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MLB makes At Bat app available for Holidays

December 2, 2013 by

atbat

No doubt by this time of the year you have already seen a dozen advertisements for holiday gifts that run along the line of “Give XXX to the YYY in your life” and yes this is another one of them in that you can for the first time give MLB.com’s At Bat as a holiday gift.

There is a subset of fans in every sport that only follow that sport, don’t ask me why, and they believe that the sporting year opens with camps, or possible with the draft, and ends with whatever marketing name represents their sports’ championship game.

For baseball fans the dry period is now. The Arizona Fall league is over, and while you knew the name and history of all of the players on the Surprise Saguaros and the Mesa Solar Sox, that simply does not cut it as your friends discuss the pending BCS, NFL playoff scenarios and how the NBA and NHL seasons are shaping up.

So get what is likely the most popular baseball to MLB fans, and the 10th highest grossing mobile app all time at the Apple store as a gift by purchasing a subscription to the At Bat version for the 2014 season, for $19.99.

With access to the complete set of premium features in 2014, including live audio of every game and the MLB.TV Free Game of the Day, At Bat 14 will be the perfect holiday gift for any baseball fan.

There is no need to worry about obsolescence and At Bat has the ability to keep avid baseball fans up to date on the current moves in both the Hot Stove league. So head on over to MLB.com and see what is going on.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Major League Baseball Tagged With: , , ,

Short Week Grab Bag: Cheap HP tablet, new hockey TV deal in Canada

November 27, 2013 by

Hewlett-Packard has revealed that it will be entering the Black Friday fray with a very enticing offer: a 7-inch HP Mesquite tablet for the low, low price of only $89. The tablet will be available at your local Walmart.

The tablet is one of several that will be on sale that weekend that are powered by Intel’s Medfield family of microprocessors as the chip maker is using the start of the shopping season to start hyping its development partners in the tablet space.

Google Glass user booted from club
Earlier this year a Seattle bar said that it would ban anybody wearing Google’s see all glasses. Well a user of the hands free device has been kicked out of a bar, but not the one that made the original promise.

A user was asked to either remove the glasses or be asked to leave the Lost Lake Café and Lounge and apparently made a scene both at the bar but also online (where else) as he complained about his rights. Not sure where in the U.S. Constitution those rights are covered but I am sure its in there somewhere.

EdgeCast Networks helps Indianapolis Colts reach fans
The team has developed the ability to stream video and live content to fans using pretty much any mobile device using EdgeCast technology as the team seeks to increase traffic to its own web sites and away from third party apps.

Get your Apple rumors here
Now that Apple has filled its backlog of iPhone 5S orders it’s time for the company to start fending off rumors of what will be in its next generation iPhone, probably known as the iPhone 6. Well the International Business Times has done a nice roundup for you.

The release date will be late next year; it will have a larger screen, possibly as large as six inches. The display may be curved or flexible and it will be lighter than existing models. Is weight really an issue with iPhones?

Nokia looking at 8-inch tablet?
Well not really looking at but actually planning on building on for sale, with a possible release date sometime in the first quarter of next year, a follow-up product to its 10-inch Lumina 2520, according to Digitimes.

The piece also said that it expects that LG Electronics and Sony Mobile to stay in the tablet market but that sources are reporting that HTC, Motorola Mobility and BlackBerry may choose to leave and only focus on smartphones.

New hockey broadcast deal in Canada
The NHL has just signed its most comprehensive, and largest financially, broadcast deal for games to be shown in Canada. The deal gives Rogers Communications the broadcast and digital rights to all NHL games.

The 12-year deal cost the cable company $5.2 billion and is viewed as a step by Rogers to drive demand for its subscription based cable networks.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, BlackBerry, Google, Hewlett-Packard, HTC, Intel, iOS 7, Live Sports Video Consumption, Motorola, NFL, NHL, Nokia, Sony Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Stadium Tech Report: Aruba’s Wi-Fi smarts at the base of Trail Blazers’ new stadium experience

November 26, 2013 by

An Aruba AP inside the Moda Center

An Aruba AP inside the Moda Center

Though it’s not been generally known for stadium deployments, being named as the Wi-Fi supplier for the new network at the Portland Trail Blazers’ 20,000-seat Moda Center should give a boost to the arena business for Aruba Networks, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based network infrastructure supplier.

After learning of Aruba’s win in Portland we caught up via phone with Manav Khurana, vice president for product marketing at Aruba, to learn more about what Aruba is doing differently in the stadium market. Though the company might have had the inside track in Portland (since it had previously sold gear there for an internal Wi-Fi network) Khurana said the Blazers had treated this year’s stadium technology upgrade as a brand-new project. What helps set Aruba apart from other vendors, Khurana said, are some in-house hardware innovations combined with software management techniques that help overcome the obstacles faced by wireless LANs in crowded spaces.

Focused antennas, optimized connections

To help meet the Moda Center’s design criterium of supplying a wireless network “faster than your home,” Aruba brought in the custom antennas it has designed for use in high-density situations. The Aruba access point antennas, Khurana said, can be focused “like a floodlight,” allowing pinpoint coverage of specific seating areas — and also allowing multiple APs to be positioned closely together without fear of interfering with each other.

On the management side, Aruba has an interesting piece of AP firmware it calls ClientMatch, which Khurana said helps combat the problem of mobile devices “locking on” to a specific access point, even if it’s not the best AP the device might see. “ClientMatch actively monitors all APs [in a network] and if there is a better AP available [for a device] it will move the connection in a real-time basis,” Khurana said. Aruba also uses some internal firewall smarts to help prioritize traffic, a necessary evil especially when video streams are part of the equation, as they are with the new Trail Blazers’ team app.

Advertising and infrastructure partners team up in Portland

One aspect that is unique from a business angle in Portland is the branding of the public Wi-Fi network by the local Toyota dealers, a longtime Blazers advertising partner; in fact, the in-stadium SSID reveals the name “Toyota Free Wi-Fi.” Since Wi-Fi users everywhere are accustomed to seeing a splash screen when they sign in to a new network, Khurana said it should get easier to convince advertisers that Wi-Fi connectivity can provide a new kind of billboard, one with the opportunity for one-on-one engagement.

“Three or 4 years ago it used to be tough [to sell Wi-Fi ads],” Khurana said. “Now everyone sees that screen whenever they log in at the airport. It’s a lot easier now to talk about those kinds of [advertising] opportunities.”

The new network infrastructure in Portland — which will eventually include 400 Aruba APs — was deployed by Crown Castle, and a new team app for this NBA season was developed by YinzCam, which has numerous big-league team app deals in all the U.S. major leagues. Thanks to good local coverage by the Oregonian, we should be able to follow the network’s performance over the NBA season (and see if the locals ever get around to calling the stadium by the new sponsor name instead of the Rose Garden handle by which it has been previously known).

Filed Under: Apps, MSR Guides, NBA, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Will sports help Apple win the indoor location market?

November 25, 2013 by

ibeacon

A few months ago Apple, Major League Baseball and the New York Mets showed off iBeacon, a technology that is embedded in Apple’s iOS 7 operating system and how it can be used for indoor location services.

If you are not too familiar with iBeacon that is not surprising, Apple really has not publicized the technology that much since it was rolled out as part of the iOS7 release last September. It is an indoor positioning system that is designed to enable a facility to push notifications, coupons and other material to enabled iOS mobile devices. It is built around a low powered version of Bluetooth technology and has the advantage of being very precise and essentially serves as an indoor GPS, but with a much greater degree of accuracy.

The advantages for a sporting facility are obvious. It can track where a user is and send them discount coupons when they are in front of a souvenir shop or a two for one hot dog offer when they are at the food stands. Facilities can see where fans visit and where they do not and customize both their offers to the fans, and the layout of the retail outlets to better meet fans usage models.

It is no surprise that MLB’s Advanced Media group, which has been very aggressive in delivering apps that both engage fans when they are in attendance and when they are not, would be interested in this technology. It has the potential to help increase sales while also enabling fans to take an unescorted but informative tour of ballparks such as Fenway and hear all of the history of the park.

After that announcement it seemed the technology fell off the radar but last week Macy’s said that it will use the technology to send alerts to shoppers when they enter stress over the holiday season at select stores via an app called Shopkick.

Apple delivered its own version of maps a while ago and emerged with egg on its face as the maps were in some cases very inaccurate and rival Google and others made fun of Apple’s efforts. A shakeup later Apple seems to have the map app working well and according to this piece from Mobile Marketer Apple has taken 23 million users from Google in the maps space, but still trails Google’s impressive lead in that space.

However indoor is a different area and Apple could be heading to a lead there, in part because of the effort by sports leagues to add enhanced networking capabilities to their facilities. In addition they have a great deal of familiarity developing for Apple’s platform as apps for Apple’s iOS are often the first to appear for sports leagues and fans can already use them to locate hot dog stands and swap seats, among other uses. An app that does significantly more would simply fit in with the fans already established mindset of using a mobile device to assist them in a facility.

Fans can get upset with the lack of access at a stadium when using a mobile device and all major US sports leagues are expanding and enhancing their Wi-Fi networks. Since teams want a return on investment aside from fan satisfaction this presents them with a solid opportunity.

I suspect that come next year we will be seeing an influx of apps not just from Apple developers but also Android and Windows 8 seeking to take advantage of the new networking and connectivity capabilities of stadiums and it will be interesting to track which ones are using indoor positioning as a feature since it certainly appears to present a solid advantage to its users.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Boston Red Sox, DAS, iOS 7, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Major League Baseball, NBA, NFL, Smartphone, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: Chicago’s famed Billy Goat to close? Connected gear sales soar

November 22, 2013 by

Launched amid concerns that it was a fad device that would generate interest but not sales the Samsung Gear smartwatch has generated sales that total over 800,000 units over the two months that the wearable device has been available.

The product’s sales actually exceeded company expectations and Samsung said that it would ramp up holiday promotions for the device to help maintain its momentum. Rivals sitting on the sidelines debating a wearable device are no doubt watching closely.

The Billy Goat Tavern to close? Say it ain’t so!
For fans of old Saturday Night Live episodes, ones that include the late John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, one of the staple skits was of a hamburger joint where they would shout out the orders such as “Cheezeborger” and say “No Coke-Pepsi” to orders.

Also well known to Chicagoans as the Billy Goat Tavern, a subterranean hangout of newspaper people for decades, it may be facing closure as redevelopment rears its ugly head, literally as the building above is being renovated. The Billy Goat home page has a link to SNL videos if you are too young to know what we are talking about. According to one local report, the tavern won’t move and may only close temporarily. Remember: No fries, chips.

Samsung has aggressive goals for its tablets
Samsung already seems to have a tablet size for every person’s needs, and now the company’s goal is apparently to sell one of its offerings to everyone as the company said that its goal in 2014 is to ship 100 million or more.

That would be double its expected 40 million that it will sell this year and would make it the leader in the tablet space, a position now owned by rival Apple’s iPad family.

MLB expands replay
Major League Baseball continues the advance of replay in games with a unanimous vote at the annual owners meeting in Orlando that saw all 30 owners vote for an expansion of the technology for use in more aspects of the game.

Among the changes will be managers getting a limited number of challenges, replays will all be handled from a central office at MLB’s Advanced Media site in New York and that some plays are not reviewable.

AT&T teams with Red Bull Racing
No you will not see someone wearing an AT&T headset while setting a new world record free fall (at least I don’t think so) but the telecommunications company has signed a deal to provide communication services to Red Bull’s Formula One Racing team.

The deal is more than just having race day team members being able to communicate but will connect geographically diverse locations such as Infiniti Red Bull’s HQ in the U.K. and its engine manufacturer in France.

Toshiba launches 7-inch Android tablet.
Toshiba’s Digital Products Division has introduced the Excite 7, a seven-inch Android, the latest expansion to its Excite tablet family. It features a 1024 x 600 resolution display with a 1.6GHz quad core processor and 1GB of RAM

The device, which as a MSRP of $169.99 also includes a 3MP rear facing camera and a 0,3 MP front facing camera, and comes with either 8GB or 16GB of storage. It is currently shipping.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Will mobile SportsCenter become the go-to stadium app for fans?

November 21, 2013 by

New version of ESPN SportsCenter app

New version of SportsCenter app

Now that ESPN’s mobile viewership has overtaken web readers, the worldwide leader in sports is ready to put its most iconic brand — SportsCenter — onto its main highlights mobile app. Our question: Can that app now become the go-to app for fans in stadiums who want to track activities at games they’re not at?

With today’s news that the old “ScoreCenter” app is now being called simply “SportsCenter,” ESPN seems to be going all in with its mobile strategy, which was already aggressive in the past. The main holdout was the ScoreCenter app, which while it conveyed a lot of information (mainly scores and headline links) the very fact that it was called something other than SportsCenter — the name for the network’s mainstay highlights show — seemed to signify that ScoreCenter wasn’t a full and complete offering.

Ryan Spoon, ESPN’s SVP for digital media, was part of a panel I moderated last week at the Open Mobile Summit, where he told attendees that this fall, for the first time, ESPN’s mobile traffic surpassed web traffic, a trend we’ve seen happen for other sports properties. In an interview with GigaOM Spoon said the new SportsCenter app is meant to be “a very strong relative of the TV show,” and our initial download shows a stream of tweets from ESPN personalities along with the kind of news updates you might get while watching an episode of SportsCenter on TV.

Old 'ScoreCenter' app scores page view

Old ‘ScoreCenter’ app scores page

What will be interesting to see is if the mobile version of SportsCenter can become the go-to app for fans sitting in stadiums, since it’s a good guarantee that most of them go home and watch SportsCenter after the game, or on any other day in their life. With fantasy football fans and regular fans who just want to keep abreast of other games and other sports, SportsCenter is usually the starting place for highlights and news.

The real challenge as I see it in the stadium-fan space will be whether or not ESPN is able to provide real-time or at least close to real time replays and highlights, or whether teams and leagues will keep those away from mobile versions of SportsCenter so that their own apps have more pull. One of my biggest beefs with ESPN and online video is that it often puts videos of ESPN commentary inside stories instead of highlight videos, with misleading or unclear labeling that sometimes forces you to watch way more of Lou Holtz babbling than you ever wanted to. But if ESPN can deliver timely highlights to its app the same way it gets them on SportsCenter, other stadium apps might never be able to catch up.

Old ScoreCenter headlines page.

Old ScoreCenter headlines page.

New 'Now' page with Twitter feeds

New ‘Now’ page with Twitter feeds

Better TV info should help with college games

Better TV info should help with college games

Filed Under: Apps, ESPN, SportsCenter, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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