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Friday Grab Bag: No More MRIs on Twitter for Arian Foster

October 7, 2011 by

Just a quick roundup of some Mobile Sports-related topics today, including Arian Foster telling Jim Rome that he probably isn’t going to put any more MRI photos on Twitter anytime soon.

AT&T Adds Wi-Fi to Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota:

While we will have a longer feature coming up soon about AT&T’s push to bring Wi-Fi to more stadiums we didn’t want to pass up the news of Ma Bell adding enhanced Wi-Fi access to the Xcel Energy Center, home of hockey’s Minnesota Wild. Among the features added by AT&T are on-site access to video replays and the ability to order food from your seat. What more does a fan want? Like we said, stay tuned for a longer feature on AT&T’s Wi-Fi stadium strategy.

Is Twitter Video the Next Big Thing?

Twitter pros already know how to put photos on the web for instant sharing, but what about video clips? According to GigaOM a company called Keek has just raised $5.5 million to help build out its short-video messaging service. Get ready for a lot of “Dude, we’re here at the game!” posts soon.

Filed Under: AT&T, Live sports via mobile, NFL, Twitter Tagged With: , , ,

Mobile Football: NBC a No-Show for Live Play-by-Play

October 3, 2011 by


In our ongoing search for the best mobile app for following live football play-by-play, on Sunday night the MSR research team decided to check out the options available from NBC, since the Peacock network carries the Sunday night game live on TV.

The verdict? For an Android smartphone user, NBC’s mobile play-by-play options are about as exciting as a handoff up the middle, far behind the functionality of services from ESPN and the NFL. There isn’t even a standalone app for Android phones — maybe the non-smartphone featured in NBC’s “mobile web” landing page is a tipoff — instead you are sent to a mobile-optimized web page that does give you a live score and can show details of the last play run, but that is all. We didn’t even get our turkey-and-chicken sausages halfway grilled before we switched from NBC’s mobile page back to ESPN, whose Gamecast app seemed to have new life on Sunday, without any of the non-updating problems we’d seen during previous weekends.

Since we are waiting for Tuesday’s expected new iPhone announcement to decide what our phone-upgrade strategy will be for the MSR Verizon account, it may be another week or two before we can check out Verizon’s NFL Mobile app. (Apparently NBC does have a standalone iPhone app, if you have knowledge of how this works please leave a comment below.) Until then we are putting ESPN and NFL 2011 in a tie for first, with Sprint TV a game behind and NBC’s offering at 0-4, looking for a new quarterback and maybe a new head coach.

Filed Under: Android, Apps, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, NBC Sports, NFL, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , ,

Thursday Humor: Don’t Use Your Laptop in a Horse Trough

September 29, 2011 by

Screen shot of ESPNWatch TV ad with the cowboy in the horse trough -- note the disclaimer text.

Just some Thursday fun: While we’ve all seen the ESPNWatch TV ad multiple times now (the one with the cowboy watching a laptop in the horse trough) you have to look quickly to catch the witty disclaimer that runs across the bottom of the screen: “Do not attempt while bathing in horse trough.”

You might also add, good luck finding a cell tower out in the pasture. Or remember, you need to have an existing contract with Verizon, TimeWarner Cable or Bright House to actually use this cool app. But never mind all that. Today we just laugh.

Filed Under: ESPN, Live sports via mobile, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: ,

The Ongoing Search: What’s the Best Mobile Play-by-Play Service for Football?

September 27, 2011 by

NFL 2011 mobile app, showing play by play. Good clear screen, detailed info.


There’s a whole lot of folks telling you that you can keep up on football games by using your mobile phone — but how well do the services actually work? In an ongoing search that will probably last all season long, your MSR crew (meaning me) will perform random acts of mobility, following NFL and college games via mobile to see if these services deliver, or if they fall incomplete.

Monday night my dinner-making grill-master duties coincided with the Monday night tilt between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins, giving me a perfect chance to test out some of the mobile play-by-play services, like ESPN’s Gamecast, the NFL.com NFL 2011 app, and Sprint (my cell phone provider’s) Sprint Football app. The early verdict says: go with NFL 2011 as your starter, ESPN as your backup, and leave Sprint Football on the bench.

Though the NFL 2011 app has a little annoying banner ad at the bottom of the screen (the ESPN and Sprint services also have banner ads), its play-by-play updates are generally more informative than ESPN’s, giving it the edge in a basically even competition. Both services suffered from an annoying lag time between play posts — which, if your screen is set to go dark to save power like mine is, means you may occasionally have to hard refresh the device to keep the app alive. I’d buy a beer for the first service to add a simple “status” banner that could tell you something like “play under review” or “game in TV timeout” so that you aren’t stupidly staring at the screen waiting for an update.

The Sprint Football app. Basically unreadable, so bench this one in favor of other services.

I ruled out the Sprint app after less than a minute — though it might be informative it suffers from a too-cute design that uses a screen shot of a football field as a backdrop, making its white type illegible when you are looking at a post that blurs into the lines of the field on the drawing. Seriously, Sprint folks — does anyone there look at these things? You can’t read it. Change it, please.

Both the ESPN and the NFL app, which have sensible, clear backgrounds, both suffered mightily to keep up with a fast, complex play — like the interception thrown by Dallas QB Tony Romo in the first quarter that ended with a fumble out-of-bounds call that needed replay review. The play by play apps were no help, basically stalling and never getting around to explaining what happened — they just both picked up with Washington running plays in Dallas territory.

ESPN's Gamecast app, not live but even this wrapup shows the clear black-on-white format that works well.

Having access to a TV set just a few steps away from the barbecue gave me the ability to see how well the online apps were keeping up — and the answer was, not well at all. Both the ESPN and the NFL apps were at least three plays behind the live action; if you watch the Internet version of Gamecast on your PC you can even see that the Twitter stream embedded in the app usually has info that is ahead of the Gamecast info. If I ran either one of these operations I would strip them back down to make sure that the play by play is as close to live as possible. Remember, fans may be using this service as a replacement for the TV announcers who annoy us all. So you’ve got to be faster than they are now.

The bottom line — neither of the top two services is satisfying if you are doing nothing but concentrating on the screen, since they don’t stay “live” enough to hold your attention or keep your phone’s screen lit. I will keep looking to see if there are other services that concentrate solely on play by play, as well as trying to cobble together a Twitter stream to approximate play by play because Twitter is fast. We should have a Verizon phone in hand soon to test out the NFL Mobile app, and we have also heard that Yahoo has a pretty good service so we will look for that as well.

Anyone else out there figure this out? Chime in below in the comments.

(all photos credit: MSR.)

Filed Under: Android, Apps, ESPN, Live sports via mobile, Monday Night Football, NFL, Sprint Tagged With: , , , , ,

Friday’s Technology Tidbits

September 16, 2011 by

Microsoft deals Flash another blow

Microsoft has decided to not support plug-ins in its Tablet version of Windows 8, which means that it will not support Flash. For the uninitiated but mildly interested this does not mean the type of Flash that got Uncle Ernie in trouble but rather the technology from Adobe that is used to add animation, video and interactivity to web pages. The thinking is that Flash is old technology and the the more recent HTML5 is better suited for the mobile users because of its low power demands, among other features. Microsoft is following Apple in this move, which also does not support Flash for its iPad and iPhone platforms. However Microsoft will offer an option that is expected to enable users to continue to use the technology if they so chose.

Come for pease pudding, stay for Football?

While the use of tablets seems to be growing every day, this is a tack that might actually get me off the sofa when a game is on (well not really). A British supermarket chain in London is testing the use of iPad-equipped shopping carts. The purpose of the iPad is not as a tool to check your list or to do comparison shopping. No, it is there so that you can view streaming sports while deciding if the beer on sale is worth saving a few quid. Sainsbury is teaming with Sky Sports for the service. Sainsbury provides a cart that has an iPod dock. iPod owners can download a free app called Sky Go iPad , available to Sky subscribers, that enables them to watch several sports channels. The carts will include special bumpers and sensors to help prevent collisions while watching the latest goal. Of course I guess you could also use it for the shopping list, but why bother?

Android-based tablets losing ground to RIM? Really?

According to the latest report from market research firm IDC, tablets that run the Android operating system are losing ground to newer players, including both Research-in Motion’s PlayBook which managed to gain a 4.9% market share for the quarter. The firm said in its second quarter report that the tablet market continues to be led by Apple’s iPad, shipping 9.3 million units that account for 68.3% of the market. The Android devices fell from 34% market share in the first quarter to 26.8% in Q2. Only part of the drop was due to growing RIM sales. The Hewlett-Packard fire sale on its TouchPad has a huge impact as well, expecting to comprise 4.7% of the market by the end of next quarter. The demand was so great for the cut rate devices that the company built an additional run. At $99 per, it makes you wonder what the real breakeven point for the devices is. Still HP will be out of the running soon and expect the Android systems to continue their upward growth in sales and market share.

The Atlantic nails the NCAA, hopefully will wash it to sea

In case you have missed it, the October issue of The Atlantic just lays into the NCAA with a well written, well researched piece on what a sham it actually is. I really doubt that anything will come of it, I mean look at the pat on the hand the Fiesta Bowl received for its transgressions. While a $1 million fine might seem like a lot to a working stiff, it is just two years salary of the guy that formerly ran the program. Instead of citing all of the points that I liked I think just these early quotes show where it is going.
“Why,” asked Bryce Jordan, the president emeritus of Penn State, “should a university be an advertising medium for your industry?”
Vaccaro did not blink. “They shouldn’t, sir,” he replied. “You sold your souls, and you’re going to continue selling them. You can be very moral and righteous in asking me that question, sir,” Vaccaro added with irrepressible good cheer, “but there’s not one of you in this room that’s going to turn down any of our money. You’re going to take it. I can only offer it.” Ouch.

Filed Under: Android, iPad, Live sports via mobile, NCAA Football, Soccer, Tablets

DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket Mobile Service Sacked by Tech Glitch

September 12, 2011 by

The little man didn't fly as promised for mobile users this Sunday, according to reports.

DirecTV’s big push to promote a mobile-viewing option for its Sunday Ticket NFL package apparently got sacked by some technical glitches that rendered the service inoperative for mobile-device users, according to several reports including this post from FierceCable.

So despite heavy promo of the cute commercials where the fairy-sized Deion Sanders uses magic to bring DirecTV’s live NFL game action to a fan stuck at the airport, the satellite provider couldn’t keep up the promise on the back end, throwing its game-day credibility for a huge loss.

With competitor Verizon Wireless amping up the publicity for its own mobile-NFL product, you have to wonder how many fans are going to pay the big up-front bucks for DirecTV if the company can’t make good on one of its biggest and most hyped products.

Filed Under: Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NFL, Verizon Wireless
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