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I always love how I am always told that sports help bring people together, omitting that filling a building with two groups of fans that may hate each other seems to put the lie to the statement. While riots at soccer matches now seem passé, try wearing a Cowboy jersey to an Eagles home game. The international scene is just as bad- look at the “friendly” match between the Georgetown Hoyas and Chinese professional team Bayi Rockets. Then again a bench clearing brawl does bring the players together!

So you are a developer looking to create a sports app for the Android. Do you create a web-based app or one that is designed specifically for the mobile users. Well according to the latest research from market researcher Nielsen’s Smart Phone Analytics, mobile apps wins if the metric you are looking for is time used. According to the release on Nielsenwire, “the average Android consumer in the U.S. spends 56 minutes per day actively interacting with the web and apps on their phone. Of that time, two-thirds is spent on mobile apps while one-third is spent on the mobile web” Creating a popular app is also very important (no kidding), with the top ten Android apps accounting for 43% of all time spent by users.

For the few that might have missed it, Google has made its biggest potential acquisition todate with its $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility, a $63% premium over the closing price of MM shares from last Friday. There are a huge number of reasons for Google’s move, starting with the more than 15,000 patents owned or filed by MM. Google has been complaining that rivals such as Microsoft, Sony and Apple are trying to squeeze it via their patent portfolios and the recently acquired ones they have gained via their $4.5 billion purchase of Nortel Networks. The newly acquired MM patents will help Google fight back as well as help the company expand into additional markets. I expect a decent patent war to break out between the different parties before they come to their collective senses and signs some cross patent licensing agreements a la the Intel/AMD deals of yore.

Today’s rant: I can force myself, on occasion, to watch preseason games. Football tends to be the one sport I do it the most for since I often attend baseball Spring Training. So why do the broadcast channels insist on overrunning the games with sideline reporters? It’s bad enough in baseball when the coach spouts a few clichés straight out of Bull Durham, but in the later part of preseason NFL games it seems that every star is interviewed when their time on the field is finished. I have yet to heard anything of interest, and since it takes away from showing the game, I often tend to drift off to another channel-ohh look Animal Planet has a feature on badgers! How about trying to supply some real analysis? Maybe talk about the formations and the players and who might have a chance to stick, you know, what I am always hoping a network will provide. End rant.

Patent wars break out between Google and, well, everybody else
While you can’t keep a good man down, so the saying goes, you can try and keep a good program down via a judicial use of patents. Google is crying foul over the efforts of Apple, Microsoft and Oracle who it claims are running an organized campaign against Google’s Android, a campaign that Google labels as based on bogus patents. The three protagonists have a range of lawsuits across the globe and Google even complained that Apple and Microsoft teamed up to buy Nortel patents to thwart Google- However it should be noted that the winning bid was $4.5 billion, Google bid $900 million so there could be more involved.

Bet you did not know this
Do you like dropping a dime on your favorite football team, either pro or college, or both? The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece on how professional gamblers are making bets fast and furious very early in the process. One of the reasons is that with not much known about teams early on, the odds have a good chance to swing a great deal, providing opportunity for the experience gambler.

iPad to remain king of the tablet space? iPhone sales continue to grow.
A research report from Digitimes claims that Apple’s iPad has a huge sales and market lead in 2011. According to the report, approximately 65.2 million tablets will be shipped from manufacturers’ and of that figure the iPad will account for 40 million, or a 61% market share. In the second half of the year it expects Apple to ship 25.5 million units, a 76% increase over the first half of the year.

In related news Apple could sell as many as 30 million iPhones in the fourth quarter, powered by sales of the latest version of the phone, slated for release around that time frame. This compares very favorable to the 14.1 million sold during the same period last year.

DirectTV and Comcast fight over NFL Sunday Ticket Ads
Now that the NFL is back are you looking at adding Sunday Ticket to you cable bill? Watching the ads that claim that you can add it without any extra charge? Have you noticed the little asterisk? Well Comcast is taking the time to point out, and file a lawsuit over, the fact that in Comcast’s opinion the ad is a complete lie. They have a nice little conversation on the topic at the Consumerist. Either way make sure that you ask the proper questions when adding the service to ensure you do not suffer from buyers regret at some point in the future.