revelation that Samsung has a 11.8-inch tablet on the drawing board.

Code named P10 it would have the equivalent of Apple’s retina display with a 2560 x 1600 resolution and among its other features is LTE connectivity.

Google investing in YouTube effort
It looks like Google is going to invest $200 million in marketing its YouTube channels as it continues its transition of that platform from one in which the majority of content is user generated into one where there are a wide range of professionally created content.

It has over 100 channels now and currently is teamed with NBC to show the Summer Olympics. According to a piece in the Wall Street Journal, Google currently has already earned $150 million in ad commitments for this year.

Google to delay its Nexus Q digital streaming device
Google announced its Nexus Q music and video streaming platform to great fanfare a few weeks back at the company’s annual Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Expected to be quickly delivered to the market it looks like it has hit a bump in the road and its delivery is now delayed.

The people that preordered have been told that there is an indefinite delay but has offered them a free product. Multiple sources report that the device was beset by poor reviews and that the company will be seeking to enhance the device.

A Bikini Hockey League?
Sounds like the follow up ads after the Swedish Bikini Team that Old Milwaukee Beer ran years ago but no, someone is actually trying to launch a Bikini Hockey League. Actually it is a reality TV show that is based on a developer’s purported plan to create such a league.

Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet leaked
It appears that the ever vigilant Verge has scored again, this time with details on the upcoming Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 that will be using Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system. The devices will feature an attachable keyboard and pen input as well as the usually features that users have come to expect.

Among the listed features for the tablet are that it will be powered by an Intel Clover Trail microprocessor, have 2GB of RAM and a 64GBs of storage with a 10.1 inch WXGA display. It will have a fingerprint reader and they keyboard will have trackpoint navigation.

MLB’s Powers that be endorse Expanded use of Instant Replay
Bud Selig, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball said last Friday that the sport plans to implement the extended use of instant replay. It will now also be used for trapped balls in the outfield, and to determine if balls down the first and third base line are fair or foul.

The league is now assessing the camera angle issues in each park to see what, if any difficulties it will have in placing cameras that have the needed angles. It is not likely that the extended replay will make an appearance prior to the start of next season

Cleveland Browns sell for $1 billion
At least that is what ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweeting yesterday. It seems that James Haslam will be buying the Browns from Randy Lerner for that figure, with a $700 million initial payment and then a second one sometime down the road for $300 million more.

The team just underwent a major shakeup in top management a few years ago, notably luring Mike Holmgren into the front office by giving him the position of team president. Usually new management likes its own people in place so he could be back looking over some other execs shoulder in the near future.

Cleveland Browns

I do like the comment on the tweet that questioned why anyone would pay that much for such a poor franchise noting that a Hawaiian island just sold for $600 million, implying that might have been the better deal.

Filed Under: Baseball, Cleveland Browns, ESPN, HTC, Lawsuit, Lenovo, Major League Baseball, Microsoft, NBA, NFL, NHL, Tablets, Twitter, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »