Music Lesson
“The lesson from Napster and iTunes is that there’s even MORE music than there was before,” marketing guru Seth Godin says in a recent interview. Pull the Pocket translates for racing:
The lesson from ADW and the Internet is that there’s even MORE opportunities to see racing than there was before.
It Bears Repeating
A reminder: “Web 2.0 is a conversation.”
See also: “He was the first politician I dealt with who understood that the technology was a given and that it could be used in new ways.” (There’s a lesson for racing in that understanding.)
Will do: “Look for the NTRA to continue its efforts … with a heavy emphasis on wikinomics.”
Just one small thing: “The age of crowdsourcing your way to success is over.”
It’s Awesome
Version 1.2 of the MLB At Bat iPhone app wins raves from baseball fans. And makes this racing fan a little envious. Imagine: Results from any track? Final times, fractions, and odds? Chart comments? Video highlights? All on my mobile device? Yes, yes, yes, yes, please. As long as I’m dreaming, let’s throw in the ability to look up historical data on horses, jockeys, trainers, etc., and simple stats too.
Related: MLB has been ahead of most sports when it comes using web and mobile technologies successfully. Check out this interesting Fast Company article about the success of MLB Advanced Media, started in 2000 after 30 clubs pooled $75 million. The group, responsible for developing wireless services, web apps, streaming video products, etc. brought in $450 million in 2007. “No one in the game believed that the Internet would be as pervasive a commercial vehicle for us in such a short amount of time.” There’s a lesson in there for racing, despite the industry’s fragmentation …
Activist Punter
… organizes complaints online about the going over UK turf courses, accuses tracks of misleading readings, gains support. Progress lies ahead, reports the Guardian:
“This is very much an issue that is being looked at,” Paul Struthers, of the BHA, said yesterday. “The problem is that to be able to make realistic comparisons between GoingStick readings at different tracks, we need to compile sufficient data. At the end of this year, we will have two full years’ of readings, which should enable us to do just that.
“Use of the GoingStick will be required at all tracks from January 1, when we would also hope to encourage clerks to take readings much closer to racing, which could be published on our website.”
This goes back to our conversation on Monday, neatly demonstrating how technology has changed the relationship between racing and its fans by giving people an easy way to connect, wherever they might be, whatever the issue …
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Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
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