Sports Technology & Communications News from Around the World

At their heart, watching sports is a community event. When we go to a game we are usually surrounded by several thousand like-minded individuals who we will cheer … or boo right along with. We’ll high five, or commiserate with perfect strangers as if they were our best friends. But what happens when you can’t go to a game? What if you are watching all alone from the comfort of your couch? One new iPad app appears to be trying to make sure you are still a part of a community even when you are all alone, and the SportsStream application seems to hit it out of the park in this regard.

The App’s creator, Will Hunsinger came up with the idea for SportsStream while he was sitting on his couch watching his beloved Georgetown Hoyas with his wife. At the same time he was chatting with a friend from Switzerland using Facebook (News - Alert) and texting back and forth with his father. 

"I was like 'God, if I could just have this in my hand, where I was watching the game and do all this and see what people were talking about on Twitter (News - Alert) ... it would make the game even more fun because now I'm connected with all the people I care about being connected with while I'm in the moment,'" he said.

The app, which was just released on the App store on Thursday, has everything a sports fan, who loves to talk to others, could possibly want. When you first open the free application, you are prompted to link it to your Facebook page. Once you get started up, you go through and pick out your favorite teams in the NBA, the MLB (News - Alert), NHL and NFL. You are then able to enter a scoreboard of sorts where you can choose to “follow” any game of your choosing. Once inside this part of the app, you can see all the Twitter followers who are watching and commenting on the game. You can easily reply, or simply make your own post and soon you’ll be involved in a heavy discussion with people around the world.

The best part of the app is that while you get to tweet to your heart’s content about the game or games you’re following, there is also a fully immersive way to track what’s going on using a play-by-play dashboard similar to what ESPN (News - Alert) or Yahoo uses. You can also set the application so that it will alert you to happenings going on in the games.