MLB at Bat for Windows Phone adds push notifications and pitch tracking

Opening day is here! ...sort of. This year's quest for a World Series ring kicks off Down Under today, with the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks squaring off at the Sydney Cricket Ground (yes, they're still playing baseball). Of course, everyone else is still playing Spring Training games until the weekend of March 31st. But Major League Baseball is making sure all of its mobile app ducks are in a row ahead of time. In particular its Windows Phone MLB at Bat app is getting a long overdue update for the 2014 season. Now you can get live pitch-by-pitch tracking for games and set up push notifications for scores and news. Those features have been available on iOS and Android for quite sometime now, so this is less a major step forward and more about feature parity. But still, we're sure those that fall in the middle of the baseball and windows phone fan venn diagram are extremely happy.

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Via: Technet

Source: MLB at Bat

Tags: app, baseball, microsoft, mlb at bat, MlbAtBat, mobilepostcross, windows phone, windowsphone Next: Alt-week 3.22.14: Inner-selfies, new fashion for astronauts and the glory of Venus
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Finalists In VC Bill Tai’s New Startup Contest Will Pitch Branson On Necker Island

Extreme hobbies lead to extreme places.

Bill Tai, the partner at Charles River Ventures who took up kitesurfing and turned it into a multi-annual gathering of Red Bull athletes and entrepreneurs called MaiTai, is taking it to the next level.

He’s launching the third in a series of startup competitions that scout for teams from around the world. This time, the top 10 finalists will get to pitch on-stage at the Consumer Electronics Show next year in Las Vegas, then the top three teams will go on to pitch Sir Richard Branson and other mystery judges at Necker Island. The winner will get seed investment but the size of the final prize isn’t being released yet since commitments are still coming in.

In a previous Latin American startup challenge, the winner got $1,000,000 in angel investor funding. More than 500 companies competed and the winner was a veterinary pharmaceuticals startup. A finalist out of the Australian startup challenge, Canva, went on to raise $3 million from the MaiTai community.

Now Tai is making the third competition global. Contest guidelines, more prizes and details will be available March 31 at the contest’s website.

“We’re in a world today where startups can begin from anywhere,” Tai said. “During the last generation, unless you were in Silicon Valley, you really had no chance.”

Tai picked up kitesurfing more than a decade ago. It became an all-consuming hobby. When he learned that Red Bull-sponsored athlete Susi Mai had a rhyming last name, he sent her an e-mail saying that they definitely had to do something cool together.

That evolved into MaiTai, an organization that brings together athletes and founders around the world.

FacebookLinkedInBill Tai’s New Extreme Tech Challenge
FacebookLinkedInSir Richard Branson
FacebookLinkedInNecker Island

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Leaked Facebook Video Ad Pitch Deck Reveals Plans To Steal TV And YouTube Dollars

“Avoid saying anything negative about YouTube – leave the impression of the user experience up to them” Facebook tells its adtech partners in a leaked, confidential deck that teaches them to sell Facebook’s video ads. The 32-page document details Facebook’s plan to beat television with reach and YouTube with targeting, and spills the beans about an overhaul to video insights slated for Q1 2014.

If Facebook’s plan works, it could lure in tons of ad revenue as marketers shift their focus from television to digital.

The full “Facebook For Business: Video On Facebook” presentation including slides and Facebook’s notes is splayed out below. It was presented to Facebook’s Preferred Marketing Developer partners at a private meeting in late November to teach them to sell video ads to their clients. Facebook used NDAs to try to keep the presentation away from the public, but I’ve attained a copy.

Facebook’s pitch for video ads breaks down to three things, as explained in this excerpt from the presentation:

1.You want to be where people are. Changing consumer behavior should shape where you spend your marketing dollars.2.You want to reach all of the people who matter to you. Facebook has unparalleled targeted reach.3.You want to be in the most engaging digital real estate, which, as you just saw, is Facebook’s News Feed.Fighting TV With ReachIt doesn’t take long for Facebook to start bluntly insulting the stalwart advertising medium. “Gone are the days when a family gathered around their TV on Sunday night to connect with the outside world. Television is no longer a guaranteed way to reach and engage your target audience,” Facebook writes. It cites an eMarketer studying saying time spent on digital will surpass TV in 2013, and notes people open their phone 100 times a day and Facebook 10-15 times a day.

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