LOL

So I know this is over, but in case anyone still watches it, I thought this pic was hilarious. I'm a pretty nerdy person, and definitely have tons of friends that play Dungeons and Dragons (to this day) so I laughed pretty hard.

S

Top Fantasy Football Apps

Fantasy Football mobile apps are a big portion of how people stay connected with their teams, use cheat sheets and just plain enjoy the game. So what are the best apps and why are they the best. To figure out the best mobile applications for Fantasy Football I looked at blogs, news articles, and even downloaded a few myself to try out. Here are the best 4 apps for Fantasy Football:

1.) Yahoo! Fantasy Football '11

What makes the Yahoo! app at the top for myself is the user interface. It seems a lot easier to navigate than some of the other applications. This app like many of the other popular Fantasy Football mobile apps is FREE. So as in earlier posts, Free comes at a price, but in this app advertisements don't seem to be too much of a bother. I think the best parts about this application are the Live Scoring function and Roster Management. From reading past reviews online many people complained about the application having difficulty with glitches but I found that it works pretty well in the current version.

2.) ESPN Fantasy Football '11

This application is really similar to Yahoo! but does offer some different features such as of course it has links and provides much of the content you would see on ESPN both televised and online. ESPN is another FREE application, but it's advertisements mainly focus around ESPN so it is less noticeable that they are there. One of the biggest differences I see is the app allows for is in the FantasyCast Live Scoring, which allows for real-time detailed information and specifics about match-ups. This app also allows for a lot more news and tweets directly from ESPN's analysts. Now it is important to note that you can purchase an app for $2.99 that is a manager and a mix of both ESPN and Yahoo!, but if you like the free app and you have a preference you can have that option as well.

3.) NFL Fantasy Cheat Sheet '11

I found this app to be good for beginner to Fantasy Football leagues, which includes me. Especially if it's your first time, you probably feel the need to do a ton of research, this app takes a lot of the work out of it. My favorite part of this app is that it feature

s a pick recommendation search that helps you pick players, search rankings, and see who is making it week by week. This app is $2.99 but it comes with really great information and the NFL name behind it. So if you're starting out or even if you have been playing Fantasy Football for awhile this app is well worth the cost.

4.) Fantasy Football Insider '11

Last, but certainly not least, is the Fantasy Football Insider. This pick happened because it is both Free and if you want you get the premium version for a price. This is one of the first apps I got to look at Fantasy Football and it is still one of my favorites. My other favorite part of this app is the integrated Twitter feed, where you can look at all of your favorites players, analysts, and friends. The other best part of this app is that it offers video content. Wouldn't it be great if they integrated somehow with oovoo.com?

What's your favorite application or what apps get you through Fantasy Football season?

Sources

http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/08/24/5-best-fantasy-football-apps-for-iphone/

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/27/best-fantasy-football-apps-for-owners_n_911075.html#s316772&title=Fantasy_Football_Monster

Picture

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app

Workplace Fantasy Football

The mobile device has changed the way humans interact, access information, and at incredibly fast speeds. Though, in many ways this access has changed what used to be a boring lunch hour, train commute, etc. into times where we can be entertained and gain information. For Fantasy Football fans, the game now goes with you wherever you are and you can watch draft picks and gain cheat sheets from home, work, coffee shop, train commute, and airplanes. The question then arises that if the game goes with you wherever you are what happens to the other parts of life you used to focus on? Mainly more than anything there is a growing concern that Fantasy Football may be taking over what used to be a productive workplace.

Has Fantasy Football changed your productivity levels in the workplace?

The answer is a difficult one and really depends on who you ask, there are two sides to every coin but let's start with the negative first. PR Newswire reports that conflicting evidence shows that Fantasy Football "costs the economy $10.5 billion annually by being a distraction" and also helps to "boon the economy by $4 billion dollars." So yes Fantasy Football is helping to fuel the economy quite a bit, but in comparison to what it's costing us as a workplace distraction it makes it very easy to see why it's hurting productivity in the workplace. With $6.5 billion dollars hanging in the balance, it makes a good argument for some employers to say it's not worth the effect on their companies bottom line. After all, you got hired at your workplace to do a job for set hours during the day and for many Fantasy Football is not on the on that growing list of tasks that even before the mobile age we still could not complete in that 8+ hour work day.

So that was the negative side, that yes Fantasy Football is a distraction to our workplace and it is costing us billions. Brad Reed challenges this view slightly in his article in "Network World." Reed shows that in a survey conducted by Challenger, Gray, and Christmas that 54 percent of human resources departments aren't bothered by employees playing Fantasy Football in the workplace. The study also found that 8 percent of workplaces actually encouraged participation in Fantasy Football as part of team and morale building efforts. How does your workplace handle it? Does your office encourage it? It's easy to see how this would really depend on what type of career you have and what kind of workplace environment you have. For myself, working in the art industry allows for a more relaxed work environment with some of the things you can do like listen to music at your desk, but at this point it's such a pressured environment as well that Fantasy Football would never be allowed. I'm sure it's different everywhere you go but it's not encouraged where I work right now. This may also be because workplaces in general are still in a very transitional period of time where bosses and employees alike are still adapting to having a workplace that for many businesses can go with you now through the use of mobile devices.

So while more and more employers a getting use to these new technologies that allow more work to be done anywhere anytime, they will also be more challenged in the future to consider things like Fantasy Football, games, drawing, and listening to music while at work. In Reed's article he quotes the CEO of Challenger, John Challenger as saying, "It's difficult for companies to take a hard-line stance against Fantasy Football...the Internet technology that helped fuel the rapid growth of fantasy football participation and makes it possible to manage teams from one's own desk also makes it possible for employees to attend to work duties during their personal time." So in essence you as the employee have made a choice, be allowed to manage your Fantasy Football team from your desk at work, but as a trade off being willing to take that work you don't get done with you to complete on your personal time. But we all need short breaks sometimes, even more so to refocus and recharge about the task we have at hand. For instance in a report produced by Fantazzle.com seeking to dispel the belief that Fantasy Football is bad for office productivity, research found that taking a short break is actually more helpful to your brain to come back and concur a task. “once the forty-five minute threshold has passed and the worker and the pre-frontal cortex are both drained, a break is vital to maintaining productivity and vital to learning.” So yes Fantasy Football can function successfully as the break needed to regain your thoughts and strengthen your ability to learn. So what would you prefer the ability to do Fantasy Football in your workplace or leave it for your personal time and do your work at work? The mobile device is challenging yet again separations, many times between the real and virtual worlds, and now it is challenging and blurring the lines between work time and personal time.

And just for fun some workplace Fantasy Football comics:

Sources

PR Newswire (2010, December 15). "Are fantasy football games a workplace distraction?" Retrieved from EBSCOhost November 1, 2011, http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/are-fantasy-football-games-a-workplace-distraction-111970829.html

Reed, B. (2010, September 30). "Fantasy football killing productivity? Pure fantasy." Retrieved from EBSCOhost November 1, 2011, http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/093010-fantasy-football.html

Fantazzle.com (2010, December 14). "Fantasy football is not a workplace distraction." Retrieved from Google.co, November 1, 2011, http://www.fantazzle.com/fantasy-site/fantasy-thought-leadership.php

Graphics

http://ericspitznagel.com/content/published-stories/fantasy-football-leagues/

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Mr-Cs-Seven-Signs-Youre-Obsessed-with-Fantasy-Football/1/

Ad Analysis!

So I sort of waited for a while to get a new post in, and I’ll tell you why. I was doing some research. For the past 2 weeks, during the Lions’ games, I’ve been watching commercials. And tracking them…
I was interested in seeing how many commercials were aimed at women during the games, if any. I know the great majority is commercials directed at men; we are well aware of the demographic of people watching the game. But I was surprised to find there actually are commercials directed at women. And, shockingly, both weeks yielded them at the same time during the games: the beginning and end.
Perhaps this is when women are paying attention most. But these commercials had very similar make up, too, with one main component: emotion. According to Siefert, et all, “ Recent models of advertising effectiveness have emphasized the importance of emotions, suggesting that advertisements that engage consumers on emotional levels will be most effective,” (1). If this is when women are watching the most, it makes most sense to play these types of commercials then.
Each of the commercials had a theme as well: empowering women. They emphasized successful women, women portraying a champion or showing independence. I thought this was pretty cool seeing that men can relate well (and share in forming an opinion about the ad) because it’s applicable.


Moreover, I also tracked the commercials “interactive factor.” By this, I mean those that encouraged social media interaction, app interaction, or website direction. The overwhelming majority of ads represented some sort of interactive factor. Additionally, the majority had web direction: “check out www.blahblah.com for more info,” etc.
As many could guess about advertising, “data suggest that interpersonal communication between consumers is more effective in influencing consumers' willingness to purchase a product than exposure to advertising alone,” (Advertising Age, 2008; Mohr, 2007; Rogers, 1995). By including this “interactive factor,” companies are giving viewers the perfect opportunity to create a legitimate buzz about the ad/product. If advertisers were smart, there wouldn’t be one single commercial without some sort of link presented.
My last observation that I found interesting was the advertisements for applications. Usable on the iPhone and Droid (prominently Droid), these applications were from two main genres: football and alcohol. There were a large amount of commercials directed at Fantasy Football players, promoting their fantasy platform.

Here's a stream of said ads (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QmH4jkqJFQ) (What I noted most interesting about these is that people that are playing fantasy are already well into their season, why keep advertising the programs? For the phone?)

Secondly, and the most interactive ad of both weeks, was the Bud Light commercial, asking people to “snap a pic” where the product was sold and “tag” Bud Light on Facebook to be entered into a contest. Interesting!



I really liked doing some research on the advertisements for the past couple weeks. It was a really tangible experience seeing what we’ve been researching/studying sort of come to life!

References:

Siefert, C. J., Kothuri, R., Jacobs, D. B., Levine, B., Plummer, J., & Marci, C. D. (2009). Winning the Super "Buzz" Bowl. Journal of Advertising Research, 49(3), 293-303. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

ADVERTISING AGE. "Family and Friends Most Influential on Shoppers/' April 9, 2008.

Mohr, I. "Super Bowl: A Case Study of Buzz Marketing." International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship 9, 1 (2007): 33-39.

Rogers, E. M. Diffusion in Innovation, 4th ed. New York: Free Press, 1995.

TV Pic Courtesy:
http://thebsreport.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/too-much-tv-may-mean-earlier-death/

Rosie the Riveter Pic Courtesy:
http://askmissalpha.com/2010/07/the-myth-of-the-independent-woman/

NFL's Social Media Bipolar Disorder

“Is this for real?” I asked myself, as did countless others, after Houston Texans’ all-star running back Arian Foster tweeted the MRI image of his injured hamstring during the final week of the preseason. I went scrambling to message boards and news sites to find out if my first-round fantasy football draft choice would really miss part of the season due to injury. After years of playing, I finally scored a top-3 pick in the draft for the first time in my fantasy-football career. Thanks to Twitter, my fantasy football fantasy came crashing to an end. Let’s just say the first three weeks of this season without Foster were, for lack of a better word, brutal.

As news broke of Foster’s injury, there was also something else going on. Fans and fantasy football players especially started to harass Foster and even sent death threats. While Foster was quick to point out that he would be fine for the season opener, ESPN and every other sports media outlet it seems had experts saying otherwise.

Over the past few years, Twitter has soared to the top of the elite social media platforms. This instant connectivity comes with consequences. Not only did Foster’s actions anger his fantasy owners, but it also alerted Houston’s first week opponent, the Indianapolis Colts, that the top running back in the league was more than likely not going to play and they were better prepared for the other running backs on the team.

The instant updates that can come from tweets changed the way journalists cover the game. Now whenever something significant happens on or off the field, Twitter is the first thing reporters like Denver Post sports writer Lindsey Jones turn to in order to break news (Jones). Twitter has become so popular that the NFL has put restrictions on the use of the application during game days and other events. What would seem like harmless tweeting, the NFL views it as a hazard to its players and teams.

The NFL has done stranger things than its implemented social media policy (Michael Vick I’m looking at you…). It prohibits use of Twitter, Facebook, etc… 90 minutes before a game by all players and team staff until after the locker room interviews are finished. Teams also can add their own stipulations to the policy. Jones recalls stories of having to run outside the Denver Broncos’ practice facility to break a story because the team bans cellphone use of any kind inside its doors (Jones).

The NFL is advocating more use of social media through the teams as a whole though. They have a new initiative this season to get the teams to start using social media as a way to interact directly with fans (Drell). “We’re increasingly focused on engagement, acquisition and community… We’re rebuilding the fan base and the avidity of the fan base — if non-fans get engaged, casual fans get more involved and avid fans become super avid fans,” said Jeff Berman, GM of NFL Digital (Drell).

Fantasy football is playing a large part in this new social media push by the NFL. Fantasy players drive “massive” amount of online fan interactions said Berman (Drell). The NFL Red Zone channel originated from the demand of fantasy players to be able to watch in real time, scoring plays from out-of-market games. Not only does the NFL have a main Twitter account, they also offer one that is dedicated to top-fantasy news and numerous fantasy football experts registered. They realize the gold-mine they have in fantasy football are trying to keep up with it.

Sources:

Drell, Lauren. “How the NFL is Dominating Social Media.” Mashable. 18 Oct 2011. Web. 21 Oct 2011. http://mashable.com/2011/10/18/nfl-digital/

Jones, Lindsay. "The sports tweet: new routines on an old beat." Nieman Reports 64.4 (2010): 56+. Academic OneFile. Web. 22 Oct. 2011.

"Twitter War Breaks Out Over Arian Foster's Hamstring Injury." Khou.com. 31 Aug 2011. Web. 21 Oct 2011.

Fantasy Football: How Mobile Changed the Game

For many people Fantasy Football is a way of life and since it became available on the mobile device it is even more integrated into people's lives. Mobile device use for Fantasy Football has allowed the game to go us us wherever we go and access whenever we want. Yahoo's Fantasy Football app like many other apps, allow users to view scores, add players, manage your roster, matchups, player statistics and news. What do you like about using a mobile device for Fantasy Football?

According to the Yahoo! Blog, "Fantasy Football use tripled last year in 2010 with over 30% of fantasy players engaging on their mobile device." In addition almost half of the Yahoo! Fantasy Football page views came from mobile devices, which was "4 times as much than had been in the past two years." Yahoo! also stated that they expect mobile use to reach 50% this year in 2011. Mobile has allowed the world of Fantasy Football to explode and one can only guess it will continue to experience growth as more applications become available and more people use mobile devices to access Fantasy Sports.

A recent search on the Apple Store leads 180 results for both free and paid mobile applications for Fantasy Football. But really it's not just apps that have changed the way we interact with the game.

Yahoo! released a commercial in 2009 about using its mobile app for Fantasy Football.

Many people are even turning to Facebook to start building Fantasy Football leagues, Facebook just another application available on a mobile device. Do you use Facebook to interact with friends about Fantasy Football drafts? It has even been extended into newer realms of interaction, such as the site oovoo.com

In August 2011 PR Newswire reported that, "Cris Collinsworth are teaming up to bring fans SMACK TALK, the ultimate fantasy football and social video chat experience, through ooVoo's newly released 12-way HD video chat service." 2011 will mark the first year that users can now draft their picks on oovoo.com allowing people to drafts from anywhere at anytime. oovoo.com is spearheading the next movement in social video chatting providing a way for people to interact no matter if its two people or twelve. "The site is also accessible on all major platforms, allowing participation from PC, Mac, iOS and Android phones and tablets." Do you use oovoo.com?

So what has mobile done for the world of Fantasy Football? The game has changed, people want access to entertainment anywhere they go and anytime of day. The mobile device has provided sports fans this opportunity to participate in Fantasy sports wherever they are and to engage with fellow players from all over the world. Mobile is growing the Fantasy Football market, making it more profitable mainly because it allows for access. The future of the Fantasy Football world is strengthened by the mobile market and will continue to grow as more and more people gain more and more access. Where do you check Fantasy Football stats? Home? Work? Traveling? The possibilities are now endless, the game is always with you that is if you want it to be.

Sources:

PR Newswire (2011, August 8). "ooVoo launches 'Smack Talk', the first of its kind ultimate fantasy football social video experience with new 2-way HD offering." Retrieved from EBSCOhost October 23, 2011,

http://www.oovoo.com/SelectedPressReleases/08_17_2011-ooVooLaunchesSmackTalk.htm

Yahoo Blog (2011, March). "Yahoo fantasy baseball '11 and the impact of mobile on fantasy sports." http://ymobileblog.com/blog/2011/03/31/yahoo-fantasy-baseball-’11-the-impact-of-mobile-on-fantasy-sports/

Yahoo Facebook (2011). http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=275851790156

Graphics:

Mobile Picture: http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/blackberry-playbook-sdk-video-gives-us-a-brief-look-at-the-tablet-2011014/

Yahoo! Commercial: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=275851790156

Collinsworth Photo: http://www.nationofblue.com/cris-collinsworth-coach-highlands-7646/

Fantasy Football: Getting Fans Fired-Up or Just Fired?

At the close of my last post, I mentioned a couple of interesting topics that could be explored a little further. The one that most compelled me was Creamer's 2006 discussion of lost productivity in the workplace due to Fantasy Football. So, I started thinking, how many people have gotten fired for their fantasy activity?

CBS Money Watch posted this article about at least 4 men who were indeed. Fidelity Investments is one of many companies who track their employees' online behavior including web browsing history and e-mails. In this time of limited head counts and high productivity needs, FI decided that this lack of focus couldn't be tolerated.

But wait, is this legal? Well, it is completely lawful to fire someone for gambling in the workplace. While gambling isn't required of all players, many leagues have a buy-in fee and some end of season pay outs for winners. This, under law, makes it a gambling activity.

This story of Cameron Pettigrew and friends was an internet sensation in 2009 and 2010. Perhaps one of the best responses to the story came in the Risk Management Monitor blog, here. The author pulls together statistics and stories from around the web to craft a thoughtful follow-up to the incident. Sure beats all the "that sucks" type comments on other article discussion boards.

PC World shared this breakdown of an in-depth study of productivity loss due to fantasy football playing in the office. An interesting read, and though well cited, questionable to believe that the average salary of fantasy football players is $80,000 per year. However, whether the offenders are making $10 an hour or$100,000 a year, an average of 45 minutes a day still adds up.

Perhaps employers can fight this fantasy time-wasting with a unique enforcement strategy. Perhaps they should call Terry Tate, office linebacker.