Social Media – Page 4

MSR, SEAT Conference Announce Strategic Partnership

June 19, 2013 by Paul Kapustka 2 Comments

Astute MSR readers may have noticed the new display ad on the top right hand side of the site, which promotes the upcoming SEAT 2013 conference. Now the rest of the story: Mobile Sports Report and SEAT are teaming up, with a strategic partnership to produce a special report as well as exclusive content centered around the sports technology executive audience.

We’ve long been fans of SEAT’s focus on providing a place for peers in the sports technology market to get together to discuss best practices, new technologies, and smart strategies for improving the fan experience while improving the bottom line. When the opportunity presented itself to join forces we jumped at the chance, and can’t wait to bring the stories of the SEAT attendees to the MSR audience.

If you’re not familiar with SEAT, it is the premier conference for the sports and arena technology executive, taking place this year in Kansas City, Aug. 4-7. SEAT, which stands for Sports and Entertainment Alliance in Technology, regularly attracts the top tech execs from all the U.S. major sports leagues, as well as representatives from entertainment venues and other large-crowd sports whose audiences and business operations present unique technology challenges.

We’ve covered some of those topics here in our focus on stadium Wi-Fi and DAS networks, but we’ll be expanding that charter as part of our partnership with SEAT. Look for exclusive interviews here on MSR with SEAT speakers and thought leaders, and if you choose to attend SEAT (and you should, if this is your field) then you will receive our upcoming special in-depth survey report on stadium technology deployment.

Want more info? Drop me a line here at kaps at mobilesportsreport.com. Better yet, sign up for the SEAT Conference and let’s talk there. See you in Kansas City!

Filed Under: Apps, Cisco, DAS, ESPN, Social Media, Sports Content Executives, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Chris Dill, Christine Stoffel, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, SEAT, SEAT 2013

49ers Embrace Social Media In Deal With Yahoo

June 18, 2013 by Greg Quick Leave a Comment

Have you ever dreamed of seeing your name, or at least your picture, up in lights for all to see? Well for 49er fans, and I guess any fan that attends games at the new 49er Levi’s Stadium that has become a possibility due to a deal between the team and Yahoo.

Yahoo has signed on with the team as the team and stadium’s “exclusive online sports content, social networking, and photo and video sharing partner” which is quite a mouthful. The terms of the 10 year deal have not been announced, or even reliably leaked.

Part of the deal will enable fans to appear on the big screen, that is the stadium big screen. Fans that take photos can upload them to Flikr during the game, which just happens to be a Yahoo property, and there is the possibility that they will be displayed on the big screen.

Fans can use specific booths that will be situated around the stadium’s concourse to upload the photos into the 49ers Flikr photo gallery, from which selections will be displayed at the game. Yahoo will also have the ability to tout its Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football.

The deal enables the company to name the lounge in the stadium’s suites and its adjacent viewing platforms the Fantasy Football Lounge. But the deal is more than just static naming- the 49ers said that they intend to integrate Yahoo and its properties into its broadcast and digital media.

It is not surprising that the 49ers have gone out and signed a deal with a major Internet player; expect to see this as the trend of the future as fans increasingly use smartphones and tablets to upload imagery and comments from sporting events, a trend that has been growing at a tremendous rate for the past few years.

With the increased adoption of social media at stadiums will also come the increasing need for better networking and communications technology. Anybody that has tried to get online at a sporting event knows the long delays that can entail, even when the mobile device shows that the signal is strong.

MLB has already signed a deal with Qualcomm to develop and implement a fan to help solve this issue. The San Francisco Giants, which planned for these issues from the start of AT&T Park, have still had to continually upgrade the stadiums’ capacity as users’ demands increased.

Filed Under: Apps, AT&T, Baseball, Major League Baseball, San Francisco Giants, Social Media, Social Media Data, Sports Social Media, Wi-Fi, Yahoo Tagged With: AT&T, Flikr, MLB, Qualcomm Stadium, San Francisco 49ers, San Francisco Giants, Yahoo

San Jose Sharks Enlist Wayin for Twitter Hub

May 15, 2013 by Greg Quick 1 Comment

ESPN’s deal with Twitter the other day was an expected development as there is a growing desire to hook into social media by sports franchises and broadcasters and another that is following on that same path is the San Jose Sharks Hockey team.

The Sharks have teamed with a Denver-based startup called Wayin using that company’s social media engagement hub to create a Twitter hub for fans of the team and of the National Hockey League.

The Shark’s Wayin hub, called the Sharks Game Day Hub, is more than just a central depository for all of the twitter activity that naturally follows a team when it is in the playoffs. It serves the fans a central site where they can gain a degree of control over what they are following.

The hub features both team generated content as well as a variety of other information including tab on Tweet volume, Twitter activity from players, coaches, broadcasters and Sharks staff, imbedded broadcast video interviews, and fan Tweets. The hub also supports Instagram so that fans can also follow along on images and photos posted by others.

While the casual fan may not have heard of Wayin, in part because it’s a startup and secondly by being located in Denver it is off the beaten paths for most new tech companies. However it has a prestigious foundation starting with co-founder and Chairman Scott McNealy, former top honcho of Sun Microsystems. Anyone from the Bay Area could tell you that McNealy is a huge hockey fan and that once for April Fools played hockey with former pro hockey players with Sharks players in attendance.

It will be interesting to see how a hub such as this will compete with the emerging class of apps that put fans in connection with athletes. A number have emerged over the years in the app space but none seem to have caught the attention of the mainstream. By bringing a team into the mix fans might be able to connect more directly with players using this type of hub.

Filed Under: Apps, Athlete to Follow, Instagram, NHL, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Stanley Cup, Startup, Twitter Tagged With: Instagram, NHL, San Jose Sharks, Scott McNealy, Twitter, Wayin

Beyond the Box App Seeks to Provide Customized Sports News

April 29, 2013 by Greg Quick Leave a Comment

Sports fans always seem to have dozens of apps dedicated to specific areas of sports that they are interested in. Apps that provide baseball broadcasts or NFL draft information are two examples and now Beyond the Box is seeking to break into that field as a sports news aggregator.

One of the knocks that some of the news services have is that they provide old news, unless you are hooked into the latest twitter feed you might be reading something that is outdated and now not relevant.

The app, designed for iPad and iPad Mini tablets promises to bring together real time, up to date news from 1,000 media sources. It also taps into 2,000 players to provide not just news but also commentary, analysis, insights, rumors, video and photos of sports figures and events.

The app enables fans to customize it according to their tastes allowing them to select teams or players to follow. It presents the news and other information in a timeline format that enables you to get either the most up to date information or pick a point at which you want to start tracing a select piece of information.

Beyond the Box is also being positioned as a perfect second screen for fans that are already watching an event and are looking for additional information, commentary or images regarding that event, or possibly on one that they are not/cannot view at the same time. It also has a Facebook, blog and twitter presence.

As the company notes it is trying to be a one stop shop for fans, but there are a number of others that also seek to provide the same type of service, from other fresh startups such as Recapp to some of the more established players in the broadcast market such as ESPN and Turner Networks’ Bleacher Report. Then of course there are specialty apps that seek to provide news for a specific sport such as Bantr for soccer.

The Beyond the Box app is from Murphy Ave. Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif. and has its roots in a program out of Stanford University called StartX Accelerator program that is designed to help new startups by exposing them to successful startup founders and an educational program that will help them succeed.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Athlete to Follow, ESPN, Facebook, iPad, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Social Media, Sports Social Media, Sports Social Media Opinion Column, Startup, Tablets, Turner Sports Tagged With: App, Apple, Bantr, Beyond the Box, Startup, Turner Sports

Major League Baseball teams with Qualcomm to Boost Ballpark Wireless Service

April 10, 2013 by Greg Quick 1 Comment

MLB, like all major sports, and for that matter any large venue for sports or entertainment, seems to always have a connectivity problem but unlike many others which seem to have patchwork solutions MLB is actively addressing the issue.

The league’s Advanced Media arm (MLBAM) has teamed with wireless equipment developer Qualcomm in a multiyear effort that will first seek to survey the needs of mobile fans and then look at developing a plan to implement the mobile network technology needed to meet those needs.

They are entering a very fast moving space, where it is still hard to predict what the growth and demand will look like. You need only look at some of the numbers that Baseball has provided to see this. Two years ago fans were primarily looking for downstream data flow, that is downloading e-mails checking voicemail.

That has change so that now the primary need is for upstream connectivity, so that twitter, Facebook updates, Instagram photos and a host of other social media needs can be served. Also these types of files are often much larger than the simple text messages downloaded two years earlier. However the growth has been strong for data flowing in both directions, a 50% increase in downstream and a 300% increase in upstream per year over the last two years.

MLB in fact helps create demand for wireless in its parks. It has a range of apps that allow fans to do everything from find images of themselves in the stands as well as post that type of photo to upgrading your seats while at a game.

The range of services now at ballparks range considerably, and even after this effort is over will still have a good deal of variance since it appears that not all teams will be participating.

The deal is a first for Qualcomm in that in the past it has never had a direct relationship with a sports league. Its Engineering Group will provide in-ballpark assessments of select parks and develop a comprehensive plan for wireless access that will include Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G services. The effort is expected to take two years.

It will be interesting to see if the experts can accurately foretell the future and if the installations will meet with future needs. The San Francisco Giants’ AT&T Park is continually undergoing enhancements and growing pains as fans mobile usage continues to grow. But at least during the recent World Series it held up, while Comercia Park’s network collapsed under the strain of social commenting at games.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, Baseball, Cisco, Facebook, Instagram, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, Social Media, Sports Social Media Tagged With: MLB, MLBAM, Qualcomm, Stadium Wi-Fi, Wireless

Favourit Bets App Draws Bettors to Gambling Platform

April 2, 2013 by Greg Quick Leave a Comment

Favourit, a newly launched App from a pair of brothers in Melbourne Australia is reaching out to sports gamblers with an app that both brings together gamblers and sites to take the bets and friends that want to compete together using social media.

Founded in 2012 by brothers Toby and Josh Simmons, Favourit is touting itself as the Social sports betting network it has already attracted $3.6 million in Series A venture funding, a move that alone will help give it a boost over many rivals that are bootstrapping their way to market.

The concept is simple. Fans can gamble real money, where allowed, or virtual currency. The site sets fans up with betting operators for the real thing and with friends via social media for the all important bragging rights, and real betting as well if so desired.

It is designed as a global program, and while it covers some sports that Americans might not have a sporting interest in such as Australian Football League it covers a range of ones that might have a more direct appeal such as the NBA or the NFL.

While it has been available as a Web app and in HTML form for mobile users, studies have shown that increasingly smartphone and tablet users much prefer apps designed specifically for those platforms and that s what the company has done, creating a version that is currently downloadable for free from Apple’s iTunes store and that will run on Apple iOS devices.

Favourit includes real time virtual betting, as well as real betting via regulated partners and player to player bets. It includes stats, previews and live scores of events and has a social stream so that betters can chat and receive up to date news. You can also follow all of your bets and see social trends in betting and has a board that ranks bettors in terms of complexity and allows users to earn “BetIQ” points.

There have been plenty of apps that have sought to leverage the connection between social media and betting, and plenty that have focused just on the betting aspect of the equation. Apps such as 2Bet2, SideBet and others are already participating at some level and its been pretty clear that others are dying to get involved. A hold back, at least in the US, is that it is illegal to bet online. However that may be changing and other countries have already allowed it, as is obvious from what Favourit is doing.

I wonder if the push that the state of New Jersey is having about sports gambling will help open the door to more gambling in the US, particularly online? I guess only time will tell, but in terms of a head start for actual gambling, off shore sites like Favourit have a real advantage

Filed Under: Apple, iOS, Live sports via mobile, NBA, NFL, Smartphone, Social Media, Sports Betting, Tablets Tagged With: Apple, Favourit, iOS, NBA, NFL, Sports betting on mobile devices

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