Author Archives: Steve Mays

Verizon, NFL to stream NFL draft, games

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From Digital Sports Daily:

The NFL and Verizon wireless have struck a deal to put live games on mobile phones, the Wall Street Journal reports on Tuesday. The two companies will partner in time to stream the NFL draft which begins on April 22, on to mobile devices.

In addition to the NFL draft, Verizon will stream NBC’s Sunday night football, the NFL Network and the Red Zone channel but not games shown on FOX, CBS or ESPN.

The NFL Red Zone channel, which was previously only available on satellite and cable, airs live look-ins of every key play and touchdown from Sunday afternoon games.

Verizon Wireless will pay the NFL $720 million over four-years to be the exclusive mobile home of the NFL. The ability to watch every out-of-market MLB game on iPhone came last summer, making the NFL just the second pro sports league to show pocket sized games.

The games will be available on Verizon’s 3G network so users aren’t required to find a Wi-Fi hotspot to watch games. NFL mobile will then go to 4G network as Verizon replaces its 3G network by from this year to the end of 2013.

twitcam

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Streaming live video has never been easier. Ironically, the bigger challenge is coming up with something anyone would care to watch. Which I clearly demonstrated this morning at the Coffee Zone.

In the photo above, you can see my BT-1 wireless webcam atop the Rocket Fuel storage tank. I was sitting about 25 feet away and never lost the signal.

Instead of uStream or qik (which works with mobile phones only, as far as I can tell), I used a nifty site called TwitCam. The screenshot below is really all there is to twitcam. And, yes, it’s free. For now. You just log in with your Twitter info and go. TwitCam records as it streams. No option for live stream only, as far as I could determine. I don’t see how video can get much easier than this.

As soon as I can come up with something worth the bandwidth, I’ll take this back to the state capitol.

“The true past”

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I read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in high school. I need to read it again but it scared me back then and is sure to be even more frightening today. Nightly news reports on our distant wars in Iraq and Afghanastan feel an awful lot like the “telescreen” updates on the war between “Oceania” and “Eurasia.”

Wikipedia: “At the Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), Winston (Smith) is an editor responsible for the historical revisionism concording the past to the Party’s contemporary official version of the past; thus is the Oceania government omniscient. As such, he perpetually rewrites records and alters photographs, rendering the deleted people as unpersons; the original document is incinerated in a memory hole. Despite enjoying the intellectual challenge of historical revisionism, he is fascinated by the true past, and eagerly tries to learn more about it.”

“…fascinated by the true past.” Me too.

From my lips to WordPress

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One of the reasons that most folks don’t blog from their iPhone or mobile device, has to be the difficulty of typing a paragraph or two. With Dragon dictation, it would seem that I could simply dictate a post and paste that into the rather handy WordPress iPhone app.

First live video from capitol hearing room?

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As far as I know, I did the first live video feed from a committee room at the Missouri state capitol. I know, you’re asking yourself why would anyone bother. You could ask that about a lot of important-but-not-too-interesting news.

We’ve been streaming audio of debate in the Missouri House and Senate for 8+ years and recorded audio of lots of hearings, but never video. Finally all of the pieces of the puzzle seemed to be in place: hardware, software, wifi.

I used a little Logitech webcam (on the tripod); the Casio Exilim for back-up (on the small tripod) and ran it (the LogiTech) through CamTwist up to USTEAM. I think I can skip CamTwist next time. You can sample a few seconds below.

It ain’t CBS but I didn’t have wait on the sat truck, either. Next time, I might just try this on the iPhone if I can get close enough.

AP Mobile

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During my “on air” days (the ‘70s and early ‘80s), the AP teletype was our station’s connection to the world. During the late 80’s and early 90’s, I spent a good bit of time trying to create a low-cost alternative (mostly for radio stations) to the AP’s wire service. This morning I downloaded AP Mobile to my iPhone.

I have a feeling it will become my default app for news. Text, photos, video… it’s all there. I can flag topics of interest and AP Mobile will “push” those to me. And if I see a story and want to “report” it to AP, the app makes it easy.

Associated Press used to be pretty protective of it’s stories. Perhaps they still are, I would have no way of knowing. The old radio guy in me can’t help thinking of this is a tiny version of the old teletype. And my next thought is, “How could the AP police all of the broadcasters and keep them from using AP stories without paying for it?”

The answer is, I’m afraid, they don’t care. Would I rather have the full-featured, on-demand experience offered by AP Mobile… or hear my local “announcer” read it to me?

Dropbox

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Dropbox is near the top of my short-list of apps/tools I can’t live without. When I need to move a file from my MacBook to the iMac, it goes into Dropbox icon in my menu bar… and a few seconds later I take it out of the Dropbox on the big computer. Much faster than plugging in a thumb-drive. And it works for files too big to send as email attachments.

And it’s great for files that I use a lot and what to have available anywhere. Sure, I could use MobileMe’s iDisk and do sometimes but nothing is as easy as Dropbox.

And the Public folder is the perfect way to share a big file.

Better tool for journalists, iPhone or BlackBerry?

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Etan Horowitz, posting on E-Media Tidbits, attempts (and succeeds, in my opinion) to answer the question: Which is better tool for journalists, BlackBerry or iPhone? I’ll just share his conclusions here and you can read the full post:

“In the days when producing content mainly happened from a laptop or the office, the BlackBerry made a lot of sense. It is a perfect tool for communicating quickly by e-mail or text and looking up information online. But now that many journalists are expected to post stories, blog posts, photos and videos from the field, the iPhone is a better option.

As a profession, journalism is still struggling to find its footing in the digital age. Since most of the innovative mobile applications are being developed for the iPhone, using an iPhone will help journalists stay current with technology and get them excited about its potential for news.

Don’t believe me? Just give an iPhone to one of the old-school types in your newsroom and see how they react after a few days of use. They’re likely to tell you the device changed their life. You won’t get the same response by giving someone a BlackBerry.

But that doesn’t mean the iPhone is best for all journalists. Editors, Web producers and others who don’t report from the field but frequently communicate with a team will probably be better served by a BlackBerry. And the fact that BlackBerrys cost less, run on multiple carriers and have removable batteries and memory cards are also valid considerations.” [Thanks, Aaron for the link]

Local bank phished. Again.

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I received this text message last night. It never occurred to me it was anything but a scam. You call the number and some social engineer asks you for all kinds of questions about your accounts. And, yes, some number of clueless folks apparently called the number. I’d kind of like to know how they got my mobile number. Probably not that difficult. This same bank got hit by an email phishing scam a year or so back.

Shop Talk: SEC Digital Network

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The Southeastern Conference is getting ready to launch the SEC Digital Network. They’re working with a company called XOS Digital and are touting: “…nearly 10,000 hours of original and exclusive SEC content anytime, anywhere through online video syndication, digital downloads, and exclusive live-streaming and on-demand video content.”

If I understand this correctly, this does NOT include live streaming of actual game broadcasts. Those are protected by the rights holders. Companies like ours. So what content will be available?

  • Highlights
  • Complete game replays
  • Breaking SEC news in real-time
  • Post-game interviews
  • Tailgate events
  • Behind-the-scenes pep talks
  • Press conferences

The company I work for is associated with some SEC schools: Alabama, Mississippi State and South Carolina.

Remember that saying about the farmer’s pig? We eat everything but the oink? Well, companies like ours pay lots and lots of money for the marketing rights to this big schools and we have to sell everything but the oink to recover that investment.

But you can only put so many commercials in a radio or TV broadcast; only so many logos on a big scoreboard; only so many ads in a program (as you can see, I don’t really know everything we sell).

And if God isn’t making any more land, she’s not making any more avails in a football broadcast. So everyone is looking for ways to generate more programming, more content, to support additional advertising. The SEC Digital Network would seem to be doing this.

And the fans have a nearly insatiable appetite for anything related to their team. And if the SEC does this right, with lots of fan engagement and interaction, and fully mobile… they’ll have a winner.