The latest from TechCrunch
- Dads Say The Darndest Things…On Twitter (Probably NSFW)
- Citizen Sports' iPhone App Is Better Than ESPN's, But They're Not Named ESPN
| Dads Say The Darndest Things…On Twitter (Probably NSFW) | Top |
| Twitter is used for a lot of things these days, but this has to be one of my favorites. A 28-year-old guy named Justin has set up a Twitter account simply to tweet out random things his elderly father says. The title of the feed: “ Shit My Dad Says. ” Apparently, I’m a bit slow stumbling upon this; even though it was only started at the beginning of August, Justin’s account for his 73-year-old father’s sayings already has over 150,000 followers. But I don’t care, it needs to be pointed out again how awesome this idea is. My parents, while not that old yet, often say things worthy of tweets, like when my mom seriously thought netbooks were computers built for little people. And had Twitter been around when my grandfather was, this would have been the perfect medium for his bits of comedic wisdom. Here are some of my favorites from Justin’s dad: “ Your mother rented this film, What Happens In Vegas. I thought it was going to be non-fiction, but it’s fiction, and it’s about some idiot.” “ Who is this woman?….Kate Beckinsale? Well, you can tell Kate Beckinsale she sucks.” “ Your mother made a batch of meatballs last night. Some are for you, some are for me, but more are for me. Remember that. More. Me.” “ Your brother brought his baby over this morning. He told me it could stand. It couldn’t stand for shit. Just sat there. Big let down.” “ Love this Mrs. Dash. The bitch can make spices… Jesus, Joni (my mom) it’s a joke. I was making a joke! Mrs. Dash isn’t even real dammit!” “ Why would i want to check a voicemail on my cell phone? People want to talk to me, call again. If i want to talk to you, I’ll answer.” You know how else I know this site idea is awesome? Some random girl at the cafe I’m at just saw Shit My Dad Says on my screen and stopped to tell me that it’s awesome. [via 1to10reviews ] Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| Citizen Sports' iPhone App Is Better Than ESPN's, But They're Not Named ESPN | Top |
| As a startup in the sports sphere, Citizen Sports has a simple, but annoying problem: They’re not ESPN. And it’s simply hard to compete with the name that has basically become synonymous with sports. Yahoo might be able to do it because, well, they’re Yahoo, but for a startup, it can be frustrating when, on many levels, you’re beating your competitors in innovation, but still trailing by so much. That’s the basic gist I got after a meeting with Citizen Sports’ Jeffrey Ma and Brian Mead. The fact is that they are doing some innovative stuff in the space, but still getting overshadowed, and that means it can be hard to make meaningful money. For example, their fantasy sports options are hugely popular thanks to their Facebook app (Ma thinks they have a shot at being the overall number 3 fantasy option behind Yahoo and ESPN in the business), but this hasn’t translated into the types of ad deals that ESPN sees because they are able to leverage their television network, and Yahoo can leverage all its other properties. Citizen Sports recently released a “pro” version of their iPhone app Sportacular. It’s great; for Push Notification junkies like myself, it’s a dream come true. Not only can you get final score updates pushed to your iPhone, you can get an update every time the score changes, when an inning ends (in baseball), after every third inning, etc. ESPN, despite promises of push on stage during Apple keynotes, still doesn’t have the functionality. But Citizen Sports is running into a problem that many iPhone app developers run into: How do you monetize an app? They’ve been trying the advertising model with the non-pro version for a while, but the returns aren’t great. So now they’re trying the paid method, but it’s hard build an audience to a level that can pull in any meaningful kind of money. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how good an app is, all that matters in moving it is something like if Apple features it. And while ESPN can afford to promote its app (and certainly does on its own network), Citizen Sports can’t match that. So Citizen Sports is thinking about what else it can do, perhaps in-app purchases of some kind, Mead says. But while those seem like they’ll work for iPhone games, the jury is still out as to just how well the option will work in other kinds of apps. It’s not like Citizen Sports is totally going it alone, they have a partnership with Sports Illustrated on their popular Facebook app. But despite being a very well-respected name in sports, SI doesn’t have the kind of pull online that ESPN does. “ The next 6 months in the ’sports 2.0 space’ will be interesting, ” Ma tells us. “ How will startups deal with the ad sales challenge — how do you compete with Yahoo and ESPN? ” He notes that if they absolutely needed to, they could probably cut costs and get to profitability at some point next year, but that would mean cutting a lot of the things keeping them ahead of ESPN in terms of innovation. Instead, Citizen Sports plans to continue the march forward. They’re working on Android apps, and looking at the other mobile platforms. The problem is that all of that development is expensive, but Ma notes that their backers have been very supportive. And they have some big names both in the VC space and the sports space, funding them. They include Kevin Compton , a partner at Kleiner Perkins, Jeff Moorad , a former sports agent and now owners of the San Diego Padres, and even former Cowboys QB Troy Aikman is an investor. You can find the Sportacular Pro app here in the App Store . And here’s the free version . (And yes, Ma is the same guy who the main character in Bringing Down The House and the subsequent movie 21 , is based on.) Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
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