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NCAA’s March Madness Connects With Facebook

February 6, 2012 by

I was reading an interesting piece in Mashable about a partnership between Facebook and the NCAA in regards to the March Madness tournament that featured a fan contest and so I hustled on over to participate.

I imagined glory in my picking ability; after all I was first in my pool last year. Well at least after the first day, overall I finished dead last which one fellow member told me was almost mathematically impossible, but these things happen.

Sadly when I got to the Facebook page the contest was closed, which was a pity. However it was not a contest to pick the winners of the tournament, although one of those might be in the offing. Rather the contest, called the Super 10, is a very cleaver twist on the tournament and really meant for a much more serious college hoops fan than myself.

The contest selected 10 hardcore fans and teaches them about the intricacies of the selection process and how the choices are made. It was more than just filling out a form or sending in your name, A 30-second video was required as well in which the entrant needed to explain why their in-depth understanding of the sport made them the perfect choice for the contest. After the entries are all in a fan vote would select the 10 winners.

Well sadly that is all said and done and now 10 people will be flown to Atlanta and given a 4 day/3 night stay with tickets to the ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament and a tour of Turner studios as part of the prize.

What is interesting is that this is a very clever way for the NCAA to tout its tournament in a new way to fans using social media as the primary tool to attract them and to judge the winners. All this without getting into trouble by looking like they are promoting gambling, which they would never do.

As a first attempt to partner with social media it is a very strong one, and the only failing I can see is that it was not well enough known by some groups of fans. I talked to a number of huge hoops fans while watching the Super Bowl and most said that they would have liked to participate, although several expressed some concern about making the video.

According to the stats on the Facebook site roughly 217,000 liked the contest, but that is really just a drop in the bucket. There will probably be that many office pools in California alone once the tournament starts.

This is the first partnership between Facebook and the NCAA and it will surely not be the last. The power of social media is growing daily, from a source of protest to positioning products. With almost a billion users it is an easy tool for the NCAA to reach both its base but also to reach out to new markets.

Filed Under: Facebook, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com Tagged With: , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Smartphones Outsell PCs, Tablets

February 6, 2012 by

There was a battle of opinions last week between Symantec and Lookout Security in regards to a bit of code that is attached to a select number of apps as to if it was malware or not. Symantec said that the code, called Android.Counterclink was malicious software and warned users off a number of apps that contained the offending code.

Meanwhile a rebuke came from Lookout Security which said that it was simply an aggressive pierce of adware and that while it could be annoying, was not really bad enough to be termed malware.

Well apparently Symantec has come over to its rival’s side of thinking and agreed that its original diagnosis was incorrect and that the code in question is just annoying. In case you are wondering what Google is doing about malware go over to iTWire to see.

Smartphones outsell PCs
According to market research firm Canalys, smartphone sales in 2011 outpaced that of all PCs. It showed that there was 487.7 million smartphones sold in the year compared to 414.6 million PCs of all stripes from desktops to tablets.

The pace of sales for smartphones appears to be increasing with 158.8 million sold in the 4th quarter of 2011, a 57% increase over the 101.2 million sold the same quarter a year before. Contrast that with PC sales that grew 15% for the year, in part buoyed by a 274% increase in tablet sales.

Of course comparing sales in a mature market to sales in a emerging one is comparing apples to oranges but it is interesting to see how mobile computing, both smartphones and tablets are soaring.

Apple sees the light on iBook licenses
Apple has reversed its position regarding who owns the rights to text books that are written for ts iBook textbook effort. The company has changed the End User License Agreement so that it no longer reflects a claim that Apple owns the rights to works developed with iBook Author software.

As reported by SlashGear the new EULA states that books developed using the .ibooks format may only be distributed by Apple but that they can be distributed in other formats by the author.

Windows 8 details leaked
A leaked video is showing a great deal of the details that customers and developers can expect with the forthcoming Windows Phone 8 released according to any number of sites. Shown first at PocketNow.com the video was reportedly made for Microsoft partner Nokia, a company that has been an aggressive partner in the phone space.

Included in the release, which it said was code-named Apollo, are support for multicore processors, a total of four screen resolution options for developers, and a removable microSD card for additional storage.

With digital payments from mobile devices becoming increasingly important Microsoft looks to be positioning the phones to be a prime platform for what it calls the ‘wallet experience’ and the OS will allow carriers to brand and control the payment features. Drop over to see what else was discovered about the forthcoming phone. Also head out to Wired to see how Android, iOS and Windows 8 compare and contrast.

The Apple/Motorola patent battle continues to range in Germany.
Motorola managed to get some Apple products banned in Germany, but Apple has countered and won a suspension from an appeals court at the last minute. Apple is claiming that Motorola is not playing fair “Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago.”

According to Foss Patents, Motorola is asking for 2.25% of Apple’s sales in return for the license, which it is presumed would cover a range of Motorola patents and not just the one in question. However Apple is countering that it has a license due to its cross licensing agreement with Qualcomm, who in turn has one with Motorola.

This sound a lot like the licensing issues that Intel and Advanced Micro Devices fought over more than a decade ago. That battle was estimated to have cost more than $1 billion to the players involved and was settled with a cross licensing agreement.

Mobile football in the offseason
Now that the Super Bowl is done and finished and it is some time prior to the NFL deraft there are still a few options for the sports fans. An example is this promo that started Super Bowl Sunday and not clear when it will end-EA Sports slashes price of Madden 12 for Android to 99 cents, down from $4.99 for a limited time.

However there are a range of additional options for playing games on a smartphone and luckily for you Cnet has gone to the trouble and created a list for Android and iOS users. Sorry no listings for BlackBerry.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, BlackBerry, Microsoft, Research in Morion, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , ,

Super Bowl’s Social/Mobile Angles Don’t Move the Needle

February 5, 2012 by

My quick post-game take on the whole “social Super Bowl” angle is that I don’t think any of the ad campaigns really moved the social-networking needle. Though I missed part of the first quarter I didn’t see any ads that asked for an online audience interaction, which might have been fun. And the mobile game platforms, both NBC’s website broadcast and Verizon’s NFL Mobile app, were so far behind the live action they were useless as a “second screen” for viewers also watching the television.

A quick kudo to Twitter for not crashing in what was probably the most-active day ever on Twitter (which is kind of a meaningless stat since every big event for the foreseeable future will become “the biggest” as Twitter becomes more mainstream and adds more users). But I have to give a conditional “fail” to NBC’s online broadcast of the game, which was anywhere from three to four plays behind the live action, even showing commercials while the “real” game was live.

Though I understand why technically the online show might be slower, the wide gap made it impossible to keep the laptop (or tablet) open while watching the game on TV, eliminating the whole “second screen” thing that the online broadcast was supposed to enable. Plus I was underwhelmed by NBC’s multiple-choice camera views — they were uninteresting and pretty much blah compared to the rapid-fire screen switching you get from watching professional broadcasters produce a game live. So maybe that whole viewer-choosing-the-camera thing is overrated.

And Verizon’s NFL Mobile app, while glitch-free over in-house Wi-Fi and a 4G cellular signal, was still anywhere from 23 to 28 seconds behind the live action, also rendering it useless except maybe for trips to the bathroom. But with all the commercial breaks that’s hardly a concern during the Super Bowl. Maybe these alternative platforms will be more important for events with multiple things happening at once, like the Olympics or a golf tournament like the Masters. And maybe advertisers will become more bold and try more live interactive ads in the future. But for right now the “Social Super Bowl” didn’t live up to its advance billing.

UPDATE: As we thought, the Twitterers were out in force:

In the final three minutes of the Super Bowl tonight, there were an average of 10,000 Tweets per second.

February 5, 2012 9:43 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
@twitter

Twitter

Filed Under: Facebook, iPad, Live sports via mobile, NBC Sports, NFL, Super Bowl, Twitter, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Does Facebook make no Money on Mobile?

February 3, 2012 by


Is a patent war in Google’s future?

No not the one with Apple that it appears to be fighting by proxy but rather one where it uses the patents it will acquire in its Motorola Mobility acquisition. The Guardian puts forward a well reasoned piece that strongly suggests that this is the only way that the company can recoup its $12.5bn investment.

The most recent financial statement from Motorola shows that it will have a negative effect on Google’s results, possibly dropping earnings per share by as much as one third. Google has long stated that one of its goals in the purchase will be the patents, and it seems that since it is already using Motorola as a tool in its on going war with Apple over patents, it now will take it to a new level.

But it is also likely that it will be more aggressive in using the patents overall, possibly to exert more control over Android handset makers and their software. The one company that could be harmed by this approach might be Amazon whose Kindle uses a basic version of Android but with all of the other Google features such as Gmail stripped out so that a user would barely know what OS it is running.


Amazon’s Kindle sales triple in last quarter
Amazon’s revenue grew 35% in its just concluded fourth quarter, reaching $17.4 billion and said that the sales of its Kindle eReaders tripled in the quarter that ended Dec. 31, 2011, but did not disclose the exact number sold.

However the sales growth did not meet analysts’ expectations and the company said that net income dropped significantly, down to $177 million, a 57% decline from the same period a year before. Part of the issue was a huge investment into expanding its sales fulfillment centers, a move it said will help grow the business in the long run.

For the current quarter it is predicting sales of between $12 billion to $13.4 billion and that it could post an operating loss of as much as $200 million to a profit of $100 million

Turner Broadcasting System and Intel Capital invest in iStreamPlanet’s Series A
iStreamPlanet has closed its Series A funding round with both Intel Capital and Turner Broadcasting Systems participating in the round. The amount of funding was not disclosed. iStreamPlanet develops automated video workflow technology.

Turner has already worked with iStreamPlanet in the past on a variety of live sports broadcasts going as far back as the 2010 NASCAR Coca Cola 400 at Daytona Speedway. Other events that iStreamPlanet has helped broadcast include the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, NBC Sports’ Sunday Night Football and the Championships at Wimbledon, along with the US Open Golf, Notre Dame College Football, Ryder Cup and the Kentucky Derby.

Aside from automated video workflow technology the company also has multi-screen technology as well as cross platform ad insertion capabilities.

Will BCS move games to campuses in 2014?
That is what is being reported as a possibility by Brett McMurphy over at CBSSports. He said that at least on athletic director has proposed moving many Bowl games onto school’s campuses rater than at the neutral sites where they are played today.

The new cycle of BCS begins in 2014 which is the earliest that the change could most likely occur. One of the driving forces behind the idea is the poor attendance that many of these Bowls and would call for on-campus games after the top 16 games are filled. Also under consideration would be requiring a minimum of seven wins to be bowl eligible.

Facebook revenue absent in the mobile space
As Facebook opens its books in advance of its $5 billion IPO a number of interesting facts have emerged about the company. It has obviously seen very strong growth since its inception and now has $3.7 billion in revenue.

Oddly enough none of this revenue, zero, comes from the mobile users of the social media. With 425 million of its 845 million users accessing the site via a mobile device this is astounding. However it shows that there is huge room for revenue growth for the company.

As reported at Forbes, Facebook said that it is devoting substantial resources to expanding its platform in the mobile space and seeks to create engaging mobile products. The company said that it anticipates mobile users’ rate growth to outpace its overall growth rate.

Feds keep pressure on illegal Super Bowl streamers
For the second year in a row the US Government has cracked down on a number of sites that provide sports streaming and has taken control of their domain names. Users heading to those sites will get a redirect notice from the DOJ/ICE.

Among the sites included are Firstrowsports.tv, Firstrowsports.com and Soccertvlive.net. and as reported by Torrent Freak this is the second time around for the Feds to shut down sports streaming sites just prior to the Super Bowl, although some sites are already back up under slightly different incarnations.

The shutdown struck at least 307 domain names and the effort was called ‘Operation Fake Sweep’ with the bulk of the sites charged with selling fake NFL merchandise and only 16 for illegally streaming sports video.

AMD to enter tablet and Ultrabook space
AMD introduced analysts at its annual meeting to its newest processor roadmap that will include a pair of low powered chips that will target the tablet space and showed an Ultrabook design that looks to undercut Intel’s offerings in hat space.

According to EETimes coverage of the event AMD has added Hondo, a 40 nm processor for tablets due this year and plans to follow up with Temash, a 28 nm chip next year. The company has been slow to enter this space but its rivals here are more from ARM-based chips and the OMAP processors from Texas Instruments, Intel has been slow to make headway in this area as well.

AMD showed an Ultrabook that was developed by Taiwanese company Compal using AMD’s Trinity chip in a thin an ultrabook reference design made by Taiwan’s Compal. It said that the computer could have a $599 price tag, possibly starting a price war with developers using Intel’s developers ultrabooks.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, BCS, Intel Capital, Kindle, Motorola, Super Bowl, Tablets, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , , ,

NFL Stars Steven Jackson, Stevie Johnson Will ‘Hang Out’ On PlayUp for Super Bowl

February 3, 2012 by

Fan-interaction app PlayUp has recruited NFL stars Steven Jackson and Stevie Johnson to “hang out” during Sunday’s Super Bowl, when fans can message and follow the stars’ take on the big game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants.

Rams running back Jackson, owner of seven straight 1,000-yard seasons, can be found Sunday on PlayUp under the username “sj39,” while Buffalo’s electric reciever Johnson can be found under the username “StevieJohnson13.” According to PlayUp, both players will create their own public virtual rooms in the PlayUp app to chat with fans, and will also visit other public virtual rooms to further interact with fans using PlayUp to chat, talk and share smack about the game.

“We are thrilled that both stars are choosing PlayUp to engage with passionate football fans over the Super Bowl,” said Dennis Lee, PlayUp USA CEO, in a statement. According to PlayUp, both players are already active in other social media forums: Jackson has more than 138,000 Twitter followers and almost 48,000 Facebook fans, while Johnson currently has more than 78,800 Twitter followers and 17,400 Facebook fans, according to PlayUp.

Filed Under: Apps, NFL, PlayUp, Super Bowl Tagged With: ,

Golden State Warriors Giving Fans Instant Social Media Payoffs

February 2, 2012 by

With a new coach in Mark Jackson and some new owners at the helm the Golden State Warriors are trying hard to forge a new way to make the NBA playoffs. But while the team so far is struggling to find a winning combination on the court, in the world of social media the Warriors are scoring big with some well-thought promotions that are giving fans instant gratification — like going on the court to shoot free throws — for simply connecting via social media.

I’ve been following the Warriors on Facebook and it seems like at every home game there’s a different promotion. But unlike some team promos that are hard to value, the Warriors seem intent on giving their fans access to things that used to be off limits — like letting them sit in on post-game interviews, or the latest one shown in these pictures, letting the first 200 fans who check in on Facebook on the Oracle Arena parquet to shoot some charity shots post-game.

I am in favor of promotions that give fans something cool to do (meet players, run laps on a baseball field) instead of some of the other ones surfacing these days where people need to sort of act like trained monkeys to win. I’m generally don’t like “contests” that award some prize to the person who shoots the funniest video, or wins fan voting to get a social media job. That seems like rewarding people for being social media experts, with a prize that’s not really fan-based.

Instead, I admire giveaways like the Warriors’ which may not be high in value but connect directly to what a fan wants to do: Be more immersed in the team they love. And by running the promos through Facebook check-in the Warriors are making them easily accessible to any fan with a mobile device (meaning everyone) and via the application (Facebook) that everyone already uses. In other words, no need for extra heavy lifting (shooting a video) but instant fun for fans. Social, mobile and sports. Go Warriors.

UPDATE: Just saw this relevant tweet:

Filed Under: Contests, Facebook, NBA, Sports Social Media Tagged With: , ,
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