SB Nation, with 25 million in monthly visitors and $24 million in venture backing, took its eye off the ball today. Whether that strategy works remains to be seen.
Archives for 2011
Man UTD gets it: first major sports team to attempt broadcast-based sports social network
November 1, 2011 by
British soccer team Manchester United is attempting to do something that hasn’t been done before: build a full-fledged, broadcast-based sports social media network around a single professional sports franchise.
The move is significant because Manchester United is one of the four most valuable professional sports brands in the world. It has an estimated 500 million fans in Europe, and 660 million fans worldwide. Its success could spur others to follow.
To date, most mobile sports social media applications run by professional sports teams and college athletic programs problems pale in comparison to Manchester’s plan. Typically, they feature a sports public relations person, or sports information intern, who tweets regularly about athletes and teams. Manchester United, by virtue of its fan base and television network, will include television broadcast and commentary from anyone willing to contribute.
Manchester has developed a two-year plan to build its network, and has hired digital media agency SapientNitro to spearhead the effort, according to a Haymarket Business Media report. Forthcoming mobile applications will include electronic commerce for the sale of club merchandise and other products. The soccer club will sell advertising and sponsorships on the application, according to Haymarket.
A driving factor in Manchester United’s social media expansion are untapped international markets, including China. It is estimated that about 160 million additional displaced fans will be able to access Manchester United content through its social media strategy, according to sports research company TNS Global.
In recent comments to TEDx, former AOL Sports excutive Jimmy Lynn identified China, Brazil and India as huge opportunities for any sports team looking to expand its fan base through mobile sports applications.
Manchester United star Wayne Rooney
Manchester United’s social media blitz isn’t as sure a thing as another goal from its star striker Wayne Rooney. In fact, its current social media efforts are modest. While it has attracted about 20 million fans to its Facebook page in its first year, Man Utd is not even considered the most sophisticated sports social media teams in the English Premier League, according to TNS.
Today, the United States sports teams with similar fan bases and television broadcast networks capable of porting to a mobile sports social media application are The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. The NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins, which have the fan bases necessary to support a large-scale sports social media network, are hamstrung by the NFL’s television licensing and revenue-sharing agreements from going out on their own.
SapientNitro clients include Air Canada, AT&T, Burger King, Carnival Cruises, Citi, Coca-Cola, Condé Nast, H&R Block, JCPenney, Kraft and Mercedes AMG, according to a report in The Next Web.
Nokia Teams with Microsoft in Smartphone Space — But Not in U.S. Yet
November 1, 2011 by
The two companies seek to establish themselves in the smartphone space
Finnish handset manufacturer Nokia has teamed with Microsoft for its latest generation of phones, a move that starts moving Microsoft’s smartphone operating system further into the mainstream market.
The move comes as the two partners seek to establish themselves as major players in the smartphone market. Nokia has been seeing very strong erosion of its position in the last year, dropping from owning 33% of the smartphone market in the third quarter last year to 14% this year. Microsoft, while garnering solid reviews for its OS, has not seen that translate into wide scale adoption.
The two have been working together for eight months and Microsoft’s Windows 7is a major upgrade for Nokia over its aging Symbian operating system, one that was failing to match the latest features of the rival Android and iOS platforms.
However Microsoft, never a power in the smartphone OS, has also seen its share in this space decline. A recent report by analytic firm ComScore showed Microsoft’s share drop from 7.5% to 5.8% between March and June 2011.
The two phones in this release are the Nokia Lumia 710 and the Nokia Lumia 800, with the 810 being the model targeted at the Apple iPhone and high end Android offerings. Currently available in Europe the smartphones are slated for rollout in Asia later this year. Nokia said that it is in talks with all four major US carriers and intends to release them in the US in the future.
The Lumia 800 has an 8-megapixel camera and a bright 3.7-inch OLED display that’s slightly larger than the screen in the iPhone. It has 16GB of storage and the phone is powered by a single core Qualcomm 1.4GHz processor. It includes an 8 megapixel rear facing camera.
The entry level Lumia 710 features the same processor and comes with 8GB of storage, a 5 megapixel rear facing camera and 3.7-inch WVGA display. The smartphones will run on high-speed 4G networks that use a technology called LTE, or Long Term Evolution, as well as on older 3G networks.
The Windows operating system still appears to be catching up to its rival iOS and Android rivals but is now a much fuller featured OS and includes cut and paste and other features that show it is on the road to parity. However it is a long road.
The Windows 7 OS uses “smart tiles” that show information about an app without needing to launch the app. It comes with a range of apps built in- People Hub, Pictures Hub, Microsoft Office Hub, IE9 Mobile, Xbox Live, and 25GB SkyDrive storage. There are currently tens of thousands of apps for Windows 7 but that seriously trails Android and iOS apps, which now number roughly half a million each.
This looks to be a good first effort for the pair but they still have a ways to go, particularly in getting both more features in the OS and a greater app market. Many top sports sites make no mention of Windows support at this time. However with the massive number of Microsoft developers out there this looks to be a relatively easy issue to fix.
USA Today Taps Yahoo! Sports Exec to Captain Sports Content
October 31, 2011 by
Dave Morgan
USA Today is setting sail in sports with a new captain. His name is Morgan.
Beginning Nov. 1, USA Today’s sports content, mobile sports applications and sports social media will be shaped by former Yahoo! executive Dave Morgan, who helped build the Yahoo! search engine and online portal into the No. 1 sports destination in the country.
On Monday, Morgan was named senior vice president and editor-in-chief of USA Today Sports Media Group.
In hiring Morgan, USA Today Sports Media Group gains a charismatic leader. When he left Yahoo!, Morgan was so popular that several top writers changed their Twitter avatar to a photo of Morgan, according to a Mediabistro report.
Big Job
USA Today Sports Media Group President Tom Beusse made the announcement, and it is — indeed — a big job. USA Sports Media was created by Gannett Co. Inc. in January to shepherd not only the online efforts of the nationwide USA Today newspaper, but 82 daily newspapers, 23 broadcast televisions stations and the stand-alone portals HighSchoolSports.com and BQNT.com.
Statements made in conjunction with the appointment, and Morgan’s pedigree, indicate USA Today Sports Media Group will push in new directions designed to capitalize on the sports social media boom.
Morgan’s Credentials
Previously, Morgan was executive editor of Yahoo! North American Audience, where he built Yahoo! Sports into the No. 1 online sports destination. Morgan left Yahoo! in May, underscoring the brain drain of executive talent from the company, according to a report in SportsBusiness Daily.
In recent comments to the TEDx Penn Quarter, former AOL Sports head Jimmy Lynn credited Yahoo! for remaining as the No. 1 sports destination by relying on fantasy sports, when it could have easily lost its focus as sports social media broadened.
In addition to a fantasy focus, Morgan has a news background, including setting a website record of 40 million unique visitors for coverage of the Winter Olympic games in Vancouver.
The unanswered question is whether Morgan has enough savvy in the development of mobile applications to drive USA Sports Media toward meaningful content for smartphones, iPhones and iPads, which is considered the wave of the future for sports fans and publishers alike.
Changing “Virtually Everything”
Without a doubt, Morgan will bring change to Gannett’s USA Today Sports Media Group. A former executive at the Los Angeles Times, Morgan told The Associated Press Sports Editors in 2008 the following:
“I was posed this question: what would I do differently if I went back to newspapers now that I have been in the web world?,” Morgan wrote.
“Virtually everything.”
Rising Competition
Morgan’s appointment comes during turbulent times in sports media. Rival new online media/sports social media properties are enjoying increased success, and seem to have little trouble raising millions in venture capital.
For example, SBNation and bleacher report have gone from start-ups to rank among the top 10 most-trafficked online sports destinations in the last three years. Yahoo! Sports, ESPN, Fox Sports, CBS Sports and others are increasingly hard pressed to stay ahead of newfangled competitors.
Flat out, USA Today Sports Media is an also-ran among competitors, which Morgan will have to shore up to be taken seriously in the brave new world of mobile sports content.
USA Today Sports Media Group’s Beusse said Morgan will take responsibility for fully developing the potential of its sports business, including charting strategy.
Lazarus: A 2nd in Command with Connections
Along with Morgan, USA Today Sports Media Group named Peter Lazarus as senior vice president and head of multimedia sales. Lazarus came from Univision Communications Inc., where he oversaw advertising operations for the Univision, TeleFutura and Galavision networks.
In naming a sales executive in the same announcement as Morgan, Gannett signals that it sees partnership as key to building a sports social media content powerhouse.
Prior to Univision, Lazarus was senior vice president of sales at the sports management agency IMG Sports and Entertainment. It is likely that Lazarus will use his IMG connections to forge alliances between USA Today Sports Media Group and athletes. For example, USA Today could use its newspapers to promote contests that encourage people to follow an athlete’s twitter account, where products the athlete uses are endorsed.
What to Watch
Creation of the Sports Media group in January is consistent with widespread consolidation underway at old-media stalwart Gannett, which is concentrating on shared national services as a means to make money with print newspapers. MobileSportsReport.com will be watching Morgan’s appointment closely to see whether Morgan and Lazarus can marshal the resources necessary to create a broad social media network that captivates national audiences, as well as meaningful corporate-sanctioned applications that allow individual newspapers and television stations to maintain market share in their local communities.
In addition, Morgan and Lazarus will need to re-invigorate a sports staff shaken by years of layoffs and weak dot.com leadership, and identify leaders on local newspaper sports desks ready to step up. In addition, it is likely some Yahoo! sports staffers will be anxious to rejoin their popular former leader at Gannett. With Gannett facing stiffer competition with each passing day, it is safe to say Morgan and Lazarus have their work cut out.
Monday’s Tech Tidbits — My Battery is Dead Issue
October 31, 2011 by
Ubuntu seeks to storm into Tablet, Smartphone and TV market
Ubuntu Linux is the latest operating system that seeks to establish itself in the growing mobile and smart video market spaces. ZDNet is reporting that the Canonical, the parent company behind the Linux development will announce the move at its Ubuntu Developer Summit in Orlando. First the company plans to bring out a stable version of its Ubuntu 12.04 distribution and then focus on the new segments. However do not hold your breath as it is not expected for at least 3 years.
Forbes publishes a Top 10 list for Tablets-sort of
Forbes has published a Top 10 list for Tablets, combining 7-inch, 9-inch and 10-inch models. Without any commentary as to why the products made the list, any pros and cons or additional points the list is only really helpful if you want the bare bones information on each model.
Have that drained feeling? iPhone 4S users feel your pain
The iPhone 4S seems to have a battery issue that is causing users fits as it starts draining rapidly even when idle. PC World has a list of suggestions to help you make it through the day on a single charge, for your phone that is. Some sites are claiming that the phone just checks the time too much — what it never heard of Popcorn?
Apple buys another mapping firm
According to 9to5Mac Apple has acquired C3 Technologies, a 3D mapping application developer. According to the site this is the third map developer Apple has added to its portfolio since 2008, the other two being Placebase and Poly9, also a 3D mapping company Apparently Apple purchased C3 several months ago and the deal is now coming to light and it is reported that most of the development team and management is intact and still working as a team in Sweden.
Microsoft provides a patent lawsuit primer
I sue you, you sue him he sues me. That seems to be the standard business operation threes days but Microsoft says so what? One of the company’s attorneys’ said that lawsuits for disruptive technology are a time honored tradition and that it intends to enforce its position. An interesting Q&A on the issue in the San Francisco Chronicle.
eWeek embraces digital-what took it so long?
eWeek, and sister publications Baseline and CIO Insight will no longer have print versions starting January 2012. Instead they will be available for Windows Phone 7, Android and iOS phones and tablets. The company said that it will offer the publications in “full suite of optimized suites and native apps.”
Twitter Loves ESPN Loving Twitter
October 28, 2011 by
This is very meta-meta, but: A screen shot of a picture taken by Twitter of ESPN showing live Tweets on a TV broadcast:
I think it’s safe to say we’ll see more folks on Twitter tonight. Go Game 7!
