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The Atlanta Hawks Social Hub- Where Fans Gather

April 18, 2012 by

With the NBA playoffs just around the corner here is wishing that your team is angling for a better seeding for the games rather than for the lottery. While looking around the league I was struck by how easy it was to use the Hawks Social Hub, a nice mixture of new and older technologies.

Right next to the banner headline of ‘Hawks Social Hub’ are six icons for popular news and social media feeds such as YouTube and Twitter, but really that is just a tease. Directly below are two large boxes, one with the latest Facebook posting and a link to Facebook, as well as a invite to join a contest to win 4 free tickets.

Across is a box with the Twitter feed, and you can follow the team at @atlanta_hawks and the site touts that you can follow all of the Hawks social media at one place, here at the Hub. Beneath this box are three slightly smaller boxes.

The first is a link that takes you to the teams YouTube channel for videos. The second is the teams official blog, with one of the current conversations discussing its playoff picture while the third box covers its Google + feed.

Below all of this are two buttons, one for users that wish to see additional video and the other is for those who like to comment on message boards. This is just the front page of the Hub. It has pages for fans looking to buy team merchandise, get stats, buy tickets, look at cheerleaders and more.

The sponsors for the page are quite clear as well, showing that the team understands how to partner with advertisers. The Georgia Lottery is the page’s sponsor and others can be found on the page, but not really to a point where they are obtrusive.

This is a great example of how a good page, incorporating all of the different forms of social media can really make it easier for fans to follow their teams. For any traveler that has been in a city far from home waiting patiently while the local sports channel or ESPN to finish scrolling through all of the games that you are not interested in to get to the one that you do care about, now there is a much more efficient method of catching up.

Team pages vary a great deal, which in one way is good, it enables them to highlight what they believe their fans are most interested in. On the other hand it can make finding the information of connection you want difficult to find. Just head over to a different teams page and try finding Google + or YouTube videos. On some they are not present and others very difficult to find.

Filed Under: Atlanta Hawks, Facebook, Google, NBA, Social Media, Social Media Data, Sports Social Media, Twitter, YouTube Tagged With: , , , ,

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Preliminary Windows 8 Tablet Specs

April 16, 2012 by

Intel takes wraps off of Windows 8 tablet specs
Intel has showed the expected features and capabilities of the Windows 8 tablets at its Developer Forum in Beijing last week, a nugget that was dug up by Cnet. Not surprising is the chip powering these next generation devices will be Intel’s Z2760 ‘Clover Trail’ processor.

The chip is a multithreaded dual core processor with a feature called ‘burst mode’ that enables it to accelerate performance for short periods of time. There will be two basic designs, one a 10-inch model and the second a slightly larger 11-inch that will feature a keyboard.

It will have an estimated 9-hour battery life, support 3G/4G and also have NFC (near field communications) and Wi-Fi Direct. Its weight will be roughly 1.5 pounds and it s expected to be 9 mm thick. A second half 2012 release date is expected for the tablets based on the specs, but that is based on Microsoft releasing Windows 8 in that time frame.

Expect a wave of tablets of all size in next few months
A host of tablet manufacturers have tablets in the pipeline and they will start appearing on shelves very shortly, according to multiple reports. Samsung, Nokia, and even possibly Apple have products that should be are nearing the market.

The Asus Transformer Pad 300 is expected to hit the streets next week with a 4G LTE supporting pad that is expected to have a $399 price tag for a 32GB model. Amazon reportedly has three Kindle Fire models on the designing board including a 8.9-inch one.

Then there is the long awaited Google Nexus Tablet that has been rumored for some time and s expected to be built by Asus. It is believed to be a 7-inch tablet that will have a $199 starting price point. For more information on these and others including Nokia, Apple and Samsung’s potential offerings head over to the International Business Times site.

Apple loses appeal on ‘push’ email
Chalk one up for Motorola Mobility as a German court has upheld a ban that prevents Apple from using ‘push’ email in its iCloud and MobileMe service in Germany. The court, based in Mannheim, confirmed that Motorola owns the patent and that Apple must pay to use it.

The ruling keeps the services shut down in Germany and Apple is liable for damages and has been ordered to provide information that will enable the courts to determine the amount of the damage.

A look at how the current patent wars are hurting the market
A nice, general piece on the growing problem of patent conflicts and how it has erupted into major warfare. The rise of patent trolls, including corporate ones and how companies now go out and buy patents simply for protection. Nothing groundbreaking but nice to see that the issue is making more news.

On the same topic the fact that most of the patents in the smartphone area are held by international companies could stunt the growth of home grown developers in China, the world’s largest smartphone market.

Local handset manufacturers sold 455 million units last year but have been warned that they may be violating copyright laws with their devices. The news came from The Mobile Terminal White Paper, issued by the China Academy of Telecommunication Research.

Twitter tried to buy Instagram first
I did not hear about this when the huge deal went down with Facebook but apparently there was more than one company lining up for the photo sharing company. Seems that Twitter co-founder and Chairman Jack Dorsey had tried in the past to purchase the company, but failed to get any real traction on a deal.

However, since Dorsey was one of the investors in Instagram, he will be seeing a pretty penny from the deal. For a nice look at Instagram head over to the NY Times for this piece.

Pew study highlights technology rift
A recent study by the Pew Research Center shows how much of a gap still exists between have’s and have not’s in terms of technology. While a full 19% of Americans now have some form of tablet, be it a fully loaded Apple iPad or a bare bones Barnes & Noble Nook, a greater percentage, 22% do not even have Internet access.

The report is focused on digital access in this country and provides some great snapshots of who uses which technologies including cell phones and laptops as well as tablets, and that is broken down by a variety of demographics.

It is interesting to see that a fairly large number of adults that do not have Internet access do so because they believe that it adds nothing to their lives. Also the rise of mobile Internet access has helped level the playing field in areas that had traditionally lagged n terms of access and use.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, Asus, Barnes & Noble, Facebook, Google, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Lawsuit, Motorola, Samsung, Smartphone, Social Media, Tablets, The New York Times Tagged With: , , , , , ,

What’s a Picture Worth? To Facebook, $1 Billion as it Buys Instagram

April 9, 2012 by

Social media powerhouse Facebook has purchased Instagram in a combination cash and stock deal that is valued at $1 billion. Instagram is a photo sharing site that permits users to share photos with their friends.

While some have seen Instagram as a potential rival to Facebook and others just a flash in the pan the deal is the biggest in Facebook’s history by a large margin and will help expand its already enormous reach in the social media space.

Instagram had been only available on Apple’s iPhones until just last week when the platform moved to the Android platform where it was greeted with a tremendous rush of downloads and usage by an entire new group of users.

Facebook made it clear to customers wondering if it would just assimilate the company that the answer was no, but that it would use some of its technology in Facebook going forward. Instagram is expected to continue to operate, and develop, as an independent company.

I wonder if this will really add that much to the Facebook empire. When Yahoo was still a high flying company back in 1999 it purchased one of the most popular Internet portal sites, GeoCities, for $3.6 billion in a deal what looked like it would greatly enhance Yahoo’s position as a portal site. You may well as ask what is a portal site now.

A user can already post a photo pretty easily to Facebook, maybe not with the bells and whistles that come with Instagram but still pretty quickly. Now with some f those bells & whistles incorporated into Facebook, will there be a need for an independent Instagram in the long run? I bet no.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Facebook, Yahoo Tagged With: , , ,

Masters Week Matchup: Tiger vs. Rory, the Website Battle

April 2, 2012 by

One of the huge themes to this year’s Masters golf tournament is how the new phenom, Rory McIlroy, will match up against the “old” phenom, Tiger Woods. With both their golf games at a high level, it should be fun to watch. Until play starts Thursday, we can see how the two golfing stars match up online, by looking at their respective websites.

We’ve always been big fans of Tiger’s site, and it is probably safe to say that Tiger was the first major sports star who forced the media to quote him off his website, instead of via direct interviews. That may also be why now you see many media types ready to kick Tiger when he is down. But the Tiger Woods website is still a great place to go to get info on all things Tiger, albeit in a very sanitized, sponsor-friendly way.

We didn’t even know that Rory McIlroy had a website but a tweet from the defending U.S. Open champ today let us know that he has a spiffy new site up, and that we probably won’t be hearing anything from McIlroy on social media the rest of the week as he starts his Masters grind:

Tiger is also active on Twitter today, talking about a great practice round with old pal Mark O’Meara and promoting a new charity effort over on Facebook. We’ll see if there are any post-round Tiger tweets as the week unfolds.

Any folks out there who like the new-look Rory site? I am more a fan of the button-down style of Tiger’s site; anytime there is too much Flash or automated stuff on a site I am turned off. Are you a fan of the new or the old? Is there some reason that using the new stuff increases traffic? Use the comments below to register your own web-design expertise.

Filed Under: Facebook, Golf, PGA, The Masters, Tiger Woods Tagged With: , ,

Should Dodgers Look to Social Media to Reinvigorate Brand?

April 2, 2012 by

The purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers for $2.15 billion, plus millions more for improvements may be good news for sports teams as it appears valuation continues to rise but the team needs to resurrect its standing among the LA sports world.

It seems that any group that can pay roughly two and half times the previous high for a MLB team and five times what its previous owner did will pose a great deal of trouble for the Giants and the rest of the National League as the supposedly bottomless pockets of the new owners will create a New York Yankees West type of team that will dominate at least their division for years to come.

Even while the purchase of the team for such a massive sum, and monetary resources that seems to have sent shivers through the beat writers and columnists for the San Francisco Giants it faces a different issue in its own town.

The team has had declining attendance and seen growing antipathy in a fan base that used to fill the stadium with 3 million strong year in and year out. Watching a Dodger game a decade ago and it was sure to have numerous close shots of stars and almost stars in the stands. No more. The Dodgers are no longer the talk of the town.

It seems that this is a perfect time for the team to expand its outreach to include a variety of social media tools, and not just have a presence on them but to aggressively promote the team on them. Baseball has been at the forefront of using the Internet and other social media for its teams, but in some ways it is a cookie cutter solution, they all look alike. Baseball is looking at putting networks for fans in all of its parks, and that is great, once the fans are in the park.

However sports like Tennis, as exemplified at the Australian Open and Hockey with an aggressive push by the Boston Bruins are looking at new ways to reach out to fans and make them feel like they are part of the family. Why not have caption contests and pinterest reviews?

Everybody, and probably not a few pets, has Facebook pages, so what? Make it special so that it is worth visiting on a regular basis rather than after a great win or a heartbreaking loss. I do not doubt that the team will recapture Los Angeles, but it seems that it has a great deal of tools that are left unused, while it will rely on the almighty dollar to do its marketing for it.

Money does cause fear
John Shea, a sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle has a piece entitled “Can SF Giants afford to keep pace with Dodgers?” in which he worries that they will become the NY Yankees or Red Sox West. However he then tempers his article by pointing out how flawed the execution of previous team managements.

Henry Schulman, Giants beat writer reports that the deal means that future Giants free agents, particularly star pitcher Matt Cain will see their potential future earnings increase as the Dodges come knocking with an open checkbook. I suspect that it the first few years this will be true since Magic Johnson, the front man for the new ownership group, said that he would personally be doing the calling.

Mercury New columnist Mark Purdy’s “Giants fans should be concerned about the deep-pocketed new Dodgers owners” brings up that the controlling owner’s business has $125 billion in assets, three times actually. Also post the theory that the team might move elsewhere in LA and a new stadium for football could be built there.

While the execs that now own the team have a great deal of financial assets, they may be able to get more revenue from the team without further investment. If the rival Angels got a 30 year $3 billion television rights deal it will be interesting to see how the Dodgers do since their current rights are now up, and Fox has expressed not only an interest in the rights, but rumor has it that it is seeking to establish itself as a sports broadcasting powerhouse, so the signs are looking good.

Dollars do not always win out however
First of all, despite buying the team with almost no cash and then using it as a personal ATM for the last few years previous owner Frank McCourt always seemed to field a fairly competitive teams showing that sound on-field management and a solid minor league can help offset any shortcomings of an owner, at least in the short run. The owner he bought from, Fox, spent more and made a number of high profile mistakes, yet he had more on field success.

Yet if the Washington Redskins and other well heeled teams have shown us is that just because you have money does not mean that you can buy championships. Also just because you have money does not mean that you will be spending tons of it on your team, look at David Glass, owner of the Kansas City Royals which he purchased for $96 million in 2000.

Do they want to spend?
The truly staggering amount that was spent on the team makes it possible that the new owners will be laboring under a great deal of debt and will be siphoning off money from the team much like McCourt was reputed to do. Instead of financing an opulent lifestyle the new owners will be servicing debt.

The Economist has an interesting piece explaining how this is likely to happen and how a lack of investment by McCourt could very well cause issues going forward. Heck they did not even get all of the parking lot for that price. A good conversation on the details is available over at Baseball Think Factory.

Being a somewhat of a baseball conspiracy theorist believer I greatly believe that the Baseball Commissioner and most of the other team owners, at least the ones that truly seek to win, do not want a team driving the price of free agents sky high.

MLB was fine with the McCourts’ way of doing business until the owners divorce unleashed a wave of scandal. It seems quite happy to leave the Mets alone with all of their problems- short of cash means no free agent bidding, as they were doing prior to the Bernie Madoff scandal. Maybe the Dodgers have an under the table agreement not to drive prices above a certain level? Maybe I should stop drinking ten cups of coffee in the morning.

Filed Under: Baseball Think Factory, ESPN, Facebook, Fanatic Fans, Fox Sports, Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, Pinterest, San Francisco Giants Tagged With: ,

Boston Bruins Combine all Social Media in Bruins DEN

March 28, 2012 by

While lamenting the fact that it is impossible for my March Madness team, now in second, to gain any additional points I failed to notice that the Boston Bruins have launched one of the most aggressive aggregation sites for social and traditional media concerning the team.

The Bruins, winner of the last Stanley Cup, have launched the Bruins Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), a site that combines television, ticket info, with a wide range of social media contacts and sources.

The site promises that it will provide not only what fans have come to expect in terms of data on players and games but it also said that it will be creating original content for fans to view. You can follow the team in a variety of manners including via BostonBruinsTV.com, at its popular web site BostonBruins.com or on Facebook. The list goes on with support at Twitter, Google +, Tumblr, as well as Facebook and Foursquare check-ins.

The Bruins DEN is a tool that will enable the teams’ corporate sponsors to reach out towards fans with a focused effort, and the site said that it expects to have 2.5 million unique visitors each month, so it should be quite an opportunity for them. Not only that but any technology that it uses is often highlighted with the name of the developer or partner,

An example of that is when the site says that its partners will benefit from its enhanced social analytics capabilities, courtesy of startup Umbel. It has an app for fans called the Official Boston Bruins Mobile App (Bruinsmobile.com) powered by AT&T. The app already features a sitcom series called ‘The Bear and the Gang’ that centers on the teams mascot. The bear also has his own Pinterest page.

The site is easy to navigate and all of the social media connections are clearly marked and easy to find. There is the almost obligatory Twitter feed, pictures from other fans posted using Instagram, and a hsot of additional connections ranging from one that gives you the all-time player roster to one that has a list of giveaways and events.

The organization is moving to provide fans access to its team in a great number of ways, and allowing them to show their pride and interest in the team. Regardless if you download and use the mobile app, post images on Instagram, comments of Facebook or check-in the Bruins are putting the fan experience first. At the same time the business side is carefully intertwined with the effort so that the team can monetize itself and its partners’ efforts in this endeavor.

About a decade ago just a few baseball teams had an Internet presence but MLB quickly learned what a tool the Internet was and pushed all of its teams online, and has since been very aggressive with all forms of social media. I hope that the NHL takes a page from that book and uses this as a template for the other teams in the league because I believe that fans will greatly embrace this opportunity.

Filed Under: Apps, AT&T, Facebook, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NHL, Pinterest Tagged With: , , ,
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