Archives for November 2011

Site takes you on Stadium Journey
Every year or so you see a story about some intrepid fans that are going to travel around the US and visit all of the ball parks during baseball season. A bit rarer but you also see people that try to hit all of the minor league fields on occasion.

Well if you are just an armchair traveler, or looking to do research about a sporting venue prior to leaving home then the folks at Stadium Journey have the site for you. Sure it covers all of the MLB parks with solid info and interesting photo montages, but that is the tip of the iceberg.

How about the Central Hockey League arenas? Or are you headed to Europe and want to see what Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United looks like before attending? Its there and much more. Of course there are gaps in its lineup, particularly in Europe and possible elsewhere (I did not carefully check each league) but it is a fun and informative site. One comment- in its AT&T review it mentions “blistering Candlestick”- try freezing Candlestick.

EA’s Twitter Campaign gets Results
Electronic Art’s decided to use a sponsored Twitter to promote its FIFA 12 video game several months ago it found that the social media site, couples with a focused time-sensitive ads brought solid results, 5%-8% higher than normal for Twitter-based campaigns.

The program had a 11% customer engagement was due to what EA said was its ability to take advantage of the traffic generated by the ads and so turn it into both sales but increased following for EA’s normal Twitter feed, thus setting up potential future sales as well.

For those of you that are scratching your head and wondering what FIFA is, it’s the The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football) that hosts the World Cup every four years. You know, soccer.

Facebook is seeking another avenue into your soul
Rumors have it that Facebook is teaming with Taiwanese cellphone developer HTC to develop a customized Android-powered smartphone code-named ‘Buffy”. Buffy, really? This rumor is according to the blog All Things Digital.

The reason is clear why Facebook would want to move further into the mobile space, it already has 350 million mobile users and relationships with a huge number of mobile operators across the globe. Still this just brings the ESPN phone back to my mind.

However don’t hold your breath waiting to use this phone to poke your friends- Facebook still has a ways to go including signing carriers, designing and then building the devices so it is not expected for at least 12- 18 months.

Top iPhone Games-No football?
Ever wonder what sports apps you should have loaded on your iPhone, assuming you have an iPhone, so that when you finally tire of shooting birds at pigs while sitting in an airport lobby you can have something else to do?

Well a short list has been created at appolicious advisor, which brings in 5 programs that it touts as timeless- thus eliminating from consideration season focused apps such as SEC Football lite or NBA 2011-12 (is there such an app?)

The five that made the cut include Bill James Baseball IQ, ESPN Radio, PrePlay, Tiger Woods: My Swing and Yahoo Spectacular. Anybody have an issue with this or what they fell is better choices send them my way and maybe I will follow up with fan favorites.

Is Malware a threat on Android?
Google is in a verbal fight with at least one security expert over the threat that viruses and other malware present to the Android mobile operating system, according to a recent post at ITWorld.

On the one hand we have Google’s open source program manager Chris DiBona claiming that the virus and security software companies are a buch of charlatans and scammers and there is no problem.

On the flip side there is Denis Maslennikov, a senior malware analyst for Kaspersky Labs who claimed that the number of malware discoveries on Android has been growing and that in less than half a year the number has rapidly grown.

Parade-
Have a great Turkey day and if you are stuffed and sitting on the sofa as the Macy’s Parade goes by look for my niece in the Homestead High marching band- she’s the cute one! And did you know there is an app to follow what is happening in the parade? Someone had too much time on their hands!