Announcing the SportsCenter Feed for iPhone & iPad

This is the first of a few posts on ESPN's product launches / updates. You can view them all in three places: product.espn.com, Facebook.com/espnproduct and on this blog. I am late to announce the launch of ESPN's newest mobile application, The SportsCenter Feed. The Feed launched for Christmas and is available in iOS for both iPhone and iPad. The Feed delivers personalized news across ESPN's vast array of the content: articles, blogs, videos, highlights, scores, radio, podcasts and more. In addition to general themes like Top News, league specific and video only - fans can access and create personalized feeds by logging in with either their ESPN or Facebook accounts.

The SportsCenter Feed is the perfect compliment for our other core applications: - Feed for news, commentary, highlights, etc - ScoreCenter for scores, gamecasts and alerts - WatchESPN for streaming content, video and games - ESPN Radio for streaming audio and podcassts

These applications will begin to be better integrated and speak to one-another more deeply and relevantly.

Please download the SportsCenter Feed and send your feedback. We are designing and developing the next versions - so your input in welcome and timely.

For iPhone:

For iPad:

And afront the iTunes store:

Uber's Transparent New Year's Eve

I like the transparency with their users. I like the awareness / intelligence of the pricing. And I like how its done with a marketing spin on it as well. (read more at Uber)

Amazon Most Gifted Tagline, Promotion

The "most gifted" tagline and promotion is effective... particularly in the web's largest marketplace with the web's largest collection of products. And that's why it looks so similar to how they market year after year. And that's why I like it year after year!

Note: here is the original announcement in November 2009:

"Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN – News) today announced that November is already the best sales month ever for Kindle, even before Cyber Monday. Kindle continues to be the most wished for, the most gifted, and the #1 bestselling product across all product categories on Amazon."

ESPN, College Football Instant Replays & Twitter

Video highlights and clips are an ESPN hallmark. And for college football fans, December and January represent bowl season. This year, in partnership with Ford, those fans can get embedded replays and highlights on Twitter.

You can read more on The New York Times: "ESPN to Use Twitter to Send Instant Replays of College Football". And more on TechCrunch: Ahead Of Bowl Season, ESPN Teams Up With Twitter To Provide College Football Video Highlights In Stream

For bowl season, you can also get live alerts and video highlights with the ESPN College Football App on iOS and Android / Google Play. And you can watch directly with WatchESPN on iOS and Android / Google Play.

Square's App Download Page

I have written in the past about designing for web-to-mobile downloads. Some treatments are effective (ie Jetsetter) despite most being ineffective. Square has built a very simple, good looking page similar to Jetsetter's. The beauty of course is that there is one call to action and then Square can do work on the backend to send the right product information for your device. And if there is breakage in the conversion funnel, they have your mobile number and can reengage.

Smart for Square. Easy for the consumer.

2012 - Brought to You By Facebook

Facebook's 2012 in Review 'app' is really fantastic: fun, easy, and surprisingly accurate. In one click, Facebook creates a mini-Timeline of your 2012 highlights... and it sums of the year with the 20 most socially active and visual moments. Again, it's a single click and a valuable, viral output. It brings Facebook's Timeline to life in a way that really hasn't happened since Timeline's original launch at F8. And when the year in review happens, it is both sharable to your own wall / friends - but it sparks users to create their own.

It's a reminder of the power of Facebook: identity. Conversation and the social graph are important - but Facebook's highest value is identity. It's what we have invested ourselves and it is what the web and app ecosystem has invested in such that it is our identity (and authentication, personalization, etc) to much of the world off-Facebook.

In a simple, visual way, 2012 in Review reminds us of this.

Patriots vs. Texans via Instagram & Wordpress 3.5

Last night I was able to attend ESPN's Monday Night Football game: Houston Texans at New England Patriots. Having caught much of the experience on Instagram, I thought it was a good opportunity to also put Wordpress' new 3.5 platform ("Elvin") to use. The new Media hub is really fantastic.

Facebook Gifts, Reminiscent of Facebook Offers

Three things to note about Facebook Gifts: 1. Fascinating - and yet powerful - that the only promotion of Facebook Gifts is within the birthday alerts. It's the definition of "in the river" marketing and promotion. 2. This was the first time I noticed that the gift icon showcases friends who have sent gifts (when available). So not only is it in the river, it is socially relevant ... and therefor has some social pressure!

3. That aspect looks a lot like Facebook Deals.

Facebook Messenger Sans Account.

Fascinating. Really important to watch as Facebook moves to the next billion users - which is applicable to the platform and account setting here. Also marks the importance of attention to user funnels and onboarding - clearly something facebooks knows well.