{"id":117835,"date":"2014-12-17T16:46:10","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T23:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=117835"},"modified":"2014-12-17T16:50:50","modified_gmt":"2014-12-17T23:50:50","slug":"meet-mobile-adds-subscription-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/meet-mobile-adds-subscription-fees\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Mobile To Charge For Swim Meet Results"},"content":{"rendered":"

DALLAS – In a controversial move announced today, Active.com has decided to add subscription fees to the latest upgrade of its mobile swimming results application Meet Mobile.<\/p>\n

While Active also announced plenty of other upgrades, the most notable information in its upgrade announcement is that Active would begin charging a subscription fee for access to both its archived and live meet results.<\/p>\n

The cost of this subscription is planned to be $1.99 per month or $5.99 per year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a major breakaway from where most mainstream sports currently reside within the Internet ecosphere. \u00a0Every single other mainstream and\/or major sport provides open and free access to the most basic levels of results access. While stats-heavy sports like Major League Baseball have entities that charge for access to higher-level data produced by sabermetrics-like content, none of them charge for the most basic information like who won and how a team scored.<\/p>\n

With Active and Hy-Tek<\/a> largely owning the market on swimming results within the United States and Australia, it will become that much more difficult for the general public to access basic results content, especially considering that meet managers have continued to rely more and more on Meet Mobile as their sole live results location.<\/p>\n

What is yet to be determined is whether or not media outlets will have easy access to results for reporting. For a niche sport to shut out media access would be a major setback for the entire industry. Results form the basis for event competition reporting and subsequent related stories. Those stories rely on results and advertisers rely on those stories to populate their ads. Access to results is the cornerstone of our sport.<\/p>\n

Currently, Meet Mobile does have some in-app purchases that including heat sheets to be purchased at events.<\/p>\n

The new upgrade does look to be an advancement in how user-friendly Meet Mobile can be when it does come to results content, including the long-desired ability to search for a swimmer from the home screen instead of having to find the meet first. \u00a0 But, users are definitely going to have to pay for the experience.<\/p>\n

Meet Mobile Full Announcement<\/h2>\n

As we continue our investment in the swimming market following the release of ACTIVE Hy-Tek\u2019s Swim Manager, we\u2019d like to announce that Meet Mobile is about to get a much needed upgrade. Meet Mobile works with Meet Manager to provide your participants and their fans event information and real-time meet results.<\/p>\n

The update is going to feature a complete visual redesign and dramatic improvements to functionality like:
\n\u00b7 Searching meets by swimmer name or by GPS location
\n\u00b7 Following swimmers across a season instead of by event
\n\u00b7 Sharing the meet experience on social media<\/p>\n

When this upgrade goes live, fans may realize that they no longer have access to meet results on older versions of Meet Mobile. If that happens, they simply need to upgrade their application and choose from a monthly or yearly subscription plan to reactivate results.<\/p>\n

Reactivation is all done inside the application, so you don\u2019t have to do anything. Just encourage users to upgrade; Meet Mobile will take care of the rest through an in-app purchase.<\/p>\n

If you have additional questions about the Meet Mobile upgrade, feel free to email support at support@hy-tekltd.com.<\/p>\n

Best Regards,<\/p>\n

The ACTIVE Hy-Tek Team<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n