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Inaugural Sky 3DTV soccer broadcast received warmly, hooligans opt for Michael Jackson & the Grammys instead

While U.S. audiences suffered through yet another anaglyph 3D broadcast as the Grammys presented Earth Song in traditional red/blue format courtesy of Target-distributed glasses, Sky kicked off its first true 3DTV broadcast across the pond during a Man. U/Arsenal match. Distributed to a few select pubs ahead of a wide rollout due in April, patrons slipped on passive 3D glasses and caught the entire match live from Emirates stadium. Luckily this experiment went over far better than the Dallas Cowboys disaster, though several criticized the need to remain more directly in front of the monitor to see the action and that the effect was less pronounced on long shots. However the new tech excelled the most during close ups and slow motion, as Pocket-Lint quoted viewer Kate Cobley “It’s brilliant, the corner and back of the goal views are just amazing. It makes the game so much better. If it’s in 3D then I would definitely be more likely to come to the pub to watch sport.” We figure the real test will come during the World Cup this summer, if ESPN’s 3DTV broadcast can get U.S. audiences tuning into the beautiful game, then 3D may actually live up to all the CES hype, until then check the read and more coverage links for a few more impressions, or the video embedded after the break.

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Inaugural Sky 3DTV soccer broadcast received warmly, hooligans opt for Michael Jackson & the Grammys instead originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Adobe fires back at Apple on iPad

One of the more disappointing (if unsurprising) parts of Apple’s launch of its iPad tablet computer today was the absence of Flash, Adobe’s technology for web video and other media. Now Adobe has responded in two blog posts — one that’s diplomatic, and another that’s not.

In the first, Adobe says it’s excited about the iPad, and it reminds developers of its Packager for the iPhone announced last year, which allows someone to export an application built for Flash into a format that works on the iPhone. Like other iPhone apps, those apps created by the Packager will work on the iPad, and Adobe says it will also add features to support the tablet’s increased screen size.

Flash content still won’t work in the iPad’s Safari web browser, but it sounded like Adobe was trying to put a happy face on a situation it’s can’t be satisfied with. The tone changed in a second post by Adobe’s Adrian Ludwig, which went up a few hours later. There’s a bit of throat-clearing, once again about how the iPad is really exciting, but then he gets to the absence of Flash:

It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers. Unlike many other ebook readers using the ePub file format, consumers will not be able to access ePub content with Apple’s DRM technology on devices made by other manufacturers. And without Flash support, iPad users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web

If I want to use the iPad to connect to Disney, Hulu, Miniclip, Farmville, ESPN, Kongregate, or JibJab — not to mention the millions of other sites on the web — I’ll be out of luck.

Okay, Ludwig doesn’t exactly tell Apple to go to hell. But there’s a real confrontational tone. That contrasts with Adobe’s previous comments on the issue, which tend to be relatively diplomatic statements to the effect that the ball is in Apple’s court. For example, Adobe chief executive Shantanu Narayen said last fall, “I’d love to work with Apple to make it happen.” Now the tensions between the two companies, which were visible if you looked for them, have moved to the surface.

And for what it’s worth, I think Ludwig has some good points. I know there are plenty of complaints about how Flash taxes hardware, about how it leads to crashes, and about the fact that an important technology powering the web is controlled by a single company. But as a consumer, the fact that when I turn on the iPad browser I won’t be able to view most of the video on the web creates is a big drawback, especially for a device that’s supposed to provide “the best” movie-watching experiencing.

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WooRank Screens Your Website, For Free

WooRank is a brand new service designed to let website publishers and marketers evaluate the SEO-friendliness and other aspects of their Web sites on the fly, free of charge. If this reminds you of what HubSpot built with its Website Grader tool, it’s because the concept is extremely similar.

WooRank evaluates Web sites based on 50 criteria in an automated fashion, free of charge, and provides helpful SEO and other tips. A premium version will be offered in about 3 months: for a yet-to-be-determined fee, publishers and marketers will then be able to screen Web sites based on up to 120 pre-defined critera, get served more personalized tips as well as references to online tools that they can use to increase the findability and performance of their Web sites.

I gave the tool a spin and generated a report for techcrunch.com – turns out we’re worthy of a WooRank of 82.4. While I have absolutely no idea what that means exactly, according to these statistics we’re well above the average. In the overall ranking, we even made the top 50, ahead of sites like the Apple Store, MySpace, ESPN.com and NYTimes.com (take that, New York Times, we haz bigger WooRankz!).

Apparently, we need to work on our headings, immage attribution tags, meta description and keywords, XML sitemap(s) and other aspects like Web standards compliance. We score pretty well on content (number of indexed pages), off-site SEO (particularly on the social media level) and website usability and load time.

Frankly, that’s a lot of valuable information available free of charge, so I’ll be curious to know in a couple of months how WooRank will try to entice people to pay for more detailed information and improvement tips.

WooRank was built by fellow Belgians, namely digital marketer Jean Derély of BetaGroup and the founders of interactive agency 1MD.be. Since soft-launching the service a couple of days ago, 27,000 reports have already been generated by some 7,500 visitors.

For more online tools, check out Website Grader but also HitTail and LotusJump.

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ESPN streaming coming to Xbox 360?

As if you needed another impetus to abandon cable and satellite TV, The New York Times is reporting behind closed door dealings are afoot between Microsoft and Walt Disney Company, with order of business being ESPN streaming via Xbox 360. According to the anonymous source, live streams of sporting events à la the now aptly-titled ESPN360 could come to the console on a per-subscriber fee, along with related interactive games. The thing with secret meetings, of course, is that they can never be confirmed and, should talks fall through, amount to nothing in the future — just keep that in mind before you get too excited and cancel Comcast a bit prematurely.

ESPN streaming coming to Xbox 360? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This Is Why The Internet (And Twitter) Wins

Undoubtedly by now you’ve heard about Tiger Woods’ car crash. Early reports had him in serious condition (which remember, is better than critical condition) after he apparently hit a fire hydrant and a tree while leaving his home in his SUV. The latest reports say he has been released from the hospital and is “fine.” But I’m not going to speak to any of that because that’s not what we do (you can find out more here).

Instead, as I’m watching this unfold infront of my eyes on the Internet, I’m reminded that this type of story is exactly why the web is destroying newspapers, and should eventually even take down television and the main source of news for most people. I first heard the news via a BNOnews bulletin sent via push notification to my iPhone. I immediately pulled up Twitter and already some 10-15 people had retweeted it and the news was appearing in my stream.

The message read, “BULLETIN — REPORT: FAMED GOLFER TIGER WOODS SERIOUSLY INJURED AFTER CRASH NEAR FLORIDA HOME.” Sure, not a lot of information there, but it’s clearly labeled as a report, and yes, it did turn out to be correct. And thanks to Twitter, thousands of people had access to this information about 45 minutes before it appeared on CNN or ESPN, the “worldwide leaders” in news in their respective fields.

Of course, there is something to be said for these outlets independently verifying the news, but the the fact of the matter is that there was a report out there, filed by the police department and BNOnews was able to get it and send it out via Twitter much, much faster than any traditional news source.

Information wants to be free, and the web, with services like Twitter, provides the easiest way for that to happen.

Google was almost as fast on the case, as some 10 minutes after the tweets were flowing, it started showing reports from local Orlando news outlets (where the crash occurred) giving details of the crash. Within 15 minutes, we knew what time the crash occurred at, apparently what happened, and some other important details (like no alcohol being involved).

Cut to about 30 minutes after that. CNN finally got its “breaking” story up. And what did it contain? This:

(CNN) — Golfer Tiger Woods was injured in a car accident near his home, Florida officials say.

Seriously. That’s it.

That apparently took 45 minutes to get up. They could have called anyone on Twitter 30 minutes ago to get those details from what officials were saying based on what they had already read thanks to Twitter and Google.

Anyone who doesn’t understand Twitter should look no farther than situations like this. Which has been very clear for a long time. From earthquakes, to the massive fires in San Diego (in 2007), to the Mumbai shootings, to the situation in Iran, this is the future of information population, like it or not.

It’s interesting to note that MSNBC.com recently reached a deal to take over the @breakingnews account (the one tied to BNO News). Here’s to hoping they don’t slow it down to CNN speeds. But if they do, someone else will come along with another service that will replace it. That’s the beauty of the Internet. It’s Darwinism unbound.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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iPhone gets live Sky Mobile TV, O2 offering 3 months’ free access

British satellite TV purveyor Sky has been pushing hard lately to expand into new spheres, a desire marked most clearly by its Sky Player integration with the Xbox 360 Dashboard. Now the company is keeping momentum going with the Sky Mobile TV app for the iPhone. The app itself will come free, but live streaming access to the full selection of Sky news and sports (ESPN included) channels will set you back £6 ($10) a month. That’s pretty reasonable value if you’re into live Premier League matches, which are typically the highest ticket item on a British TV subscription bill. O2 has sweetened that deal even further by offering a full quarter of a year’s worth of free access — a clear response to Orange’s infraction on its iPhone turf. You can only stream via WiFi for now, but you have to agree that, at this price point, it’s a definite step in the right direction.

[Via Daily Telegraph]

Read – Sky Mobile TV launches on App Store
Read – O2 Sky Mobile TV 3 months free offer

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

iPhone gets live Sky Mobile TV, O2 offering 3 months’ free access originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Game on! Apple highlights sports games in new ad

Filed under: Gaming, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Continuing its creative interactive blitz on high profile websites, Apple has begun placement of a new iPod touch ad on ESPN.com. Like the ad on IGN, which fellow TUAW-er Josh Carr recently featured, the ad on ESPN.com showcases a variety of games that interact with and shake up the site’s menu. Unlike previous iPod touch ads on ESPN.com, which featured a mix of both sports and non-sports games, this campaign is sports oriented: for example, Madden 10 (US$9.99) [iTunes link] and Homerun Battle 3D (US$4.99) iTunes link] are shown as the ad passes through the NFL and MLB sections of the site. Game on!

TUAWGame on! Apple highlights sports games in new ad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Citizen Sports’ iPhone App Is Better Than ESPN’s, But They’re Not Named ESPN

As a startup in the sports sphere, Citizen Sports has a simple, but annoying problem: They’re not ESPN. And it’s simply hard to compete with the name that has basically become synonymous with sports. Yahoo might be able to do it because, well, they’re Yahoo, but for a startup, it can be frustrating when, on many levels, you’re beating your competitors in innovation, but still trailing by so much.

That’s the basic gist I got after a meeting with Citizen Sports’ Jeffrey Ma and Brian Mead. The fact is that they are doing some innovative stuff in the space, but still getting overshadowed, and that means it can be hard to make meaningful money. For example, their fantasy sports options are hugely popular thanks to their Facebook app (Ma thinks they have a shot at being the overall number 3 fantasy option behind Yahoo and ESPN in the business), but this hasn’t translated into the types of ad deals that ESPN sees because they are able to leverage their television network, and Yahoo can leverage all its other properties.

Citizen Sports recently released a “pro” version of their iPhone app Sportacular. It’s great; for Push Notification junkies like myself, it’s a dream come true. Not only can you get final score updates pushed to your iPhone, you can get an update every time the score changes, when an inning ends (in baseball), after every third inning, etc. ESPN, despite promises of push on stage during Apple keynotes, still doesn’t have the functionality.

But Citizen Sports is running into a problem that many iPhone app developers run into: How do you monetize an app? They’ve been trying the advertising model with the non-pro version for a while, but the returns aren’t great. So now they’re trying the paid method, but it’s hard build an audience to a level that can pull in any meaningful kind of money. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how good an app is, all that matters in moving it is something like if Apple features it. And while ESPN can afford to promote its app (and certainly does on its own network), Citizen Sports can’t match that.

So Citizen Sports is thinking about what else it can do, perhaps in-app purchases of some kind, Mead says. But while those seem like they’ll work for iPhone games, the jury is still out as to just how well the option will work in other kinds of apps.

It’s not like Citizen Sports is totally going it alone, they have a partnership with Sports Illustrated on their popular Facebook app. But despite being a very well-respected name in sports, SI doesn’t have the kind of pull online that ESPN does.

“The next 6 months in the ’sports 2.0 space’ will be interesting,” Ma tells us. “How will startups deal with the ad sales challenge — how do you compete with Yahoo and ESPN?”

He notes that if they absolutely needed to, they could probably cut costs and get to profitability at some point next year, but that would mean cutting a lot of the things keeping them ahead of ESPN in terms of innovation.

Instead, Citizen Sports plans to continue the march forward. They’re working on Android apps, and looking at the other mobile platforms. The problem is that all of that development is expensive, but Ma notes that their backers have been very supportive.

And they have some big names both in the VC space and the sports space, funding them. They include Kevin Compton, a partner at Kleiner Perkins, Jeff Moorad, a former sports agent and now owners of the San Diego Padres, and even former Cowboys QB Troy Aikman is an investor.

You can find the Sportacular Pro app here in the App Store.

(And yes, Ma is the same guy who the main character in Bringing Down The House and the subsequent movie 21, is based on.)

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