Comments on: Sling Media hits its puck, take that MLB

By: Brian L.

Brian L. — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:17:39 +0000

It is a natural for fan interaction to merge with anywhere, anytime Internet broadcasting of games. Every MLB team has a message board site where fans gather to discuss their teams games in real time while they are watching on TV. So…fans are watching games AND they are talking about them online. It seems that Joost is headed in this direction (not necessarily for sports exclusively), integrating viewing with interactive chatter, but I’m not sure we’ll get there for a bit.

By: Joe MacQuarrie

Joe MacQuarrie — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:06:29 +0000

I agree. Dice-K will be fine. Om, Please don’t tell me you’re a Yankees fan.

By: Ryan Carrigg

Ryan Carrigg — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 13:24:05 +0000

Dice-K will be fine :)

By: Rocky Agrawal

Rocky Agrawal — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 12:33:23 +0000

Om, you’re absolutely right about this being the new water cooler.

At least in my circles, it’s replaced the water cooler. I remember even a few years ago, people gathering to talk about what happened on LOST, the Sopranos, etc.

Now it’s rare. More often than not I hear “don’t say anything, it’s on my Tivo and I haven’t watched it yet.”

Contrast with the YouTube clip, which you ping to someone and they respond right away.

By: tomcoseven

tomcoseven — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 12:09:53 +0000

Om, I love the idea of being able to subscribe to a service, content, whatever and access it anywhere. In the long run I think that’s where we will end up for everything, not just TV. Because they might be able to accelerate this trend, I hope Sling prevails.

I do think they are exposed in at least one area that most reporters miss, and that’s Slingbox swapping. About 2 years ago, I was on Lakersground.net (a basketball message community) and someone started a thread “get out of market games for free.” The guy claimed to be a Sling rep and was suggesting swapping boxes with someone in a sports market to get access to Laker games without having to purchase NBA LeaguePass. Sling hit all of the sports message boards very heavy in its early development phase, because let’s face it the compelling application for Sling is out of market sports (and a few expats). Because of Grokster, if Sling can be found to have induced consumers to violate a law, then they will be guilty of secondary liability. Sling’s first course of action must be to cut deals with all of the sports leagues and keep this out of the courts.