ESPN Rolls Out Apps for Local Sites, Passport App
Story Highlights
After announcing mobile plans for its local sports Websites in May, ESPN has officially launched six local-based apps for the iPhone and iPod touch, which are now available on iTunes. The five ESPN Local apps cover the Dallas, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York markets, offering users breaking news, scores, and information from local teams as well as access to local writers, bloggers, and a custom local SportsCenter.
Also released this week, ESPN Passport is a geo-location scrapbook-like app that allows fans to commemorate their at-the-game experiences and share them with friends via social-media networks like Facebook. The app allows users to capture real-time perspective with the ability to “check-in,” upload photos, and share commentary while at a game.
ESPN Local apps feature an easy to navigate rotating carousel that allows users to flip through the content to mimic the top stories of each local site homepage. In addition to news and information, these apps feature GPS-activated local weather updates, blog posts and tweets from each of the local contributors to the sites, an interactive scoreboard, stadium guides for all local professional sports teams, schedules, the ability to text direct to ESPN Radio stations in ESPN Local cities, live digital audio from the ESPN Radio stations, and in-app purchase opportunities.
Collectively, ESPN Local sites reached 5.7 million unique visitors and generated 45 million total minutes.
The ESPN Passport app is also free to download and allows fans to commemorate their at-the-game experiences by checking in at the game based on geo-location. Fans can upload their own photos, seat location, and comments while sharing with friends via social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. ESPN plans to aggregate this user-generated content from sporting events and feature fan’s perspective of the game on ESPN.com.
For SVG’s full coverage of the latest ESPN apps, click here.