MLB Advanced Media Collaborates with Microsoft for Next Generation MLB.com Experience using Microsoft Silverlight
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New solution for live and on-demand video, interactivity to enhance the way fans watch baseball on the Web on Mac and Windows
LAS VEGAS, April 16 - Today at the 2007 National Association of Broadcasters conference (NAB2007), Major League Baseball (MLB) Advanced Media announced support for Microsoft Silverlight, a new cross-browser, cross- platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. As MLB.com's user base continues to grow, MLB Advanced Media is always looking for the latest technology to enable the delivery of the most innovative user experience for baseball fans worldwide. This is why MLB Advanced Media is working with Microsoft Silverlight to develop the next generation of live and on-demand video on MLB.com and the club sites. Silverlight offers consistent experiences to both Mac and Windows users on a variety of browsers including Internet Explorer, FireFox, and Safari using Windows Media Video (WMV).
"Silverlight represents a great opportunity to for us to continue to innovate in our presentation of live baseball to our fans via MLB.com," said MLB Advanced Media CEO, Bob Bowman. "We're excited about the possibilities presented by this new technology and look forward to continued developments from Microsoft that will help to enable the next generation of how we deliver our content to fans."
MLB Advanced Media is a leader in the space of online free and subscription-based delivery of premium sports content, and amongst other programming will offer video highlights, condensed games, MLB.TV and MLB.TV Premium, using Silverlight. As a part of the relationship, additional media elements across the site will be updated to deliver greater levels of interactivity.
"MLB.com has been an important bellwether for the evolution of rich media content on the Web, and will be a strong showcase of the powerful capabilities Silverlight can enable," said S. Somasegar, corporate vice president of Developer Division Management at Microsoft. "Microsoft is offering partners like MLB Advanced Media a complete solution with Silverlight, helping them reach multiple platforms, scale from mobile to high definition, and keep costs down."
For the 2007 Baseball season MLB.com has re-launched its flagship MLB.TV product, which offers every 2007 regular season out-of-market game live and on-demand, via MLB.com. In addition, MLB.com has introduced MLB.TV Premium, incrementally offering high quality streaming of MLB.TV games and the MLB.TV Mosaic. The MLB.TV Mosaic is MLB.com's new downloadable media player, featuring the opportunity for fans to watch up to six games concurrently, utilize the player tracker to track their favorite players and receive live alerts, and watch live baseball alongside the full complement of MLB.com's live stats. Additional detail on MLB.com's subscription products, including audio and mobile offerings can be found at: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/subscriptions/index.jsp.
The broader Microsoft Silverlight development platform and additional details of MLB.com's collaborative efforts with Microsoft will be the subject of the keynote presentation by Microsoft and MLB Advanced Media CEO Bob Bowman at the upcoming Mix07 Conference, April 30, 2007 in Las Vegas NV. For more information, visit http://mix07.com/.
About MLB Advanced Media, LP
Established in June 2000 following a unanimous vote by the 30 Major League Baseball club owners to centralize all of Baseball's Internet operations, MLB Advanced Media LP (MLBAM) is the interactive media and internet company of Major League Baseball. MLBAM manages the official league site, www.MLB.com, and each of the 30 individual Club sites to create the most comprehensive Major League Baseball resource on the Internet. MLB.com offers fans the most complete baseball information on the web, including up-to-date statistics, game summaries, extensive historical information, and exclusive features about Major League Baseball events and programs, including on-line ticket sales, baseball merchandise, authenticated memorabilia and collectibles, fantasy games, live and archived radio broadcasts of every game, live and archived video webcasts of entire games, pitch-by-pitch enactment of games, and hosted post-game video highlight shows. MLB.com offered more live events on the Internet than any other website in the world.
Source: MLB Advanced Media, LP
CONTACT:
Jim Gallagher,
MLB.com,
+1-212-485-3182,
jim.gallagher@mlb.com
Web site: http://www.mlb.com/
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/subscriptions/index.jsp
http://mix07.com/
