TechAddress

What’s Your Favorite Sports & Fitness Site?

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:34:29 +0000

Alex Hillman is co-founder of IndyHall, a co-working space in Philadelphia, as well as an active leader in the global coworking community.

Mashable has written about coworking before, but in case you’ve missed it: coworking is a global movement of localized mobile/remote worker communities coming together to share their otherwise independent work experiences. Lots of Mashable readers are remote workers and telecommuters, independents and freelancers, and might be thinking about coworking.

So you’ve heard about coworking, but don’t quite get it yet? Some of the coworkers around the world I’ve spoken to would agree that it’s something you need to experience to understand the value “beyond the desks.” That doesn’t mean I won’t try! Let’s take a look at some of the less talked about reasons why you might want to give coworking a shot.

1) You’re lonely

This is the most common issue that we discover the members of IndyHall are interested in combating. Working from home seems great, but for many people, it simply isn’t sustainable based on their personality types or professions. If you’re doing ANYTHING creative, you simply cannot be as effective in your solitude as you could be surrounded by other people being creative.

If you work at home and have good discipline for leaving the house, or heck, for putting on pants before company comes over, you’re very much in the minority. Getting out of the house is healthy.

Now, you’re saying, “I could just go to the local cafe! It’s free (or close to it with the purchase of enough coffee)!” Maybe, but there’s an important distinction between being surrounded by bodies, and surrounded by people. At a cafe, your odds of turning to the next person and asking them a question about Ruby on Rails, or who they follow on Twitter, is pretty low. Unless you’re in the Bay Area, of course. So those people around you? They’re bodies. Not coworkers. They’re there, but they probably don’t show you too much love.

Coworking is all about the community.

2) You need motivation

OK, so you went independent, or took a job telecommuting, so you could get away from the Bill Lumbergh in your life breathing down your neck. Has it increased your slackitude?

Again, if not…good for you. But you’re in the minority.

There’s something magical about working at a coworking space. When you are surrounded by other hard working people doing really cool, creative, interesting things that they love to do, you start to think to yourself “am I working on creative, interesting things that I love to do? I probably should…” and it amps up your productivity.

This plays into my point from reason #1 as well - you’re not nearly as likely to get motivated at a coffee shop.

3) You love to learn new things

My buddy Chris Messina coined the term “accelerating serendipity,” or the act of catalyzing things that would happen anyway, to happen faster. In a coworking space, there’s “accelerated educational serendipity”, or as I sometimes call it, “accidental learning”. Due to the open-air, discussion friendly format of most coworking setups, you find yourself exposed to lots of new things that you likely wouldn’t have otherwise. Be it a new technical skill, a new outlook on life, or a new opinion about a local restaurant…you’re always learning.

Working in a coworking space is as close to learning by osmosis as you’ll ever get. Even though you can’t study for an exam by sleeping under a textbook, you can almost certainly learn something by taking out your iPhone earbuds and listening in to the conversation in the room.

Think about coworking like an offline manifestation of an online forum. Everyone comes for a slightly different purpose but has some goal in common. Over the course of a day there are many different topics. You can either jump in on a topic you’re interested in, lurk and observe, or start another one if you’re uninterested. There’s a “search” function you can take advantage of by asking a room full of diversely knowledgeable people a question.

And inevitably, there’s an off-topic thread. And almost no flaming. Almost.

4) You have no idea what’s going on in your region

During the year we spent discovering and interacting with the various communities in Philadelphia prior to opening the doors to IndyHall, we were involved in a number of events. Some of the events were social, some were educational. Some were user groups, some were informal happy hours. Some were small get-togethers, some were larger “unconferences.”

Once we started doing things that encouraged the cross pollination of these existing communities, the most common response was, “I had no idea how much was going on in my own backyard!” People got really excited when they learned that they had things in common with their neighbors.

There’s a lot of benefit to knowing what your neighbors are up to. It might be cool. It might be something you need. It might be something you already use. It might be something that you want to get involved with.

Coworking allows for that sort of interaction to happen every single day. It’s like a permanent show and tell, for adults.

Also, think of this from an economic development standpoint. Wouldn’t you like your region to be richer with activity and more visible to the rest of the world? Coworking might be the platform you need for your town to get discovered. There’s already countless projects that have gained international recognition that were born in coworking spaces and benefited from the local support.

5) Your work/life balance is out of whack

This was a big one for me. I left my job and found myself with the best problem any freelancer could have: I had more work than I could do in a 40 hour week. That’s when I walked right up the slippery slope that is never being able to leave your job. When your office is in your bedroom, it’s easy to get up in the middle of the night, walk to the kitchen for a glass of water, and catch yourself checking your email for an hour.

Don’t lie. You know you’ve done it.

This is not only unhealthy for you, but for your client relationships. If you’re responding to email at 4am, they assume that if they send email at 4am, you’re going to get it. And if you’ve got a live-in significant other or spouse, there’s a good chance you’re hurting your relationship, too. So if you don’t do it for yourself, do it for them.

The ability to leave my computer “at work” is amazing. I’m still a self-admitted information addict and my iPhone acts as the methadone to get me through long stretches (even some weekends).

6) Sharing of resources is RAD

So this one’s pretty obvious, in theory: most people can’t afford their own office space, or it doesn’t make sense to spend all that dough even if they could. The ability to share the cost of typical office amenities is a pretty obvious benefit.

But what about other cost sharing? How about large equipment buys? Subscriptions that are discounted for groups? Depending on your region, potential for group healthcare? What if you’ve got a bunch of video people, they can share the cost of otherwise expensive production equipment.

And don’t forget HUMANS as resources! The diverse set of human skills is ripe for cross-coworker pollination of projects and opportunities. Collaborations rooted in coworking are practically inevitable. Remember, you’ve joined a room full of motivated, independent, creative thinkers. Given some free time, who knows what they’re going to come up with.

This one’s limited only to your creativity, your connections, and your community’s interests. Hop to it.

But what about…

These are only 6 of my favorite reasons for being involved in coworking, as the co-owner and co-founder of a space in Philadelphia called IndyHall, and an active leader/participant in the global coworking community.

Hot-desks and flex-offices serve a purpose, but to some degree, are designed for solidarity in similar ways to cafe-working is. Never mind the fact that their price points aren’t designed for cash-conscious independents.

Coworking is different. Operating a shared office space as a clubhouse for a community changes the game, and affords you endless opportunities for improving yourself as a professional, and putting your region on the map.

Check the coworking wiki to see if coworking is going on near you. No coworking space? Get started with a local Jelly chapter. Jelly is like coworking, but casual and nomadic. Think about the fun of crashing a cafe, someone’s living room, or anywhere that’s got wifi and comfy seats, with a bunch of friends and coworking for the day. It’s the ideal precursor to coworking, and a great way to start at the right place: the community.

Already involved in coworking from your city? Give your space a shout out in the comments and let us know your favorite part about working there.

Alex Hillman is a community strategy consultant and entrepreneur based in sunny Philadelphia. Alex has led and evangelized the coworking movement with the co-founding of Philly-based Independents Hall, a collaborative community focused on mixing social interaction with shared office space. Since opening the space, Alex has assisted a number of other similar group leaders in focusing and energizing their efforts. Visit Alex’s blog, Dangerouslyawesome.com or find him on Twitter.

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, ferrantraite

Source:Mashable!

This article is part of the Open Web Awards, an open, international contest for the best websites and services.

Sports & Fitness is a broad category, encompassing the dozens of social networks designed for sports fans as well as tools that can help you get in shape (or, at least point you in the right direction). We’ve covered a ton of these services at Mashable, and put together some great resource lists so you can learn more about them:

∙ Lose the Blogger 15: 25+ Web Apps for Dieting & Getting in Shape

∙ FITNESS TOOLBOX: 60+ Health & Fitness Sites

∙ 15 Exercise Video Tutorial Sites to Pump You Up

∙ 20+ Sporting Social Networks

∙ 20+ Tools And Leagues For Fantasy Baseball

∙ Kickoff! 30+ Tools for a Winning Fantasy Football Season

Nominate your favorite sports & fitness related service using the widget below:

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10+ Ways to Track Your Marathon Run

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 22:30:17 +0000

Source:Mashable!

Some people make goals for themselves to reach every day. Like an hour-long bike ride, or a walk or jog around the neighborhood each morning, noon, or night. Others like to work themselves up toward bigger things. Like climbing Everest. Or rowing across an ocean. Or running a marathon.

Now seems a fitting time to spotlight that last endurance sport, given that this is the eve of the annual NYC Marathon, set to begin in less than 24 hours. Whether you’re in the main pack, watching from the sidelines, or simply feel inspired to boost your own level of performance, these are some networks, applications, and services that will help move you forward faster and longer yet.

If it’s the NYC Marathon that you’ve got your eyes set on, the main NYC Marathon page will give you much of the information that you need to know about the race happening tomorrow, November 2, 2008, and anything else happening around the big event. Will, or anyone you know, be taking part the marathon? Tell us in the comments!

The Universal Sports website will feature live coverage of the NYC Marathon from 9AM ET until the finish, and will offer streams from three live views. (Remember to account for Daylight Savings Time.)

There is also the storied Boston Marathon to consider, of course. The 113th edition of what is called the world’s oldest marathon is set to hit the city’s streets on April 20, 2009. Better get prepared!

Want to start pushing yourself toward a particular goal, be it as a runner or otherwise? Mecanbe is a great place to network with people and manage a kind of collaborative success. When you’ve got someone to nudge you on when you’re feeling ready to retire from your efforts, that’s when a place like Mecanbe can make quite a difference.

There are a number of other services that can network you to other runners, if only just to socialize and brag about how easy (or excruciating) it was to get past that 20 mile marker and continue moving them limbs. Favorite Run is one such environment, which claims to maintain a membership of nearly 70,000.

LogYourRun is another. It is a Web application that charts routes, sports GPS tools, as well as a forum, Facebook application, mobile-friendly and iPhone-compatible features, blogs, a calendar, and more.

MapMyRun functions much the same way, thought some users may find it to be a more easily navigable environment.

RunningNetwork delivers any news having to do with the sport. National news, photos galleries, videos, training tips, and resources aplenty.

You might like to listen only to your surroundings as you maintain a pace to the finish line, but if you prefer to get through mile after mile with some beats, an interactive and slightly social service championed by the most ubiquitous name in sporting goods the world has ever seen, a trip down Nike+ lane and all it entails might prove handy to experience your training any eventual “big day” in an interesting way. You can trace your speed and share songs for playlists with other users. An iPod is a must, and, depending on your personal setup, you might need a special pair of shoes to make the system complete, but if you’re up for it, you might get that extra umph from your earbuds that songbirds and the sound of thousands of rubber soles hitting tarmac couldn’t quite match. There are also several Facebook apps which connect with the Nike+, all of which you can find here.

Speaking of gadgets, if you’ve got an Android-equipped T-Mobile G1 on hand, perhaps Breadcrumbz may do the trick for logging your route. Concentration might be hard to keep as you travel further along your journey, but hey, it’s all fun, right?

Meanwhile, in iPhone world there exist several downloads, some free, some paid. Pacemaker [iTunes URL], for example, is free and simply calculates time for a set pace and distance. This can be useful if you want to see when you can expect to “make it there” - wherever “there” might be. Alternatively, the App Store showcases a duo of applications named iRun [iTunes] and iRunPro [iTunes]. They are $0.99 and $1.99, respectively, and essentially provide a user with a pace meter. The pricing option gives you a pace graph and audible alarms.

Imagery provided by iStockPhoto/nico_blue

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StatSheet Personalizes Basketball and Football Stats | The Startup Review

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:37:25 +0000

Source:Mashable!

Intel and Asus have started a new campaign in which they’re encouraging users to come together and bring their suggestions for an ideal laptop. Users can do this at a newly launched site called WePC, where they can cooperate on the creation of three different machines: a netbook, notebook and a gamer PC.

Mike Hoefflinger, general manager of Intel’s Partner Marketing Group, says this about the idea: “…Intel is working with ASUS to tap into the creative energy of consumers as they share ideas on designing their ideal PC. Intel is committed to encouraging conversations with consumers and giving people a voice in the design of technology they use every day.”

However, what Mike doesn’t mention is that this initiative doesn’t primarily stem from the idea that crowdsourcing can bring a better PC to the world or that crowds are smarter than Intel or Asus’ experts; it comes from the idea of conversational marketing.

There’s nothing negative about this; in fact, I like seeing smart marketing (as opposed to boring marketing, which happens a lot more often) at play. I remember Dell doing something similar, but I haven’t seen or heard of any palpable results from their initiative. Hopefully, this idea from Intel and Asus will result in an awesome laptop which will, in turn, make companies think hard about the true value of crowdsourcing.

Source:Mashable!

Google has launched an API that allows other websites to provide users with the option to login using their Google Account, in turn eliminating the need for a separate sign-up. The move comes as part of Google’s announcement earlier this year that they would become an identity provider for OpenID, along with Yahoo, Microsoft, and a number of other huge technology companies.

The first big site to allow users to sign in with Google accounts is Zoho. Users of the online office suite can now sign-in to create, collaborate, and share documents all without ever creating an account specifically for Zoho (where you can already sign in using your Yahoo account, btw). At the moment, Google is offering trial access to the APIs for enabling support on your own site. You can apply for access here.

In a blog post, Google writes, “Currently users are required to create individual passwords for many websites they visit, but users would prefer to avoid this step so they could visits websites more easily … If users could log into sites without needing another password, it would allow websites to provide a more personalized experience to their users.” Of course, this is the problem OpenID looks to address, and Google wants to help solve it, so long as the account your using to sign in elsewhere is a Google one.

Similar to the other companies that have embraced OpenID support, Google is simply now one of many identity providers. On the other hand, if you want to login to a Google service like Gmail, Docs, or Reader using OpenID, that is currently not supported. Yahoo’s implementation is quite similar to Google’s, and can be found on services like Plaxo in addition to Zoho.

Yes, a lot of people (and I’m sure most of our readers) have a Google account. But there is a bit of hypocrisy in saying you’re moving to support single sign-on, when in reality, you’re competing with the same old companies to be THE single sign-on provider, as opposed to providing single sign-on access on your own properties too.

Update: Plaxo is also allowing users to sign-in to its service using Google Accounts. You can read more about their implementation on John McCrea’s blog.

Source:Mashable!

Company Name

StatSheet

20-Word Description

StatSheet helps sports fans visualize, analyze, and compare stats of their favorite teams and players.

CEO’s Pitch

The major sports websites have yet to embrace the Web as a platform for presenting and visualizing stats. StatSheet is focused on providing a statistically dense website that is still highly usable. From historical team and player comparisons to interactive graphical charts, StatSheet has features not available anywhere else.

College Basketball was the first sport supported on the site, but now NBA, NFL and College Football are being added. Ultimately, my primary goal is to make StatSheet the favorite online destination for sports fans for every major sport. A premium service is planned for sports fans that are interested in highly unique analysis and game predictions.

Mashable’s Take

There are those who like sports. And then there are those who like sports statistics. Which grabs your interest best?

I’ll be frank. The only numbers having to do with sports that I concern myself with are tennis and cycling. And even those I do not follow very closely. So it’s clear that StatSheet won’t serve me well. But I am in a definite minority when it comes to athletic fandom. The NBA, NFL, NCAA football and basketball, and perhaps even high school basketball, will turn out bigger audiences in aggregate than whatever events grab my eye. In that sense, I find there’s ample value to be had in what this young one-man operation is capable of delivering to its users.

When you talk with friends or family who happen to share your love for a particular game, there’s a good chance you’ll make a comparison between teams and players at one point or another. It happens from the pre-season to the playoffs to the championship to the post-season. So why not put some charts and graphs together to complement the armchair analysis you practice among company?

Yes, StatSheet promises to make athletic digits and the boxes that surround them as comprehensive, customizable, and interactive as possible, all while keeping things simple. At least as simple as the seasons of play allow for. As a user, you’re able to create your standard StatSheet of teams and team members, list your favorites among them, as well as any “foes.” You can also assemble charts based on particular trends of interest, make predictions, and even share photos.

In short, StatSheet is there to help groom your sportsman’s profile to represent your take on the worlds of basketball and football - the better to share with people you know, and vice versa. So long as you’re able to discern the information provided by the service, the mechanism that makes all gears turn here really seems as easy to browse and build upon as any like-minded option to come before.

Of course, it’s not the be-all and end-all of sports websites. As I mention above, StatSheet is more an additive to any conversation or discussion you might have, whether it’s with people right by your side or thousands of miles away. Still, ESPN and others have spent plenty of days producing and reproducing numerical league-team-player profiles. So here’s a chance to form your own!

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

17 Ways to Enjoy the NBA Season Online

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:32:13 +0000

Source:Mashable!

It’s time for another NBA season, and as with so many things today, you can turn to the Web for all the information you need. From standard news to in-depth fantasy league analysis, there is a little bit of everything online for basketball fans.

So, who do you think is going all the way this season, and what sites will you use to keep up?

Facebook Applications

iRep NBA - Choose your favorite team, display their logo on your profile, and help them take the leader board with the most supporters.

NBA Challenge - Built by PicksPal, NBA Challenge lets you pick your team, score weekly points, and challenge your friends to compete against you.

NBA Fantasy Challenge - The NBA brings their official Fantasy Challenge to Facebook and allows you to compete with your friends.

NBA Scores & News - Get final NBA scores to display on your profile as well as headlines for your favorite team.

Which NBA Legend Are You? - If you aren’t satisfied with comparing yourself with just the NBA’s 2008 players (see below), you can take this quiz to discover which legendary player you are most like.

Which NBA Player Are You? - With just 10 questions, you can find out which 2008 NBA star you are most like. Sadly, this does not entitle you to their salary.

Fantasy League News

FantasyBasketballCafe.com - FantasyBasketballCafe gives you articles on how to do things like conduct a successful trade, rank players, and the sleeper of the week.

Head2Head.com - Head2Head brings you all of the latest news from the league, but also tops it off with a potential impact analysis for the overall game, and, in turn, your fantasy team.

HoopsWorld.com - Very in-depth analysis of what is going on around the league as it pertains to fantasy league play.

InsideHoops.com - Besides standard NBA news and scores, InsideHoops also features numerous tools for people participating in fantasy leagues this season.

Rotoworld.com - Rotoworld brings you all of the latest NBA news that is most pertinent to basketball fantasy players, along with in-depth analysis.

Information & Scores

ESPN.com - The well-known sports network features all of the latest scores, news and in-depth analysis of every aspect of the game.

NBA.com - The official website of the National Basketball Association.

Sports.Yahoo.com - Yahoo’s basketball section features dedicated sections for injuries and rumors, making it essential reading for anyone participating in a fantasy league.

SportsIllustrated.CNN.com - Has pages for each of the NBA teams, scores and suggested reading from other sites around the Web.

Sportsline.com - The CBS Sportsline site focuses heavily on their fantasy league as much as they do on the news and scores.

USAToday.com - Not quite as in-depth as some other sources, USA Today brings you headlines and some analysis on the latest happenings.

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Politics and Baseball on Twitter: Who’s on First?

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:33:43 +0000

Source:Mashable!

If you’ve had brothers or sisters or cousins older than yourself, there’s a reasonable chance that you’ve been the recipient of objects most frequently described as hand-me-downs.

Rarely would such an exchange elicit happy thoughts. Except for your parent or guardian, who saved some cash in the process, as well as the giver of said object, who could net some so-so karma for passing it along. (Major feel-good moments are had with Good Will donations and the like.) Well, there is now a service crafted to accommodate precisely this process. Fittingly, it’s name literally spells out Handmedowns.com. And quite frankly, it may actually be worth your while.

Alternatives to the service can be somewhat treacherous to browse, after all. There of course is eBay, where the idea of second-hand shopping for years has taken on a life of its own, and from which many small businesses have formed. But besides the option to browse auctions and Buy-it-Now items, or, if you’re an adventurous individual, a journey through the immense classifieds warehouse that is Craigslist, your options are quite limited. Particularly if you wish to search specifically for children before they’ve even reached their pre-teen years.

For instance, Freebabyhandmedowns.com is all but unusable. Swaphandmedowns has nothing to do with the concept we associate with the phrase. And Thehandmedowns.com I suspect has something to do with music. Apart from a logo, its front page is blank with no interactivity to speak of. So, on the whole, Handmedowns.com appears to be fairly unique.

I for one would advise against the use of the website’s subtitle, “classifieds for moms,” simply to keep things as welcoming to mothers and fathers and whomever else need advertise their wear. But that is the card the public has been dealt, so we’ll take it for what it is: a place to buy, sell, give freely, or donate to charity anything to do with gear for young children.

Technically speaking, Handmedowns.com is fairly well engineered. It’s easy enough for most any user to understand, making one’s effort to browse a real walk in the park. Items are segmented as you’d want them to be, and the attachment of a discussion groups (so far void of activity, apart from a single safety recall mention) might be helpful to those who not only seek or post product information, but wish to talk about matters with fellow members.

As far as product listings go, you have one of three options, which I mentioned briefly in the lines above. Selling involves all entry points that the Give option will present users, albeit with an extra field for setting a price. The Donate button offers information about a Los Angeles-based charity called Baby2Baby.

It’s not certain that Handmedowns.com, currently in “beta,” will become immensely popular given the state of the American economy. Yet, just this weekend, The New York Times delivered a report on the increase in garage sales being conducted. Put two and two together, and you may well make a positive-leaning prediction as to the fate of Handmedowns.com.

It could take some time to truly hits its stride, seeing as it only caters to the cities of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. But the necessary foundation has been laid. If nothing else, its connections to engines like Craigslist, Kijiji, and Oodle definitely makes for a thorough roundup.

Source:Mashable!

As was expected, coverage of election campaigning in the U.S. at this point in time has reached a frenzied pinnacle. And we’ve paid a good share of attention to the race, as you may have gathered over the past several months.

Yet, there is now another event currently underway, albeit considerably less political, that is grabbing its fair bit of attention among the American populace. It goes by the name of baseball. World Series baseball, at that. So we ask you: Which of the two grabs your eye more often these days? What does your Twitter feed look like with these moments vying for camera time?

You might say there is no clear juxtaposition to make, no thinking that it’s one or the other. Perhaps some rhetoric recently dealt on election campaign over the candidates’ fleeting and wish-washy favoritism for the Phillies and Rays does go a little way in melding the two. But there’s still the matter of where you and those you follow in the growing social media space stand insofar as sports talk; either on the diamond where RBIs and home runs are on the order, or in and around Washington, D.C.

Personally, I see a near equal mix, at least since the MLB final was near secured. And as both teams continue battle in Philadelphia in Game 3 of the series tonight, talk of that business will presumably take the lead.

Suffice it to say that Twitter is abuzz about both, however sandwiched they may consequently be. A simple Twitter search will prove as much. But who’s on base more? That’s a toughie, and can really only be your call. You might be free of jabber having to do with one newsmaker or the other. Or you might have your fill of each. Or neither. So tell us, what’s your inbox look like these days? And what gets your microbloggerly juices flowing?

Do you see/say more about the election or the World Series today? ( surveys)

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20+ Ways to Enjoy the World Series Online

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:34:18 +0000

Source:Mashable!

Casual gaming on the Web has grown over the past year or so to become a fairly substantial revenue generator. Of course, 2007 figures pegged the burgeoning online market at $2.25 billion to the Halo and WoW-enriched $20 billion for console and PC titles and the like. So, relatively speaking, online games rank somewhat on the small side. But entirely Web-based creations do appear to be worthwhile pursuits all the same.

Billions of dollars are hard to ignore, after all. The question consistently on the minds of online entertainment developers remains one of how best to grow. NeoEdge, an ad network specializing in the field of casual games, feels in-game overlays may be one lucrative way to proceed.

The company has introduced today what it calls “Brand Overlays.” These in effect deliver floating advertisement spots in a portion of a window during gameplay for up to 10 seconds that, at the choosing of a marketer and game developer, can be situated in any of the four corners of the screen, or, alternatively, within slivers of real estate at the top or bottom of the screen. Call them header or footer banners, if you like.

The purpose for these overlays is to attract more advertisers to the online gaming world who otherwise may sense that spaces around a website are not as engaging as things seen within games. Brand Overlays might be thought of as a halfway point between a literal external marketing drive and so-called product placement within the dimensions of a gaming environment; not so sly as to become part of a 2D or 3D realm, but neither completely disconnected from the interactive process.

For simple aesthetic propriety, I myself would argue that NeoEdge’s option to market items in a corner of the screen is significantly less appealing than the seemingly more common approach taken by a cross-window banner. It’s what Web users know, so to speak. But the objective for each is the same, and the choice of options may prove a better bet for NeoEdge in certain settings. Much depends on the when and where parameters for a particular stage, as well as the general graphical layout of a game. So far, NeoEdge claims “high click-through rates and no decrease in (gamer) satisfaction levels” in preliminary tests.

Source:Mashable!

The World Series gets started this evening, featuring the Tampa Bay Rays and the Philadelphia Phillies. We’ve put together a list of more than 20 resources for enhancing your World Series experience, including real-time updates, pre-and post-game interviews, video replays, statistics and more.

Let us know which services are your favorites, and also your predictions for who you think will win!

Online Coverage

WorldSeries.com - the official site from MLB.com. You can see video clips from each game, interviews, statistics and even look at past World Series videos.

Tampa Bay Rays - the official MLB team site for the American League Champion.

Philadelphia Phillies - the official MLB team site for the National League Champion.

Yahoo Sports - provides World Series Coverage.

ESPN - has coverage of the Fall Classic.

FoxSports - covers the action online and on TV.

Sporting News - well-known sports magazine that covers the big games

Sports Illustrated - the popular sports magazine will provide a great deal of post-game analysis.

Facebook Apps

Major League Baseball FanBook - the MLB’s official app on Facebook.

Phillies Fans - app for Facebook users that love the Philadelphia Phillies

Phillies Phanatics - another app for Facebook users that support the Phils.

Tampa Bay Rays Fans - app for Facebook users that follow the Rays.

Tampa Bay Rays Faithful - another App for Tampa Bay fans on Facebook.

Twitter

#WorldSeries hashtag - use this to follow every tweet on Twitter about the World Series.

#Phillies - use this to keep track of tweets about the Phillies.

#Rays - use this to keep track of tweets about the Rays.

iPhone Apps

MLB At-Bat - a feature-rich iPhone app from Major League Baseball. Will give you every detail about the series including stats and video replays for .99 cents.

Box Score - a simple and free app that shows the vital stats for every game

Plusmo Pro Baseball Live - a free app that provides a little more information than Box Score

LiveSportz MLB - a free apps that shows updates on a baseball diamond

BlackBerry Apps

MLB Gameday - official Major League Baseball app comparable to their MLB At-Bat iPhone app.

ESPN - this tiny app lets you keep up with not only the World Series, but just about all other sports as well.

Sports Illustrated - another app that’ll keep the scores pumping to your Blackberry device.

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