he skinny: Spotify is an application that can be downloaded to your computer or mobile device. It allows you to easily and instantly access and stream almost any song or album on demand for free. The money feature is that you can share your music with your friends (Facebook connections) as well as view and play their playlists. If you upgrade to the premium service (I have for $10/month) it allows unlimited access, no ads and offline and mobile access for Android and iPhones.

I’ve been using Spotify for a few months and it’s drastically changed my music habits.

• I no longer use my iPod. I either use Spotify on my laptop or my Android phone.
• I’m eager to tryout new music. As soon as I hear about a new band I’ll find them on Spotify. I’ll also fish through my friends playlist (Props to Rosen whose been my #1 music discovery engine for years). Today my ears experienced new music by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, The Cool Kids and Mango Kisses by the great Oren Masserman.
• I no longer see value in owning music or in iTunes. The offline functionality for Spotify is magical. Still not sure exactly how it works but it does so beautifully.

As I’m putting together this blog post I’ve learned even more cool stuff (btw, it’s kind of confusing to figure all this stuff out). Spotify offers a simple way to import music files from your computer which allows you to keep all of your music in one place as well as sync to a mobile device. I also found a bunch of web applications, plug-ins, blogs, news sites, playlist sites, bang etc. that make Spotify even more fun.

You might be wondering how such an awesome new music service came about. It almost didn’t as the music labels were slow to sign agreements. But ultimately this is the future of music (check out VC Fred Wilson’s blog post on music business) and the music industry has learned/beaten into submission that it can’t fight its destiny.

Let me know if you need an invitation to join Spotify or a really, really good pitch why it’s mint condition. I think I know just the guy that can help you out!

I’ve been moping around the digital block for a quick minute. Hopefully that gives me a bit of context and insight into what’s the next big thing. Actually, it’s being calculated as we speak. That’s because it’s Data.

I know. I know. The meaningfulness of data falls somewhere between a mid-afternoon snoozer and the name of the little Asian kid in The Goonies. Leave it to the 1999 Great Neck North math team co-captain to proselytize the power of numbers. For most, data is something for the database marketing guy to crunch, research nerd to dive into or Mathematics professor to compute.

But here are two of the experiences that smacked me upside the head and made it apparent that data is the future.

In March, I attended the MIT Sloan Sports and Analytics Conference in Boston. I met lots of really smart people using data in professional sports to influence strategy, scouting and coaching. All these nerds are convinced they are way more right than the norm and the results are starting to show. Moneyball, by Michael Lewis (and soon to be a major motion picture), brought this concept to the sports fan and that sports analytic has now permeated throughout pro sports. The NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks are big believers in data mining and statistical analysis and give their own “stat geek”, Roland Beech, a seat on the bench. Most NBA teams now have their own analytics departments. It will be more impactful than when sports teams first started to watch game tape.

I recently had the good fortune of attending Darren Herman’s Silicon Alley Invitational tournament. The high-caliber group of advertising executives is focusing on how to solve advertising. The consensus of some very brilliant people all seem to focus on how to utilize data to create more effective and efficient marketing campaigns. This is generally referred to as Ad Tech and the smart money believes it is the future of advertising. Its not a far stretch that an objective and sophisticated model can outperform a 24 year old media buyers who may be influenced by factors other than campaign performance. The advertising industry shouldn’t be dominated by “sales”, it should be dominated by results. There’s a reason why Google controls 40% of the total digital marketing pie.

There are venture capital firms that focus on “big data”. There are hedge funds that only make trades based on data. I’m not exactly sure how flash trading works but I’d bet on it beating out the slick rick at the brokerage. There are now computers that can beat grand masters at chess and quirky dudes at Jeopardy.

Data is becoming the superstar.

It’s easier than ever before to collect, organize and process data. Technology is creating new input devices and therefore new data. At Sportsvite we like to share the idea that soon every little leaguer will have their stats computed from their first t-ball game and know their career batting average at any point in their life. At the same time, technology is also allowing for more powerful computation of extremely large and complete data sets. Technology makes data more manageable and useful. Because of digital their is more data waste but it now can also be recycled into the fuel.

Don’t just think of data in terms of numbers. It’s information. Twitter is an amazingly complex and unstructured data stream. Think about the secrets that lie within that aggregate stream if analyzed and computed properly. Here is one take on what it all means from a data guru. You have the inner monologue of the world!

Data is about to totally upheave entire industries. Humans created most business processes, market places, strategies and marketing metrics and principles. Over generations those original processes have evolved incrementally. But data has no regard for feelings, upheaval, paths or “politics”. It is brutally honest.

Let’s go back to sports for a simple example (one that is covered in Moneyball). Since the game was invented, Baseball used the Batting Average statistic as a measure of a player’s offensive ability. Talent was valued, acquired and compensated based on this data point. In the last decade, a bunch of smart people crunched some numbers and realized that On-base percentage was a much more accurate statistical measure of offensive productivity. All professional talent evaluators in baseball will now use OBA as a more accurate measurement. They’ll readily admit that for over 100 years baseball was wrong in valuing batting average as an important statistic yet the concept was hardly ever challenged until now. I wonder what else baseball has got wrong over the years? Maybe there is a better way to position players on the field. A manager would never have the audacity to reinvent positions but a computer model would!

Sports are just an example. Try to extrapolate how data can transform health care, government, urban policy, Wall Street, education, etc. One idea that excites me is how every body function will be measured, calculated and analyzed at all times. Some little chip will be implanted in your wrist and it will be equivalent to being hooked up at all times to every machine in the Lenox Hill emergency room.

But data has some issues it needs to sort out. It has really bad marketing.

For the most part, the evil and inferior humans are afraid of data and try their best to oppress the numbers. Data is a byproduct that goes by the wayside far too often. Executives will talk about strategy, relationships, their “gut” and every other which way to describe their own importance in their business. Data also often gets manipulated to reinforce a bias rather than drive the decision. As someone who likes and trusts numbers I still find myself dumbing down my data. I’ll find and use stats that “sound good” to back up my argument. I’ll reject most business stats (that I don’t compute myself) because I’m weary of their accuracy or how they’ve been manipulated.

Data can only be tamed by the right people. It’s not you or me. It’s the engineers who study and work with large, structured and unstructured data sets. It’s the Navi warrior who can tame that weird flying dragon that the Navi flies around on.

Also, how much better does data have to be than the status quo for people to take notice? In many industries, both the buyer and seller have incentive to keep on doing it the same way. Only if data forces their hand, by being so much better than the status quo, does it eventually pick up. Again, Google is the great example. Their products (mostly all automated with a fluent marketplace) owns 40% of the digital advertising market. They benefit (better and more trackable ROI) is just too good to ignore.

As the cool kids recognize the power of data they will begin to use it in new ways. I also think data will become friendly so anyone can analyze it without getting bogged down in numbers. Cool things are about to happen. Start giving numbers the respect they deserve!

It’s not hard to find the news coverage but here’s the quick recap. LinkedIn, a business/networking social network, priced it’s offering at $45 (high end of filing range that started at $32-$35). On May 18th it hit the market at $84 and shot up to $122 before coming back down a bit. It’s currently at $88. This gives it a market cap of $8.34Bn. This makes it a way more valuable company than brick and mortars such as RiteAid, Goodyear Tire, Kodak, or Office Depot. In 2010, LinkedIn generated $243MM with a meager profit margin of 6%.

The bull or the bear in the room is if this is the start of a new internet bubble. Insatiable demand for a public offering is reminiscent of the hey day of the last dot com boom… and eventually bust. The consensus seems to be no though. Experts argue that web companies now have real revenues and sustainable business models. You’ll hear all this mumbo jumbo on how PE ratios are rational. Here’s Price Waterhouse telling us valuations are justified.

But something is up. The slick Wall Street bankers shouldn’t be undervaluing a new issues value by 50%. (Not like LinkedIn cares, they still own 90% of their shares at the new, elevated stock price.)

Your initial reaction to LinkedIn is probably based on if and how you use the site. That’s part of the gift and the curse of the consumer web. If you’re in sales, recruiting or at a startup, it is an incredible useful service. I happen to be doing all three so I see lots of value and even more potential in what it can be. But if you’re in finance, education or a union position I’m not sure if LinkedIn is worth the few minutes it takes to setup an account.

LinkedIn has steadily grown to more than 100 million members. It’s in a great position to be the dominant job site, career site and networking site. It is a more useful tool than many of the initial web companies in its space (Monster, Hot Jobs, Vault, CareerBuilder, The Ladders.)

At the same time, LinkedIn has not undergone the same explosive growth as other hot web companies like Twitter, Facebook or Zynga. Rather, it’s developed at slow and steady pace with tight execution and strong leadership. It’s product improvements and member growth has been subtle. Many users still aren’t sure what you’re supposed to do once you are there unless you are aggressively job-hunting.

At an $8Bn valuation, investors are banking on LinkedIn to reach it’s potential and continue to find lucrative ways to generate revenues. There’s no guarantee that will happen. I don’t think LinkedIn will ever hit any kind of inflection point that will turbo-boost its growth.

LinkedIn’s public offering feels like an NBA team drafting a four-year college starter with a lottery pick. Maybe he continues to develop and turns into Tim Duncan. Or maybe he has already slowed his growth and becomes nothing more than Shane Battier.

It will be interesting is to watch the next batch of digital companies that go public. My guess is that bankers and investors are sensing easy money on the IPO’s. If companies like OpenTable, LinkedIn and Demand Media have set a high benchmark with their valuations…well, then the party hasn’t even started yet.

I see more hedge fund and Wall Street money dabbling in startups these days. They might not get it exactly but they are sharks at sniffing out future opportunity. I haven’t seen that since I’ve been in the startup world. The bankers want to get a jump on the competition and build relationships with companies that might one day have a chance to kill it with an IPO. Money starts to float around a little too freely. It’s like an NBA agent scouring AAU ball to build relationships for the future. It’s hard to decide what to make of it.

Although it doesn’t seem healthy or rationale when a stock doubles on its first day, my gut tells me this is just the beginning. It’s easy for the experts to manipulate data to show that all this demand and value is justified. Companies like Facebook and Twitter are on the horizon and they have both unlimited potential and are already showing tremendous growth and impressive revenue. They are Lebron’s and there will be no shortage of hype. Maybe they will be better then Jordan (aka Google)? Wall Street likes winners. Lots of people make money that way.

So buckle up folks and get ready for the ride.

The actual BB phone is a decent device. They do work well for email, especially synching with Microsoft Exchange servers, but it’s the software and operating system that has bit the dust. Blackberry has an app environment that makes the Knicks defense look fierce. Besides half-ass Twitter and Facebook apps there just isn’t much else there. Developers would rather debug a Windows 6 browser than build a Blackberry mobile application (that means they don’t like to do it). Heck, there’s no Angry Birds. It’s like the blackberry platform has the cooties.

The reason I stuck with Blackberry for so long is that it does have my all-time favorite application, Blackberry Messenger. I used BBM as a way to communicate in real time with my family and friends and would banter on in never-ending group chats that would rival the chit chat of a teenage valley girl. I’m not sure why Blackberry never really promoted this application. My guess is they are too consumed by the corporate market.

But one app (well two if you include Brickbreaker) doesn’t make a digital ecosystem. The future of the web is mobile and the future of mobile is third party applications. Somebody forgot to ping RIM and fill them in on this.

Serendipitously, there’s a bunch of unlocked Android phones lying around in my office. So I slipped my SIM card (ahh, now I remember why I have T-Mobile) into an HTC G2 phone and entered the future.

I went straight for the apps.

The G2 is a Google phone so it came pimped out with Google apps including Maps, Earth, Places, Youtube and Finance. I also added Google Reader. I have searched in vain for years on Blackberry to find an adequate RSS reader application (Viigo coming the closest) and literally solved that in seconds.

I’m amazed by Google Voice, which both instantly transcribes and plays back my voice messages. According to Mr. Hillman my inability to answer voicemail was my obvious major downfall in an otherwise very flawed existence. But Google Voice makes it so damn easy to listen to messages that my cover is now most certainly blown when I flake out on him…or you.

For sports, I’ve added ESPN ScoreCenter application, ESPN Radio and the CBS Sports application to track my fantasy team.

I added Pandora and can’t wait to get me some Spotify, or even Grooveshark! I find myself streaming music instead of listening to my iPod. It kills battery way too quick though. I even have the soothing sounds of Bollywood thanks to the Saavn App (which is the reason the phone was lying around).

I’ve also added Yelp, Dropbox and Fandango. Yelp is great that it shows you what’s around wherever you are. Dropbox is intriguing as I can now store all my important docs in the cloud and access them at any time via my phone.

I’m still messing around with communication apps to replace BBM and so far have been using Google Talk and Beluga. Beluga is the cloest thing I’ve found to BBM and does a nice job with group chats but not many of my friends are using it (although it does send to text if the person doesn’t have the app). None of these are the perfect replacement and I do feel a bit disconnected from my world.

I was always a bit of a gamer with console devices and wondering if I’ll get back into it with this new phone. Download the usual stuff but do let me know if there are any games you suggest I download. FYI, I don’t like scrabble.

I’ve almost completely stopped using the mobile web browser for everything except google searches (baffled that Google hasn’t created a better mobile search app). If I find myself repeatedly going to a website, I’ll search for a comparable app and use that instead.

It’s this simple: For mobile apps are replacing the web.

As for the actual phone, well, it’s sort of a brick. I liked the idea of having a touch screen with a snap out touch keyboard. But the phone is clunky and doesn’t seamlessly switch between different input states nor does the screen always rotate when the orientation shifts. The keypad isn’t as good as a blackberry and then touch screen isn’t as crisp as an iPhone. The camera and video camera are exception though and easy to see why Flip shut down.

Worst of all, my new phone randomly powers off throughout the day. It’s kind of like Zach Randolph’s basketball career. After cruising through some nerdy message boards I figured out it might actually be loose battery issue. It baffles my mind that they couldn’t test for this. Instead, I’ve gone MacGyver by stuffing the battery into place with microscopic pieces of index card. I also switched out the memory card and that may have been the fix as this has stopped happening in the last few days.

But I’m not too worried about the phone. If I don’t acclimate to this one I’m sure there are better devices out there. And I still might go down the iPhone rout. I recently switched to a Macbook Air and I’m now in awe. It makes my thinkpad feel like a Commodore 64.

Would like to hear what phone you have and what apps you are using. Oh and if you still have a Blackberry, well then, you still have a Blackberry.

I like the concept of being explicitly accessible to others in my industry. One of my favorite parts of being in the NYC tech/start-up scene is that almost everyone is reachable. I like meeting new people who have common interests, especially when they bring the fire and passion that seem to be in the DNA of so many great entrepreneurs. I often tell people that digital, sports and start-up/career path are three things that fascinate me and that I can talk/think about that stuff all day long. So I’m pretty sure that my office hour sessions will be interesting, at the very least, with the potential for me to learn about new stuff, expand my network and build relationships.

Last week I attended my first office hour sessions with Aaron Cohen at the swanky new co-working space General Assembly. Aaron is a serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple companies and has also been the CEO of Bolt Media and Menupages. I wanted to chat with Aaron abut local media but we hardly even touched that topic as the conversation veered in so many different interesting directions in the 20 minute scheduled time block.

I then held my first office hours last Friday at my office and had the pleasure of speaking with two different young and bright people who have interests in digital sports. I learned more about their current jobs and interests and hopefully shared some worthwhile advice. I enjoyed it.

I sometimes get hit up my friends/acquaintances that need advice with a digital or business idea or project. I try to tell them that the best thing to do is for us to schedule time where I can give my undivided attention and focus to helping out. Hopefully, office hours can be used for this as well.

I plan to hold office hours bi-weekly. It will probably be in the early mornings during the week as my day usually doesn’t get busy until 10am. My schedule will be posted on Ohours so come visit me and/or pass this on to anyone else who might be interested. My next scheduled office hours are this Friday (4/15) at 9am.

Alas, I would be remiss to write this post without mentioning that Ohours was created by my digital buddy and dodgeball teammate Nate Westheimer. Nate is a natural connector and facilitator and, despite being from Cincinatti!!, is one of the true leaders of the NYC digital start-up scene. He led the NYC Tech Meetup for a few years. After leaving his last venture, Nate declared that he needed to learn how to code in his HoPE Manifesto. In a matter of months he did just that and Ohours is his first project as a developer. I love the practicality of what he built, as Nate has been holding weekly office hours for a few years now and recognized the need for a better tool for people to connect, schedule and meet for office hours. If you’re interested to talk to Nate, sign up for his Ohours!

I searched for a Facebook App that would show me the amount of friends for each of my friends. Surprisingly, I couldn’t find one. So I spent a few hours messing around on Facebook and checking on friend’s friends.

It was a social experiment. I learned some interesting stuff.

According to Facebook statistics the average member has 130 friends. But of the 150 friends that I checked the average amount of friends was actually 759. Maybe it’s true that Long Island Jews really do all know each other.

The maximum amount of friends that Facebook allows for a member profile is 5000. I guess Zuckerberg’s cronies have figured out the human brain would explode once it has to deal with so much bullshit. Outside of a few quasi-celebrities, my most popular friend was a guy I know from the digital world, Philip James, who is the founder of a wine website called Snooth. He has over 3160 buddies. The top ten on my list included many of the most social, outgoing and well-connected people that I know like my friend Marni (1712). I mentioned to my colleague Jeremy Goldberg, who often refers to himself in meetings as the “Human LinkedIn” that he was near the top of my list. He turned to me, smiled, and said “1806 baby!”.

Brian Litvack has 482 friends. If this was a race (which it is) I have a few things working against me. I’ve developed a policy where I never “friend” another person. I just wait for them to friend me. If I don’t know or like the person who has requested to be my friend I will neither accept or reject their request. Instead I’ll just leave it with the other 62 people in “friend request” purgatory. Looking at this list of potential friends is one of my favorite things to do on Facebook. Alas, I’m by no means the most social/friendly/extroverted wolf in the pack. On some crazy, abstract level this digital world really does tie back into real life.

After completing my extensive research and analyzing the data I’ve also decided to create personality profiles based on the number of Facebook friends one has. Now, instead of trying to figure out your deal I just need a three digit number to inherently understand who you are.

(Note: This really only applies to people between the ages of 23-39. Anyone who is younger is playing in a whole different ballgame as they’re basically square in the middle of the Facebook Generation. If you’re over 40 congrats on having a Facebook profile at all!)

L-HOOPS FACEBOOK FRIENDS SCALE

Not On Facebook
You are a fascinating species and will one day be studied by biological anthropologists. I’m not sure if it’s a blissful unaffectedness, a luddite mentality or a privacy paranoia that keeps you away from the biggest social invention since the high five.

I do find it interesting that you can actually exist in society (quite well might I add) without a Facebook presence. Almost makes me think the whole Facebook thing is a big waste of time. Makes it quite clear that Facebook needs to become more of a utility if Zuck is ever going to really take over the world.

You are in an inevitable fight against time. But I applaud you. I’m curious to learn how you’ve filled your brain in the countless hours you would have wasted on Facebook if you were part of the revolution.

Less Than 300 Friends
It’s like you are here but you are not. Either you’re not into Facebook, not into people, or haven’t figured it out yet. Either/or – something’s not right. You’re missing out on life and you don’t even realize it. Please find somebody very social and confirm that’s not who you want to be.

Have you not yet figured out that when the term friends is modified by the adjective Facebook it just means dudes you recognize or have had at least one meaningless conversation with in your life?

Although, the FB average is 130, only 5% of the people I checked had less than 300 friends. It’s almost hard to join Facebook without quickly hitting this benchmark.

300 – 665 Friends
You are normal, average, mediocre. It’s hard to pinpoint your exact personality, but there’s a chance you might not be crazy. In addition, it seems like you’re using Facebook in a healthy way. Obsessed but not life-altering obsessed.

666 Friends
You’re a mensch.

667 – 1000 Friends
You tell yourself that you know everyone. Hey, you are pretty damn popular so congrats. Secretly, you believe you are really popular and pooh-pooh really, really popular people as social climbers. You would never admit to caring about your number of FB friends…but you do. If you fall in this category, you’re telling yourself (as you read this) that you can’t help it that so many people friend you. It probably has something to do with your natural charm, good looks and easy disposition.

1000+ Friends
You’re quite the social butterfly. You take pride in knowing everybody and being well known. Facebook was made for you and you are unapologetic about how much you love it. When you walk into the room (real life or digital) you want to own it. You know exactly how many facebook friends that you have and are proud of it. Actually, you have tendonitis in your ring finger from accepting all these friends. When you go to the doctor to have your finger checked you friended the secretary, the doctor and the valet guy. You make comments out loud like “how do I even know that person” deep down knowing you met them waiting on line at Uniqlo and just had to connect forever with them. You watch TMZ….while you check Facebook. You wish you were on TMZ. You look at people with less friends with you as losers (but in a really sympathetic way). Let’s face it. You’re killing it at life!

Start-ups move quick so it’s tricky to keep all of my networks and contacts updated on our progress. For Sportsvite’s business partners and clients we regularly send out a corporate update newsletter. But I haven’t properly blogged about Sportsvite since the July 2007. So for all you lucky little Littyhoopsters out there you’re about to get it straight from this blogger’s keyboard…

Once upon a time, circa 2006, Sportsvite.com officially launched with the simple goal to make it easier for people to connect with each other to organize and manage their sports activities. We focused on adult sports because we wanted to create the solution to the very problem that we faced. I, for one, still have a yearning desire to brick three-pointers, pull softballs way foul, and run very slowly. Sports are well organized for youth, high school and even college athletics. But enter the world of adulthood, move to a new city, and start a non-sports professional career and it becomes considerably more difficult to play. In fact our original Sportsvite tagline was Stop Playing With Yourself. Sportsvite’s mantra is that playing sports is just as much fun for an adult. Our aim is to leverage digital and social media to make it easier to do just that.

Sportsvite.com has grown into an online community with over 150K registered members. It helps thousands of people play their favorite sports and activities. Sportsvite members can find other players, teams or leagues in their area. It also makes the life of a rec sports team captain a bit more organized. Along the way, we realized in order to make Sportsvite a scalable and sustainable business we needed to aggregate MILLIONS of players on Sportsvite.com. To do this, we needed to have an even bigger impact on recreational sports.

The first place we looked was at the local sports leagues (think the Urban Professional League or NYCSSC here in NYC). It was clear that these leagues are creating the opportunities for adults to play their favorite team sports. Over 1500 league organizations were using Sportsvite to create league profiles (NYC Partners) to promote their sports leagues to the Sportsvite community (similar to how a business or organization will create a profile on Facebook). This is just a fraction of the thousands of sport & social clubs, parks & rec, YMCA and private local rec sports leagues that can be found in every city, town and neighborhood.

Most league organizers operate as a type of local event producer. They secure field space, hire refs and staff, manage registration and schedules, communicate directly with team captains and players, and produce sports events weekly. We spoke with hundreds of sports league organizers to understand how technology could help leagues more efficiently operate and expand their business. Most league organizers simply didn’t have the expertise or free capital to invest in digital solutions.

In 2010 we launched LeagueApps. Our goal is for it to be the best digital solution to power adult recreational sports leagues. So far, the feedback and response has been promising. Since it was launched in the early fall over 25 leagues have joined the platform. Just this month we’ve launched new league partners in Miami (Miami SSC) Philadelphia (Philly Sports Network), Phoenix (Coed Sports Arizona) and Los Angeles (All City Athletics). Next we plan to work with our league partners to enhance the LeagueApps platform to improve the experience for their members. This includes social media integration, mobile functionality, team management features (death to the dreaded forfeit!) and e-commerce features.

Local sports leagues can be a valuable platform for brands and marketers that want to reach young, active adults through both experiential (at the field) and digital marketing efforts. Yet most leagues don’t have the audience reach or sales experience to secure sponsorship deals. Most brands can’t build a program that has enough size or impact for it to be worthwhile. So Sportsvite has networked these leagues together to aggregate an audience of active young adults. We call it the Recreational Sports Network and it allows our league partners to opt into brand sponsorships opportunities. Over 500 leagues have joined the RSN which represents 1MM+ adult sports players. Through the RSN, we’ve completed sponsorship programs for Clif Bar, Corona, Smokey Bones Bar + Grill, Buffalo Wild Wings and POWERADE.

As Sportsvite builds up its presence in adult recreational sports we’re also looking at other sectors of sports that can use a digital upgrade. Sports camps, AAU tournaments, church leagues, fitness clubs and youth sports are on the radar screen. Amazingly, many of the 5.5MM students that play college intramurals are still going down to the fieldhouse to sign up for their leagues with paper and pen!

We like to think about what the recreational sports world will be like in the next generation. I got to say it’s awesome. Every single at bat, jump shot, second serve and first down will be recorded digitally and shared with your friends, teammates and competition. Every player will have all their stats and results to see how they fare against their friends. Ask any recreational athlete if they would like to feel more like a pro. There answer will be a resounding Marv Albertesque YES. Hit a game-winning shot and read about it on a local blog. Win a league sportsmanship award sponsored by Mastercard…Priceless!

Once a person taps into their passion great things happen. By great things I’m talking about a fantasy sports league made up of your friends in your local rec sports league. Imagine that. Or look at it from a utility angle. How about a mobile app to find, organize or create a pick-up game on the fly by seeing who checks in at the local park.

In the future, everyone will have their 15 minutes of Sportscenter fame.

Here is mine…

Unfortunately, the startup ecosystem for sports is nowhere near what it should be. There are a handful of companies that have been funded and two significant exits this year (Citizen Sports and Yardbarker). But there is much more room for digital innovation. Part of the issue is that the current conditions for a startup to gain traction and grow revenues in sports media are more difficult than it should be. Here are some of the reasons why.

Big Media
The top sports websites are good. Really good. ESPN, Yahoo Sports and CBS Sports all have big name journalists, comprehensive coverage and huge budgets to cover major sports events live. Combine that with the major digital upgrades by the official professional sport leagues and there is little room for an upstart to break through to the mainstream. Even when a clever blog or website is able to carve out a niche (recruiting, free agency, etc.) they often have trouble monetizing since their niche is not a large enough audience for major advertisers.

Fickle Audience
The established digital sports properties are the barometer that sports fans judge other digital experiences. Personally, I’ll try new products but if it’s not better than ESPN there’s no chance it’s going into my lineup of sports sites. (In comparison it’s not hard for a new news site to beat out the experience on Yahoo or Time). Sports fans are a digitally savvy audience with extremely high expectations. Unlike most early web adopters, sports fans have little to no tolerance to spend their time helping to develop an unfinished product. Even the biggest sports fanatics only have so much time to spend feeding their sports addiction. A new website has to replace an existing website for a sports fan. There’s too many good options for the consumer to commit to a digital product that’s not better than the status quo.

Programming Access
Sports media is driven by live games and events. Just look at the billion dollar rights deals that sports properties sign with big media companies. Most of the major stakeholders in sports are inclined to protect the value and exclusivity of these rights. Any sports startup that needs to rely on broadcast rights must come to pay with a war chest of cash to dole out. More often than not, they don’t have the capital or ability to secure the rights necessary for their web application to scale.

Official Partnerships
If a startup can’t obtain official media rights the next most valuable asset would be to work with the leagues, teams and organizations that have access to the best content. Ideally, new technology and applications could better distribute, leverage and monetize sports. But sports leagues and teams are notoriously difficult for startups to partner with (especially in digital media). The top sports leagues are often more concerned about protecting their existing relationships and investments than to take on risk or upset the current business models. The top business drivers for sports teams are media rights, advertising/sponsorship and stadium/game revenues. New digital opportunities are not always viewed as a core business unit. Teams and leagues often take the view that a company must pay their prices upfront for the right to access the value they bring in distribution, audience and brand value.

Advertising Business Model
Advertising and sponsorship is the dominant business model for sports media properties. Sports fans are used to the concept of sharing their time and attention with brands in exchange for a better or free experience. VC funded companies such as Fantasy Sports Ventures, SB Nation, Bleacher Report and Weplay all are trying to capture dollars (and thereby compete with big media) from sports marketers. Brands want aggregation, reach and confidence that they can make an impression on their targeted male audience. Traditional media companies are in better position to sell large advertising deals because of their scale and relationships. Until a startup can establish its brand and hit a critical mass, it’s difficult to consistently capture sports marketing budgets.

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There are ways to knock down these barriers and there are some promising signs in the market that this is already happening.

Professional sports teams and even the athletes themselves are getting more involved in early stage funding and development. Silver Chalice (backed by Jerry Reinsdorf), Fenway Sports Group and Steve Nash have all formed independent ventures to leverage their access, rights and relationships to invest in sports companies. These groups can help superb technology or digital products accelerate their business by giving them the inside track on promotion, access or relationships. For example, Steve Nash can help get a company a meeting with the NBA, connect them with professional athletes for PR and marketing and introduce a company to his brand sponsors.

Hopefully, more of the major organizations in sports (pro leagues, teams, rights holders) will consider adding a digital venture arm to help stimulate digital innovation. Most sports entrepreneurs would probably agree that working with leagues, teams and rights holders is challenging. These organizations view digital startups as just another vendor, licensee or potential threat. Instead, it would be interesting to see the NBA, NFL or MLBAM develop a program to support and work with digital companies to enhance the sports fan experience. Creating a more favorable environment would be welcome by the tech community as there’s no shortage of ideas, sports-crazed entrepreneurs, and potential in sports.

Right now sports startups are still the underdog. But the spread is shrinking. As any sports fan knows, if a team is hungry, tenacious and executes on a brilliant game plan the underdog can and does pull the upset.

As a digital guy I hear the term viral tossed around like a Charlie Sheen escort. I tend to be skeptical of marketing plans in which “cool” viral content will be created. I’ve been creating content on the web in one form or another for over ten years and I’ve yet to output anything that has even come close to being viral. It’s almost as if things seem to go viral by accident more so than it can be planned. I’ll view something that’s so unbelievable that my first impulse is to share it with others because you just got to see it. I’ve yet to work with anyone who has been able to consistently, and predictable create content that goes viral.

My view on viral marketing has changed a bit after following my friends at BeenVerified.com execute a viral marketing campaign this week.

The story begins with Antoine Dodson. Antoine was interviewed for a local news story in which an intruder broke into his house and tried to abduct his sister. Antoine, in all his flaming glory, calls out the intruder with a passionate rant. My favorite lines of his are “you all need to hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your husband because they raping everyone out here!” and “you are so dumb, you are really dumb…for real”. The rest of the world seems to agree as the news segment has so far been viewed over 20 million views. The unlikely combination that the love child of Willie McGhee and Richard Simmons — from a housing project in Huntsville, Alabama no less — freaking out on camera over a sexual intruder is just too precious. The best SNL skit out there couldn’t make up something this good. It went viral.

Another phenomenon of viral content is that it gets remixed and mashed-up (thanks to digital technology it is easier to do than ever before). This happened with Antoine Dodson. One particular remix, by an outfit from Brooklyn called the Gregory Brothers, was especially catchy. The Gregory Brothers handle the auto-tune like Steve Nash with a basketball. They knew that they could create some hot shit from the Antoine Dodson remix and they did. The song has been viewed over 50MM times on Youtube and has become a top 100 Billboard hit. My guess is that they just floated the song out there and it went viral. Kudos to the Gregory Brothers. They expressly tried to create viral content and they did. Before you go and hire them to auto-tune your life and turn you into some kind of F-List celebrity realize that the combined audience of their other 48 videos on YouTube is less than the Dodson song.

Now here’s where Ross and BeenVerified.com come into play. BeenVerified is an online background checking company. They deal with large sets of human population databases as a core part of their business. They’ve also created a few mobile apps that have done well.

Ross, Josh and team came up with the idea to create the Sex Offender Tracker mobile application to identify sexual offenders in your neighborhood. Another company has actually done this but BV takes it a step further by using augmented reality. That means that when you hold up your phone it will compute results based on your exact geographic location. Open App. Point in any direction. Find predators. This app would probably get some decent PR on it’s own but BV wanted to make it viral. They wanted to people to pass it on and on and on. So they enlisted the help of sir Antoine as their pitchman.

Watch the Sex Offender Trafic app promo video featuring Antoine Dodson.

BV floated this out their on Monday morning. First, the top technology blogs picked up on this because it hits on a few digital trends (mobile apps, augmented reality, viral marketing, privacy) and it’s entertaining. Mashable, Huffington Post, and even TMZ ran with it. Readers started passing it around to their friends. On Tuesday night Jimmy Kimmel featured it as part of his opening monologue. In less than a week the video has been viewed over 600K times. This is without any marketing dollars being spent on advertising, promotion or distribution. The entire project’s distribution strategy was that this would go viral once it got out there.

I’m still not sure what this all means. While the PR and exposure has been valuable for BV, they are still figuring out (like much of the rest of the media world) the ROI on this type of campaign. I’m still not sure if you can plan or bank on viral but sometimes you just have a one-off Home Run idea and if you execute properly you can optimize the odds that it does spread virally. The Gregory Brothers did that and so did BV. But viral traction doesn’t necessarily tie directly back into sales since it’s hard to perfectly connect that viral spark with the actual product or service that genreated it. Just because Antoine Dodson cracks you up doesn’t mean you need a sex offender application on your phone. Yet, I’d bet most digital marketing agencies would triumph either campaign as a shining success and charge a pretty penny to their clients.

As for Antoine he’s leveraged his good fortune to move his family out of the hood (NPR Podcast). He even offers a Halloween costume on his website. Who knows how long he lasts as a viral star before he has to do what most other established brands need to do – pay for marketing.

A few recent conversations have made me think more about how I blog though.

CHAPTER 1
I was having a conversation with the Sports Blitz Ditz about her very cool blog that’s a chicks take on sports news. She was looking for advice on how to develop her blog and brand and thought a redesign of her website was one way to do that. I told her that I hadn’t really upgraded my blog design since I started (otherwise there’s no way Delonte West would be in my header!). Most people read my blog through email and never go to the site. I have blog emails go out at 9am EST (through feedburner) and then email responses and blog comments trickle in throughout the morning.

Most email subscribers (there’s about 90 of you) figure out by the title and the first few lines if this post is something that interests them. That’s always an issue since my blog spans such diverse topics – sports, business, life, digital media, travel, random stuff. Since the blog is about everything and anything running through my head I really only try to promote it to my friends and have them sign up for the emails. I’m not sure any of this would ever be interesting if you didn’t know me.

A few digital friends sign up by RSS. It’s tough to compete with all of the other feeds people have in their readers so I’m always amazed when I get feedback that way. A few other people check the website every few weeks for new posts. This is kind of lame for both of us since some of my posts are dated by then. I also usually post a link to the blog on my twitter feed.

My posts are freaking long (try finishing this one without developing ADD). Most of the time I can’t even read the entire thing without getting bored or drifting off like it’s an Edith Wharton novel. I’m not sure why this always seems to happen. I just start writing and stop when I have all my thoughts down on paper. Don’t really pay attention to length until after the fact. Do I expect you to read every sentence? No way. I’m often amazed when people make it to the end.

Almost all my posts are written in one sitting. It usually flows pretty quickly because I’ve so thoroughly thought through the topic by the time I sit down to write it. I’d say an average post takes my about 60-90 minutes to write, two minutes to edit (grammar sucks I know) and 10-20 minutes to hook up links, embed videos and publish the post in Wordpress. By that point I’m ready to pass out knowing that when I wake the email will go out and I will start to receive instant feedback. It’s a treat/reward for finishing the post.

CHAPTER 2
I was indulging in a Hopscotch Frozen Custard (easily 5x the mendoza line in calories) after a futile job managing Dodgeball 2.0 (the back is keeping me on the sidelines) to an 0-4 night and had an interesting conversation about blogging with Charlie, Nate and Will.

Recently, Nate and his buddy Galpert put their blogs on the backburner to create a paid email newsletter using a new service called letter.ly. The email newsletter part makes sense for the reasons I’ve outline in Chapter 1. Another digital friend Dan Lewis has quickly got his new newsletter (free) over 500 subscribers. Unfortunately, Nate and Mike haven’t written as much as I had hoped. They’re two of the most well-connected, energetic and fun dudes in the NYC digital scene. I was hoping I would get to be part of that and stay more closely connected to them by subscribing to their newsletters. My guess is that they just haven’t hit their stride yet where writing becomes routine (blogging is writing after all). When it does there is no question their emails will be thoughtful, insightful and worthwhile. Nate’s last one was his best yet. I’m not sure if it makes sense to charge for their content. It seems limiting to me (but do agree it’s an interesting experiment). I would also pay to get better access to their networks though (although both are already natural connectors).

Charlie was surprised (in the same way he’s surprised when i hit a softball in fair territory) that I had blogged more than 20 times this year. (In fact, you’re all in the midst of reading blog post #197. My first post was on Jan 30, 2007 so that’s about an average of one blog post per week.) I bet him an angry bird or something that I’ll collect on by eating a dozen half-burgers at his event this week. For most of my posts, Charlie isn’t my typical audience. If there’s a post I think he would enjoy or would like his feedback I’ll figure out a way to get it in front of him.

By the way, Charlie probably writes my favorite blog. Nate made a good point that he just enjoys reading blog posts by people he knows. This makes sense. I enjoy reading blogs by Seth Gaffney, Andrew Parker, Nate, Darren Herman, Joe Medved, Pat Coyle and Adam Isserlis. It’s almost like you can imagine the person talking to you in a conversation. Nate wrote a post about the Angel Investor controversy that I agreed with so much it felt like I wrote it! Like Charlie, some of his posts are feisty but most are thoughtful, rooted in common sense and really practical. When I write posts I try to think of my readers reading it. For instance, I’m sure Stacey Lewis is really enjoying reading her name right now. I try to write posts that the 90 people who get the email would enjoy reading.

When I write a post that is more business/digital oriented I’ll often send out that post in an email to some of my colleagues and contacts. I’ll send this post to all my friends that blog (Most of my email readers have deleted this email by now). But that’s ok, I know they’ll give me another shot to write something more amusing next time.

Chapter 3
Are you kidding me? There is no chapter 3. It’s 2:30am. What else could I possible write? Feel like I beat this topic to death like Barbaro.