Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
People like to watch sports with other people. Cell phone coverage doesn't cut it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
On top of all that.. theres no point.
Instead of making things so general they should push high speed broadband to cell phones. Let people stream WHATEVER they want via them. Youtube, google video, divx files, etc.
THEN distributors can sell specialized content. Nobody is going to pay for a phone to watch football, then another to watch TV shows, then an ipod video to watch movies, etc, etc.
Why don't they change it from sports to "adult entertainment"? Pr0n has a track record for getting new tech to fly.
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!
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...
...Americans start taking the train everywhere instead of driving.
1. Most sports contests aren't during commute time.
2. Most non-commute, non-car journeys are short enough not to bother about what happens in the game. If you're THAT interested, you'd stay home or at the sports bar and watch it on the big screen with your buds.
3. Most commutes aren't THAT long. The 100 mile each way is the exception, not the rule. I can do without video for 15 minutes on my way home.
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.
I don't see how the idea "had to be tried". If I had been sitting in a room full of people and they asked me if I thought it would score big numbers, I'd have laughed my ass off.
Undoubtably lots of people throughout history laughed their asses off before eventually saying, "well, damn, who'd a thunk it?!?" I think it had to be tried to see if people really would go for it. I remember a lot of skeptics about bottled water, but it sells and sells well. I think energy drinks are all marketing and bullshit, but they sell, too. Sometimes you simply have to put your money down and roll the dice.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Actually, I thought the bigges problem was *the content*.
.... A BAZILLION "PREVIEWS".
I have Sprint's "ultimate" package. It has two music channels (audio only), one NBC news channel that shows news clips updated periodically, Fox news live,and
Previews of movies, of tv shows, etc. The Talladega Nights preview has been on there forever. The entire Sony "channel" is movie previews. Plus, the previews aren't for content that you can actually watch on the phone.
There might be other content in there somewhere (some 2 minute interviews with Big Brother cast members or something equally intellectual), but I really don't care to spend the time trying to find it. When I did try to watch something - say a news feed, the signal breakup causes pixelation quite often - as much as a Real networks broadcast...
Add to that the privelege of buying music downloads for $2 each that pretty much are stuck on your phone and well...
Live and learn...
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
I don't think paying $15 a month is insane. Perhaps the 6 million World of Warcraft people have too much time on their hands, true. But spending the $15 a month doesn't mean they have too much disposable income. Hell, $15 is practically ONE less movie a month (at least here in New York City).
Problem is that the mobile company doesn't just want to be a 'pipe'. They want to have more involvement in the content so they can skim off their cut. Hence the fantastically complicated 3GPP systems now going in. Prediction - no one will want that crap either.