ALL


Prank Devils: University of Arizona Pulls A Fast One On Arizona State

Posted by Dan in INTERNET on 08-25-10    No Comments


ArizonaThe days of stealing another school’s mascot are gone. Nowadays all the best pranks are pulled online.

The Wildcats of the University of Arizona just did a number on their in-state rivals from Arizona State. They didn’t steal the Sun Devil mascot. They stole his website.

If you go to Sundevils.com you will be taken to this page instead, the Arizona Wildcats homepage. We await the response from the kids at ASU. Maybe they’ll try something equally nerdy like a DoS attack or a nasty Facebook post.




Ronaldo Rules The Web 2.0 Waters: FanPageList.com Ranks Athletes Social Media Power

Posted by Jonathan in INTERNET on 08-25-10    No Comments


It’s come to this: Power rankings for athletes in social media.

San Fransisco-based FanPageList.com does a dang good job of combining Facebook page data and Twitter usage to break down which athletes have got the best Web 2.0 game. Essentially the service aggregates other rankings. It takes page data from Facebook, retweeting rankings from Klout.com and some other public info and bakes it up into data that defines the social influence of sports stars.

While the methodology can be chunky, there are some fascinating nuggets of insight.

Namely, Cristiano Ronaldo leads the world in total value of his Facebook page, that is what the ad impressions for the page would be worth. The soccer legend is followed by No. 2 Rafael Nadal. Tennis stars, it seems, draw an upscale audience. No. 3 is Usain Bolt. The top American athlete? No. 4 Venus Williams who beats No. 5 Kobe Bryant.

And LeBron James? He is 36th. As we have talked about, The Chosen One totally effed his reputation with that shameless hour-long special to announce he was going to play for the Miami Heat — a fact that anyone with half a brain in their head already knew anyway.

The Web never forgets. Remember that, athletes.




Winter, Spring, Summer And Now Three Dee!: 3D Demo Days coming this fall

Posted by Jonathan in TELEVISION on 08-16-10    No Comments


It’s cute to see that finally the 3D industry is getting into its circus barker phase.

ESPN, DirecTV, AT&T and Comcast are rolling out  3D Demo Days from Sept. 10-12. During that weekend, ESPN will basically be going 3D 24/7 with a full slate of games and shoulder programming. The weekend will feature Ohio State vs. Miami and then basically reruns of all the cool 3D moments from the FIFA World Cup,  the X Games 16 and the only New Y0rk area basketball team that can win a game, The Harlem Globetrotters. Also the Consumer Electronics Association is involved so expect some live in-store tie-ins at retailers as they attempt to move some 3D TVs glasses and active sync devices. Think free HBO for a weekend except it’s 3D.

No doubt, this is cool. I will be watching. And clearly 3D gear will be on everyone’s holiday wish list. But the active word here is “wish.” The fact is, the U.S. economy stinks, and the average person just doesn’t have $1,600 in disposable income to drop on new 3D technology. That really means that the consumer electronics industry can no longer rely on the traditional demand curves that six decades of post-war prosperity have provided. It’s now a no-growth world, and no government can — or should — solve that problem. So it really is up to the technology innovators to spur the demand for  their own goods.

Said another way, until these 3D stakeholders — that means the combined corporate might of Disney, Comcast, AT&T and dozens of consumer electronics makers — have rolled out a clear plan where they hire enough new employees with fat enough salaries to give folks the spare $1,600 for a new  TVs, 3D, or any other new technology, will simply not deploy. And even if that happens, people have to pay down their debts before springing for a new TV.

3D is cool — probably the coolest thing to happen to television since color. But 3D TV  does not put food on the table, a roof over that table or keep the creditors from the door. People have to have good jobs first. And then 3D will sell like mad.

Until then, 3D is  just another cool technology that the average Jane or Joe can’t afford.




Happy Madden Day: We’ll See You In Court!

Posted by Seth in GAMING on 08-05-10    No Comments


Courtesy Wikipedia

The new version of Madden NFL football from EA Sports is hitting the streets, and a bunch of retired players are hitting back with a lawsuit.

This one has been brewing for a long time. For years, Madden games have included great historical teams from the NFL’s past. The current teams in each year’s Madden release have up-to-date rosters, including the players’ names. But EA Sports doesn’t have the rights to use the names of the players who were on those teams of yesteryear, so they do everything short of that. The player renderings include the guys’ heights and weights, and the player attributes are set to reflect the performances of the real-life players. To shroud things a little, they change the uniform numbers, but that’s it.

Some of us industrious gamers who have nothing better to do have gone in there and edited the names and uniform numbers on those historical teams in order to give them a greater sense of realism. But that is incredibly tedious. So, come to think about it, it would be nice if EA Sports would just cough up whatever dough is necessary to keep the ex-players happy. It has always felt pretty cheesy firing up the 1988 San Francisco 49ers and seeing Joe Montana wearing No. 19 instead of No. 16, or looking at Walter Payton on the 1985 Bears wearing anything other than No. 34.

So come on, EA Sports. You guys are the kings of sports video games. Surely there’s a little coin to go around, no?




Never Mind Sports Television, Now Sports IS Television

Posted by Jonathan in TELEVISION on 08-05-10    No Comments


If you’re desperate for the full-frontal face blast of sports in the otherwise digital Fall of the House of Usher that is the modern content business, just jet over to Heineken-land in a couple of weeks.
Amsterdam will play host to the IBC 2010, the nominally European trade show for the TV business. And if early reports are any indication, sports broadcasting is not only a story there, it is the story there.
There was a time, back in the age of Mad Men, when America ruled the broadcasting seas. As hard as it is to imagine, at one point we created TVs and TV shows. We even had a trade show to prove it, run by the National Association of Broadcasters. This was where the TV of the tomorrow went for its dress rehearsals. Of course the NAB Show is on life support these days. And that really stands to reason. How much innovation do you really need in a TV world of Slap Chop and Matthew Lesko commercials and that abomination known as Jersey Shore?
So the IBC show has become the major event for TV techies, and this year sports is clearly king. An entire day is devoted to sports technologies, and from keynotes to awards, sports innovation is ruling the TV roost.
The IBC is going to honor Manolo Romero, who basically invented the modern TV Olympics with Roone Arledge back in Mexico City in 1968. And the short list for the IBC’s innovation award for content creation has three finalists: ESPN for its 3D content, NBC Sports for its “consistent loudness” during broadcasts of the Winter Olympics, and the organizers of the Red Bull Airplane race for “signal distribution.”
Now, let’s think about what that means. Basically, the combined techno efforts of literally thousands of TV broadcasters pumping out content 24/7 around the globe could do nothing more interesting technologically speaking than 3D graphics and better sound. Oh, and someone also figured out how to broadcast an airplane race staged over 25 square miles. Wow!
What is even more remarkable, is that sports are almost certain to widen their lead technologically over the rest of the media business. So many other segments of the business, like daytime and prime time, seem to be literally melting before our eyes, and that leaves sports as the only place in TV that has the resources to innovate. By this time next year, sports will look better, and the rest of the TV world will look even worse.