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ESPN Mobile Reaches The End Of The Road
fishdan writes "Sportsdot is reporting on the fact that people are apparently not interested in watching baseball (or any other sport) on a cell phone screen. ESPN Mobile is (ahem) pulling the plug after less than one year of service. Current subscribers will get content till the end of the year, and their handset purchase refunded. You have to wonder what other mobile content is going to have to be rethought." "Ahead of its time" might be one take on this as well. It'll be interesting to see when the time is right.
You have to wonder what other mobile content is going to have to be rethought." "Ahead of its time" might be one take on this as well.
Honestly, when I first saw the option to watch a sporting event on a cellphone I had two thoughts:
In the end, the idea had to be tried, but until people start opting for bigger phones, which is the opposite of the current trend, it just ain't gonna fly. Radio, with decent announcers is still your best mobile bet, get an AM radio.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Screen size. discuss.
the mods may say you posted flamebait, but to me it's a flame that warms my heart. rock on, brother! --chebucto
for junkies and gamblers.
Its just Entertainment!
...Americans start taking the train everywhere instead of driving. Mobile phone video content does just fine in Japan.
- In Capitalist America, law violates YOU!
Now I can enjoy Sunday Night Baseball Presented By Taco Bell without all the irritating updates to "get constant alerts on your ESPN Mobile phone." Even Jon Miller, who I'm sure was offered a free ESPN Mobile phone, mocked that toss-over phrase on-air.
ESPN has been totally desperate to promote this thing. "ESPN Mobile brings you the newest ESPN Mobile alerts on your very own ESPN Mobile device enhanced with ESPN Mobile technology!"
For more information, click here.
The trouble was potential subscribers had to: 1. Get a new phone 2. Switch providers to Sprint/Nextel & sign a 2-yr contract Not to mention the huge fees for content you can get on any web-enabled phone for free. Wang 2.0
When cell phones have nuclear power cells that last for years without recharging, and built in projectors so that you can see video at a decent size (or wire up to your optic nerve for the same result.)
Alternatively, when prolonged cold weather causes Satan's pipes to burst.
frist psot! woot
Goggles or whatever -- until then, fuggeddaboudit.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Marketplace said they spent 125,000,000 for 30,000 subscribers - that's a loss of like $4200 a subsciber!
WTF?
Were they gonna try and make it back in volume?
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
You have to wonder what other mobile content is going to have to be rethought.
I was going to make a comment about the Myspace Phone, but then I realized that's not really "content".
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
People like to watch sports with other people. Cell phone coverage doesn't cut it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
One device acts as a phone, music player, chat device, squawk box (if you use 2-Way), camera, email gadget, sport scoreboard, stock ticker, weather forecaster, web browser, voice recorder, document reader, calendar, Franklin-Covey planner, and time killer (games) at once already. With all of that, do we really need more information at our fingertips? Maybe we've reached a point where we have enough.
If you put enough monkeys at enough typewriters, eventually they will type all the works of Shakespeare.
The above adage seems a lot like finding successful business models on the internet; or how to make money from open source, etc. Trial and error are probably just as effective as spending a jillion dollars on a thorough business analysis. Most attempts will fail but a few will succeed big time. I would have predicted that Amazon would be a success but they spent a long time struggling to become profitable. I wouldn't have guessed that Google would succeed and yet it has been amazing; beyond its founders' wildest dreams even. How can you tell? I don't think you can. These guys tried something that didn't work. Big deal. If they keep trying, they will succeed eventually.
Why don't they change it from sports to "adult entertainment"? Pr0n has a track record for getting new tech to fly.
The time might be right when EV-DO and other high-speed data services become affordable enough and battery life improves so that a more robust viewing experience (even if not full-motion video) becomes possible. As is, people don't want to pay for services that are more frustrating than fulfilling. I think this is more of an issue of technology lagging baseline requirements of usability than a public not being "ready" for a service.
I would say that people are ready to watch sports and other broadcasts via their cell phone. After all, people have been listening to sports on the go via radio for many, many years. Why not watch it? I think the two biggest issues here are: 1. Are cell phones and the networks they utilize able to handle this new feature at a quality and price people are willing to accept? What value is added when your paying a premium to watch a stream with so little detail that you are unable to follow the game in anymore detail that the free picture the AM radio announcer paints in your head? 2. Would the outcome have been different if ESPN was a content provider/channel offered through existing mobile providers like cingular, verizon, and Sprint/Nextel? Sure ESPN is a Sprint/Nextel phone with Sprint/Nextel service but how many consumers out there know that? All the advertisements that I've seen have ESPN tagged all over their phones, which at first glance makes them appear to be a 4th or 5th tier provider rather than an extension of a top tier, established provider. To the casual consumer I would be concerned about service issues going to a new un-established provider regardless of who it was. ESPN is a sports broadcaster not a mobile phone provider. Same notion goes with Disney Mobile. They appear to have great features but I'm sure there are plenty of consumers out there that are wondering why they should switch from a "nation wide network" to Disney / ESPN mobile.
People spend $$$$ for a nice HDTV, surround setup.. things like to just so that they can watch games in the comfort of their homes. Becuase, the thing essential thing with sports TV is that it needs to be Big to really get the feel of the game. Watching sports on the a tiny cell phone screen while on the move is plain stupid. I would rather watch pr0n on my phone rather that sports.
All this talk about "ESPN"-this, "ESPN"-that. I have yet to see any scientific studies on clairvoyance or any other psychic phenomena.
TDz.
I think that for ESPN the best content would be something like Sportcenter (Sportscenter?) which fits better with the size of the screen. Considering the fact that the Ipod Video has been around for a while, it might behoove other developers to look into what kind of content people put on their Ipods. I for one can not imagine watching actual movies on one, but video podcasts of news reports would be useful. CNN should look in to offering streaming news updates. Or a content clearinghouse could offer a wide list of subscription services. Overall, though, mobile video seems to be a nonstarter. After all, the display size doesn't allow for any truly meaningful communication except for specialized items. Someone mentioned an AM radio, a bit facetiously perhaps, but I do think that the audio stream is the carrier of significant data. That being the case, there isn't much need for the video.
this won't catch on until we have HUDs with simulated 40" displays. ... i can't see using a 1.5" screen to watch...
You don't need some kind of 3D or other unobtainable tech to make this work. My $200 digital camera from Walmart has composite video out and plays movies fullscreen. They look as good as broadcast ever did. There is no reason you can't fit the same stuff in a cell phone. Using this existing technology you could, you know, SHARE the game with your friends.
Battery life might be a problem, so you can ship it with a good wall wart.
Viola, ESPN in your pocket. Anywere there's a TV and a wall outlet, you have the game. The night watchman, people who spend all of their time on the road and any sports fan who does not have a satelite TV equipped mobile home would like such a service.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I am not so sure. I have quite a number of friends/acquaintances who bought Slingboxes - http://www.slingmedia.com/indexa.php - for the express purpose of watching sports on their mobile devices. Why would this be? Could it be a price/performance thing? I certainly think so.
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
Year 2000 dot-bomb formulae:
... and, of course...
--We're going to sell dog food... but... we're going to do it on the WEB!
--We're going to sell kid's toys... but... we're going to do it on the WEB!
--We're going to sell groceries... but... we're going to do it on the WEB!
Nowadays:
--We're going to broadcast sports... but... we're going to do it on CELL PHONES!
--We're going to bombard you with advertising... but... we're going to do it on CELL PHONES!
--We're going to let you browse the Web (and buy dog food, kids' toys, and groceries)... but... we're going to do it on CELL PHONES!
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
It works for my digital camera why not your cellphone.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Does anyone have ESPN360 and use this product often/frequently? I used it before but was expecting some live games. I remember during World Cup, there was one game live but it was a small game.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Porn?
Perhaps the problem is that unless you're in a pennant run, baseball is not really that exciting regardless of screen size. If your not at home on the sofa or at a bar,baseball works really well on radio.
The summary is a bit misleading. ESPN is shutting down thier branded cell phone service. The exclusive content that they provide to existing carriers is going to continue.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
When ESPN launched earlier this year the phone and service was extremely expensive. It was aimed at the extreme sports fan where $$ was going to be no issue. This was to be a major mistake and recently they have dropped the cost of the phone and service to more realistic levels. The damage had been done though and with the millions dumped into the Superbowl advert it was obvious time and money was running out.
Successful MVNO's like Virgin Mobile have all been pre-paid offerings aimed at the youth market with the technology for the service built in house. ESPN and Disney's post paid offering are outsourced to a third party MVNE who does most of its work offshore.
I wonder if Disney will switch to a prepay in house MVNO in the light of this news.
With less and less people going to church, the need for mobile video entertainment is dramatically shrinking.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
SlingBox mobile version is pretty cool - can't say I use it all that often, but when traveling or stuck some place, it is nice to have.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theor em= hp3000-l&D=1&T=0&P=14723 ... To be or not to be, that is the ... gesnorenplatz."
http://raven.utc.edu/cgi-bin/WA.EXE?A2=ind0409c&L
I can't find the original but Bob Newhart postulated that if someone tried the experiment, then you would need people to check the results. Imagine the tedium of wandering up and down the rows of monkeys looking for something brilliant. "Hey Bill, I think we've got something here. Yes
Give me voice recognition, autolocation and a bit of AI. "Find me a local pub within 10 mins walking distance". That is what I want.
Feed the output back up to a set of screen glasses which need to be significantly less geeky than these: http://tinyurl.com/mzx9n
Deleted
I have an MLB.TV web suscription. Last year, and for the two previous years I was a happy customer. The feed was pretty good all things considered. This year however...
They switched to using Microsoft's DRM on the feed, which means I can no longer use Firefox, nor my Mac to access the content. They made no announcement, I only found out why I couldn't connect by reading a Register article explaining the DRM switchover. Their website stated the wrong information for a long time after the switch - not sure if it is even correct now. They have no email based Customer Support. (the form on their website doesn't actually submit mail to them) They have phone based CS, but I live in Germany, so that's not an option.
The feed has become incredibly unstable, at the beginning of the season it was impossible to watch a complete game without interruption - It has marginally improved since then, but there are still frequent issues.
This year too it seems to be impossible for them to consistently get the aspect ratio correct on every game. Some games are broadcast in 16:9 but squashed to 4:3 by MLB.TV. It was fine before, so it's artifact, not a tech issue.
They now cut to a screen saver during commercial breaks. I actually miss the Aflac and Geico ads. They don't always come back to the game at the start of a half inning, sometimes it's in the middle of action. Worse, however, is that now they are broadcasting canned music in between innings. The same music. All. The. Time. If I ever hear Yellow Bird again.... it's playing right now...aaaarrrgh!!!
Seriously, they could just broadcast ads and save me money on my suscription, as well as my sanity.
And this is on a powerful PC with a fast DSL connection. So am I surprised that the mobile version is a dismal failure? Why no, not at all...
The whole problem with the espn mobile service was that you had to pay for an espn phone. There are millions who would pay $5/month for some sports service, but they don't want to have a one-size fits all phone.
Would all be great candidates for on demand streaming. It doesn't matter if the screen is 1.5" across when you are watching survivor or scrubs, and if it were priced well then it could be usable on airports, trains, planes (if you can save it to your phone) etc...
Sports work much better with a 52" screen - everybody knows that.
http://user.tninet.se/~ecf599g/aardasnails/java/Mo nkey/webpages/index.html
The link above is to the Monkey Shakespeare Simulator. It gives you an idea of how long eventually has to be and what a large number infinity must be. When I checked, it had 2e75 monkeys typing. In all the time it has been running the best the monkeys have been able to do is way fewer than a hundred letters.
I'm not sure if the 'monkeys' will succeed within the life of the universe.
I don't have the best track record. Here are some of my other ideas of what wouldn't take off...
When I was first introduced to Unix, I thought - this is dumb. It is way too complicated, who wants to remember all these commands? This was around 1990. 3 years later, I got my first job, and had to use Unix every day as we were on Unix servers. Here it is 13 years later and I am still using it, and Linux has been on my home computer for about 8 years. :)
I was introduced to SQL in one of my classes, and thought "this is weird. Select * from... huh? I don't get it. Who would ever want to use this, it is so cumbersome.
A college classmate did one of his senior projects on this burgeoning thing called (of all things) The World Wide Web. He was trying to explain it to me, and I thought it sounded kind of ... unnecessary. I mean, we had ftp, usenet, gopher, BBS... what else could you want?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
from dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=till
/tl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[til] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
till1
-preposition
1. up to the time of; until: to fight till death.
2. before (used in negative constructions): He did not come till today.
3. near or at a specified time: till evening.
4. Chiefly Midland, Southern, and Western U.S.. before; to: It's ten till four on my watch.
5. Scot. and North England.
a. to.
b. unto.
-conjunction
6. to the time that or when; until.
7. before (used in negative constructions).
pw:secret
Some reasearchers have linked this to behaviour on subways etc. In some parts of the world, smart phones and mobile content are seen to be a useful way to kill some time on commuter trains. In other parts of the world it isn't.
Also, you need to be careful of what content you push. Some games (soccer etc) can probably be sent quite well in mobile form since you're probably only going to be looking at a few highlights (goals etc) with relatively low res being ok (a soccer ball is big). In comparison, baseball, American football and ice hockey have dynamics that don't fit well on small low-res screens.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"Viola, ESPN in your pocket. "
I fail to see what classical musical instruments and ESPN in a pocket have to do with each other.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
How do you get a job with cell phone makers if you have the next big thing in phones?
God spoke to me.
Not in the fine article. Maybe it just cost too much for the niche thing it was? I know I can go over to a local truckstop here and they have a shirt pocket size battery operated TV that costs 35 bucks, that's it. Any content you can snag with the antenna is free. I can't imagine mobile phone content is cheaper than free. Granted, not all sports are on OTA free broadcasts, but there's still quite a selection.
Several have pointed it out but yea that's the main issue. As cell phones are becoming smaller and smaller, more ergonomic, etc the size is the issue. I mean there are cell phones out there roughly the size of an iPod Nano, and that's damn small. The screen is sooooooo tiny. It kinda reminds me of things in the old days, when tv's weren't so readily avaible you'd listen to your team on the radio as the announcers called the game. Maybe that's what cell phones need, just a radio component to listen to the games that some radio stations dish out. The screen size is really too tiny to see who's doing what and where. Imagine football where they need to zoom out to show both sides of the line when a play starts, all the guys look like tiny pixel dots and you can't see the ball or even who has it.
That and, I'm not sure on the price, but with the way companies ass rape you for the costs of something as simple as text messages, live tv coverage of a sports game on your cellphone sounds uber fucking expensive. Again I don't know the price but if I had to guess, I'm sure Motorola, Verison, Sprint etc are watering at the mouth in terms of what they could charge for such content onto your phone.
And is it just me, or should we really be concentrating on more important things? Like, better reception nation wide. Making less areas where you completely drop your signal at random, or really bad reception all the time? Developing longer lasting batteries that don't die out in a few hours after being fully charged, and by die out I mean not inconstant use but the phone is "on" aka waiting to be called or call out. How about making phones and minutes more affordable? (Yes I know there are several pay as you go services but for people on fixed incomes or limited incomes thats still not a viable option and cellphones can be life savers in emerganices).
Aw Frell this
How many subscribers has MobiTV added in the last year? Over a millon? Over two million? That is about double what Blackberry has done, which is everyone's darling mobile service.
I think this market has a long ways to grow ... but not with proprietary device/carrier lock in.
Rocket Your humble build servant.
When I was in Japan this summer all my cousins phones were able to receive about 6-8 direct television video feeds in 16:9 format on a very large screen as most Japanese phones are becoming closer and closer to just a pure LCD screen.
The phones that the common folk in America tend to have are the free ones or the heavily subsidized phones that have small screens and are in portrait format. Another issue is variable levels of bandwidth and cost of having the additional data plan if one is required for video streams. If you can stream video, carriers do not offer full feature films or tv shows. It's always "Watch a clip from [insert show here]."
Until they start offering crisp video that isn't so compressed that it artifacts, buffers forever, cropped, and offers full feature shows, they can count me out.
On a side note:
Cingular has begun the 1900MHz shutdown in Northern Virgina, Dallas, and Philadelphia I believe. Permanently switching everyone over to 850MHz (Currently, 850Mhz is required to register, but you can still be transfered to 1900) exclusively so that they can begin 3G on their 1900 band. Perhaps when this happens, we will see cable TV in our pockets.
Tiny portable televisions have been around for a couple decades (visit your local Radio Shack!)
If there was a viable market for small, portable TV watching, then those original units would have been popular. Don't know about others here, but me, in my 36 years on this planet, I have NEVER seen ANYONE who actually owned one of those small portable TVs. So what does that say about the demand?
Um, perhaps that's part of it, but aren't they also putting 3G into the 850 band? Telstra (Australia) are about to launch 3G at 850MHz on the premise that someone else in the world (Cingular) is already going there so we know handsets will be available..
-- All your bass are below two Hz
As someone who has worked with their MVNO provider, Visage Mobile, I can't help but think this had something to do with them. With most botched implementation of Siebel I've ever seen (and that's saying a lot) and horrible support to boot, perhaps they just decided to stop throwing wads of money into that hole and cut their losses. It won't be the last time.
Ok, so I lied. Golf is actually the worst and most boring sport to watch, but baseball is right up there.
Anyway, all of the other options look a like better then watch
until (succeed) try { again(); }
""Ahead of its time" might be one take on this as well. It'll be interesting to see when the time is right.
Hopefully, that day will never come. Don't call me luddite yet, I'm certainly not, but there are uses, and there are abuses of a technology. It's already kind of hateful now, to walk around and see everyone with their earphones plugged in and their sight lost in the void.
TV on phones is never going to work until DVB-M turns up and is built into phones. Phones can then be built with a proper UI for flipping channels and so on. Personally I don't see any technical reason why they couldn't implement analogue and DVB-T right now. It might be non-optimal (e.g. for roaming) and a bit power hungry but it would still be fine for localised viewing. Of course, the reason that they don't implement it has little to do with technical issues and more to do with selling services. No one would lock themselves into the network's shitty service plan if there free channels out there to watch.
Boooooring.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I'm a huge sports fan. I absolutely hate ESPN. All they do is try to blow small things into world events so their viewer/readership will go up. Sure, it's business, but it's also nothing more than hyperbole. So, good for them. Eat that enormous cost. You earned it with your tactics.
Hate You.
I'm sure this service would have reached a lot more people and had a greater success if only the cell phone providers didnt charge so much to use the features they advertise.
I can watch TV on my CELL.... Its GREAT... but unless I pay my provider 10-20 extra a month flat rate, then it costs my $50 a meg to watch over their airwaves. If the cell providers werent so greedy, and made it affordable for the masses, ESPN and all the others would be around for a good long time!
Thats my take
I was one of the "10,000 numbskulls" (according to the Chicago-Tribune-owned Chicago RedEye newspaper) who actually bought and owned a Mobile ESPN cellphone.
I got it because (a) it looked interesting, (b) I'm a sports fan, and (c) I thought it was time I should have gotten a cellphone, having never owned one before.
For me personally, it's the cellphone equivalent of: you've never owned a car in your life, and the first car you buy is a Lamborghini to use for quick trips around the block.
I can't really make comparisons involving the long-term use of Mobile ESPN versus other cellphones and other network providers, since I don't have the background. But Mobile ESPN seemed to have served me pretty well.
I'll be kind of sad to see it go, but it's departure from the scene isn't all that surprising, given the fact that -- despite nonstop promotional work on ESPN and ads promoting the cellphone during the Super Bowl for crying out loud -- they couldn't get more newbies like me, or peel away more cellphone users from other (cheaper!) providers and other (cheaper!) cellphones.
Just to clarify, I don't think ESPN Mobile even offered its users a live ESPN feed. It was more a way to get scores, stats, and updates. (I'm reasonably sure that's correct; I've only heard the plugs seven freaking times during each SportsCenter broadcast for the past year.) I'm sure there were video clips and such, but I don't think you could watch a whole Monday Night Football broadcast on the thing.
I used to use a Watchman (portable personal TV) from time to time. It clearly wasn't a replacement for real TV, and it wasn't comfortable for extended viewings.
What did make it worth the hassle was that it could recieve normal TV. Can cell phones recieve normal TV?
No, I will not work for your startup