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Archives for February 2012

GMR Survey Pinpoints how Sports Fans use Social Media

February 13, 2012 by

The folks over at GMR Marketing have put together a nice infographic on sports and social media based on a survey it performed with fans to see how and why they preferred their sports and a look at the impact that new delivery methods have had on more traditional ones such as television and radio.

The survey was broken down into five easy to follow sections pinpointing fan interests and revealing a few interesting tidbits such as fans today are ten times as likely to check Facebook or Twitter for breaking sports news than tune into sports radio. Of course considering some of the callers I have heard on sports radio they may not be able to use Twitter or Facebook.

The five sections cover the popularity of social media in overall sports media; how sports fans will check in with social media anywhere, even church; a follow up on how fans will use social media while watching games; a list of some of the top sports areas being followed on Twitter and an uptake on how advertising is viewed.

A few take always were that a majority of people not mind or are positive about advertising, which is good news for sites trying to make a buck; people follow top sports reporters and sites that have rumors- I guess they are not the same. One last note is that 33% of fans will check out how an event is gong even in a business meeting-where are you right now?

Head on over and check out what they have found in this space.

Filed Under: Athlete to Follow, Facebook, Sports Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

Are Carrier-Exclusive Sports Deals Good for Fans?

February 13, 2012 by

If you have a Verizon Wireless phone and are a hockey fan, good news today — Verizon extended its deal with the NHL and NBC Sports to add live streaming capabilities to its NHL GameCenter Premium app, presumably meaning that you might be able to watch those fisticuffs in real time on your handset.

CORRECTION: Thanks to a friendly note from the folks at the NHL, hockey fans are not tied to one provider for the NHL’s GameCenter Live app, which provides live out-of-market coverage (for $79 for the rest of this season) to a number of different platforms, including Andriod phones, iPhones and iPads. The new Verizon deal with the NHL provides “bonus” coverage not offered in the regular GameCenter program. But fans with other carriers’ devices can still watch live NHL video. We apologize for the reporting error, and have edited the original post to eliminate confusion.

Even though fans can still watch NHL games live using any provider’s device, my greater worry is whether these deals in general are at all good for fans, or if they are short-sighted pacts made by leagues and broadcasters who are choosing some easy-picking rights fees over what’s best for their fan base at large. Though the NHL deal sounds more like a bonus for a Verizon subscriber, other pacts like Verizon’s NFL Mobile deal and Sprint’s NBA pact seem to put the deal before the concern of the fan.

Is that a good long-term strategy for any league? I mean, I understand all about rights deals — and why you have to switch from Fox to ABC to ESPN to NBC to watch different events at different times. But usually you can watch all those on the same TV. On a mobile device it’s different because for most of us the device is tied to the network via a subsidized contract. And few of us can afford another cell phone plan just to watch a certain sport.

The NHL, perhaps, should be praised for moving to a “carrier agnostic” plan this year for its GameCenter app. Let’s hope that practice catches on with other sports. Maybe the deals could simply result in a price discount for customers of a certain carrier; but exclusion of content by contract seems a slippery slope.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, NBC Sports, NHL Tagged With: , , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Mobile World Congress is Coming!

February 13, 2012 by

LG is touting a new phone that it will debut at the Mobile World Congress as a “revolutionary smartphone.” According to Pocketnow there should be some very interesting features in the phone starting with the LG X3 which will be its flagship Android smartphone.

Another offering expected at the show from LG is the LG CX2, a follow-up product to its Optimus 3D. This phone is expected to feature a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU, NOVA autostereoscopic display for glasses-free 3D, 8GB storage standard as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities.

Acer preps CloudMobile for show
Acer is showing its CloudMobile smartphone in advance of the MWC trade show in Barcelona at the end of the month. The company is being very clever in its leak, giving base information but not enough details so that when it officially shows the phone for the first time the public will not already know the details, according to Pocket-lint.

What is expected is a smartphone that features a 4.3-inch HD display, Dolby sound and will be running Android 4.0 when it ships in the second half of this year. A key attribute of the phone will be the integration with AcerCloud technology that offers, among other things, unlimited web-based storage.

The Motorola/Google deal expected to get EU approval
Following on last week’s rumors that the $12.5B acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google was going to get the thumbs up from the U.S. Justice Department comes word that it is expected to get the OK from EU authorities as well.

According to sources the deal should go through with little or no alterations despite the fact that there were a number of objections filed, including one by a US-based consumer protection group.

Can Google Wallet be picked?
Unfortunately the answer looks to be yes. While hacking the wallet is not easy it can be done according to researchers, who have outlined how to do it for those so inclined. What is frightening is that simultaneously with the researchers posting their findings another blog reported a much easier manner to get access.

The part that should make users nervous is that to hack the wallet might not require extra software, root access, or pretty much any deep-seated hacking skills. Head over to Cnet to see why you might need to be more than a tad concerned.
The Patent Wars

Apple tries new angle in latest suit
Apple has filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent Motorola Mobility from asserting patents against Apple in a lawsuit being heard in Germany. Apple claims that Motorola’s efforts violate its patent licensing agreement with Qualcomm.

The gist of the suit, reported by Reuters, is that Apple believes that as a Qualcomm customer it is a beneficiary of the third party agreement between Motorola and Qualcomm and that under that agreement Motorola cannot assert these patents against Apple.

Apple vs Samsung-The latest Round
Apple continues to go after Samsung and has now filed another injunction to halt sales of a Samsung product. The latest product to be targeted by Apple is Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone, as reported by PC Advisor.

In the suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Apple is seeking a preliminary injunction that bans the sales of the phone in the US while its case that Samsung is violating four of Apple’s patents is heading through the court system.

Apple claims that “”The smartphone market is at a critical juncture, as the overwhelming majority of consumers move to smartphones, and the consumers’ long-term preferences and purchases may be determined to a great extent by the operating system on their first smartphone.”

This and that

Electronista is reporting that a leaked presentation from USA Todaybreaks down mobile downloads by platform and that iPad users dominate at a 7x rate over Android and other users. Apple’s download lead in smartphones is significantly smaller.

Kindle Fire to burn larger?
A report is now coming out that says to expect a 9-inch Kindle Fire by mid-year, a move that could drive sales from an estimated 12.7 million in 2012 to 14.9 million, according to the analyst.

Samsung and Apple own smartphone profits
Wealth management firm Canaccord Genuity has reported that between Apple and Samsung they garner 95% of all of the profits in the smartphone space with Apple owning a lion’s share of 80%.

New iPad in first week of March
A variety of sources have narrowed down the release date for the forthcoming Apple iPad 3 to the first week in March — we will see I guess.

The Air Force about to make one tablet maker very happy
US Air Force’s Air Mobility Command is planning on purchasing somewhere between 63 and 18,000 tablets of as of now unknown manufacturing origins. They are seeking to replace the pilot and navigator bags that can weigh as much as 40 pounds. Currently it looks as if the iPad 2 is in the lead for the deal.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Kindle, Motorola, Samsung, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , ,

More AT&T Golf Failure: Sunday’s Half-Hour TV Blackout

February 12, 2012 by

In this day and age of always-on coverage it seems incredulous that the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am has such a backwards coverage plan. In addition to our already-noted lack of any online streaming coverage, the TV broadcast on Sunday started with live coverage on the Golf Channel — and then just as things started heating up, there was a half-hour blackout. Unbelieveable.

Though I understand that programming schedules need to be set well in advance of the actual tournament, Sunday’s by-chance heavyweight pairing of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson — simply two of the best golfers, ever — should have prompted either the Golf Channel (owned by NBC) or CBS to pre-empt whatever was going on between 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time and Noon to show Phil and Tiger trying for eagles on No. 6.

It’s a minor blip that will be forgotten but perhaps a good lesson for other events down the line — don’t leave yourself the victim of your own schedules or planning. A good online streaming strategy would go a long way to keeping the number of fans who are going to be lost for a half-hour today.

Filed Under: AT&T, CBS Sports, Golf Channel, NBC Sports Tagged With: , ,

AT&T, Golf Channel Missing the ‘Tiger’ Opp With No Online Video for Pebble Beach

February 10, 2012 by

For the second day in a row, we are incredibly frustrated at the lack of any online video opportunity to watch Tiger Woods in his PGA season debut at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Though the Golf Channel has live coverage today and yesterday, the unique three-course setup for the Pebble Beach Pro-Am means no Tiger TV Thursday or Friday since there are apparently only camera crews at the Pebble Beach course and nothing from the other two courses being used, Spyglass and Monterey Peninsula.

So the reason Tiger isn’t on TV is that he played Spyglass Thursday, and is playing Monterey Peninsula today. We get it, because that means that Tiger will be on TV Saturday and Sunday, playing both days in front of the CBS cameras. But it’s an oversight not to have the game’s biggest draws on some kind of live media for the first two days.

This is a huge missed opportunity for the tournament and for Golf Channel, since there are probably millions of fans like me who would tune in online to catch some Tiger action even while at work. It’s hard to believe that with AT&T adding Wi-Fi clouds to the greater Monterey Peninsula to give fans at the tourney better wireless coverage that we couldn’t at least get someone with a GoPro camera on their head to follow Tiger around and stream that video? Hello sponsor opportunity!

Seriously, not having an online component is really a big error especially for events like golf tournaments where there may be an outsized interest in a single player instead of the traditional multi-camera, multi-announcer setup. I mean, online I have been able to follow what Tiger is doing in words; meanwhile on the Golf Channel they are showing some celebrity comedian eating a plate of ribs. I couldn’t hit the off switch quicker. So tell me how that strategy makes sense either to the event or the sponsors.

Note: the best places to follow El Tigre online today are the Golf Channel home page, where writer Jason Sobel is doing a hole-by-hole Tiger recap in real time. You can also follow Stephanie Wie, who is Tweeting Tiger’s round live. But really, AT&T and Golf Channel, you shoulda done better.

Filed Under: AT&T, CBS Sports, Golf, Golf Channel, PGA, Twitter Tagged With: , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Microsoft talks Windows 8 Tablet

February 10, 2012 by

The top Windows exec at Microsoft, Steve Sinofsky, has published a huge blog entry that details Microsoft’s plans for Windows 8 on low-powered platforms driven by processors built around the ARM processor technology.

Since that is the primary chip technology driving most tablets, this blog entry shows how the company sees the space and what it believes it can bring to the market that its rivals cannot, or are not doing well.

A few of the key talking points are that versions of Windows for ARM platforms will carry a Windows for ARM branding; there will be a special version of Office for this platform and there will be a major effort to have the hardware and software tightly integrated, much like Apple does with the various iOS products.

Phoenix Suns latest to grab tablets as in-game tool
If you happen to watch closely the next time you are viewing a Phoenix Suns game expect to see branded products from Samsung and Verizon Wireless on the sidelines in place of the old school chalkboards.

The team has signed a deal that will provide the players, scouts and coaches with Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Tab tablets and Verizon 4G wireless service. The team plans to use them for a winde variety of tasks including in-game play calling by head coach Alvin Gentry.

While the NFL and Major League Baseball have been very aggressive in developing and deploying tablets as part of a training regime the NBA has lagged behind. This is probably going to be watched very closely and probably imitated by a number of other teams in the off season.

Asus admits bug in Transformer Prime
Asus has released a firmware update that will fix the random boot problem that has plagued some but not all owners of its Eee Pad Transformer Prime Tablets. The move comes after a flow of negative comments on line and at least one retailer, UK’s Clove to cease selling the product.

The tablet has had several flaws since it was debuted last year including simple lack of product available and a GPS accuracy issue. In the past the company has denied that there was a reboot issue but has now finally admitted it.

Patent Wars
Apple continues to battle and seems to be losing ground at a slow and steady rate. Its latest setback was a German court ruling that Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, called the Galaxy Tab10.1N in the German market does not appear to be a copycat version of the iPad.

Apple had won an initial ruling preventing Samsung from selling n the German market last September and the 10.1N is a work around that has been found acceptable by the court, reopening the market to the Apple rival.

Apple has been particularly aggressive pursuing Samsung in both the iPad but also iPhone space claiming that it carefully copied its devices. So far its success has been lackluster in courts but that does not seem to have changed Apple’s determined drive in the patent space.

Google’s bid for Motorola Mobility likely to be approved next week
Multiple sources are reporting that the $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility by Google will get antitrust approval from the United States Justice Department sometime next week. Among other assets that Google will acquire is a patent portfolio that is 17,000 strong in the mobile phone area.

This patent portfolio is likely to be used for both offensive and defensive purposes by the company. It is aggressively seeking huge payments from Apple over all iPhone and other iOS devices, but will likely also be used to simply be leverage in cross patent licensing agreements.

At the same time the Justice Department is likely to approve of the purchase of Nortel by a consortium of Apple, Microsoft Sony, Research in Motion, EMC, and Ericsson AB. This deal will include 6,000 wireless patents.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Amazon, Android, Apple, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, Motorola, NBA, NFL, Samsung, Smartphone, Sony, Tablets, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , ,
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