Basketball World Championship on your Mobile... What? Only Nokia?
Written on Wednesday, September 01, 2010
I don't know how popular basketball is in your parts of the world, but it's the second most popular sport here in Greece, so I've been following the ongoing Basketball World Championship quite closely.
And working in the mobile marketing field you just can't help but notice, during the matches, all the advertisements from Nokia for its BBall Ovi Store app. The first feeling I had from this was that it seems like an (expensive) attempt to push Mobile Apps for Nokia, and its Ovi Store, and that's why there's so much advertisement around it.
I was pretty intrigued to see the mobile app so I took a quick look online, but only to find there's no other platform supported apart from Nokia phones. Yes, granted getting an app to work on all Nokias is kind of cross-platform, and yes, granted, it did only say Ovi store, so I don't know why I was expecting anything more than just that.
But from the point of view of FIBA, the International Basketball Federation, wouldn't you want your mobile app to be accessible to the majority of users?
Here's the description on the Ovi Store page:
FIBA and Nokia have teamed up to bring the world of Bball to your court. Get the latest play-by-play news as 24 teams go for gold at the FIBA World Championships in Turkey from August 28 - September 12. Access live courtside blogs, great user-generated content, action-packed videos and so much more. Chat with other Bballers across the globe and search for courts and other Bball players. Note: You need to have a Nokia account to be able to use Bball. Create one at www.ovi.com.
Ok, so obviously Nokia are in this as a joint venture or something similar, it seems, so that they can promote their Ovi Store. But why not expand the mobile app to other platforms as well. Surely you want all fans to be able to follow the World Championship on their mobile? Even if it's not a Nokia!
I know I did. Alt+Tab, switch to iTunes, head to the App Store, search for 'basketball', quickly find an iPhone app called TR 2010, that provides me with what I needed. It does cost $1, (i.e. it's not free) but it's still cheaper than getting a Nokia...
It's a shame though becsaue FIBA could have developed this app, and achieved presence on a much broader range of smartphones (incl. iPhones) than they currently possess.
Posted in
mobile entertainment
|
