MLS Scores on your Cell Phone

If you use verizon go here

vzw.msn.com

 

That is badass, thanks Zach!

 

before people sign up for this, just remember that you are subject to more fees on your service if you dont already have internet access on your phone.

 

you can get MLS scores on Sprint PCS vision by going through ESPN I believe.

 

I've used the Yahoo 'alerts' service on my cell from time to time. They are pretty inconsistant though. Usually, if I'm at a game and I want to know the score of another one at the same time, I'll set it up for that game...other wise, I don't use it. problem is, when I don't recieve goals until 2 or 3 day's later.

Of course, it could be my phone co causing the problem, but I don't seem to have the lag time with any other alerts I recieve.

 

is there a link for this?

 

With Yahoo, you can receive them as text messages, which are usually free to receive.

 

mobile.msn.com

I've used both MSN and Yahoo and while MSN isn't the fastest (5-30 minutes) it's better than Yahoo and their sometimes day later updates. Been using these for the past 2-3 seasons and it's great.

 

Anyone know what the deal is with Verizon and receiving text messages? I've never personally used them so I was wondering if they were free or not. I'm on the national family share plan.

 

I have verizon and its 10 cents each way. I'm pretty sure thats the same plan I have. I found this out the hard way when i started shooting text messages galore everywhere when i got bored, and ended up having to give my parents 10 bucks for text messaging bills...

 

A few years ago through my vorizon service I got MLS news and scores through ESPN. Standard package with the mobile internet service.

TS.

 

on sprint pcs there are a zlillion ways to get MLS scores and news now. I found out about the Galaxy picking up Alex Pineda Chacon on CBS sportsline which is part of the Sprint PCS vision thing - which is free for the first 3 months and only $10 a month after that for unlimited internet on your phone....but the PCS vision system isn't totally comp-lete yet, for example they don't have Yahoo, MSN or AOL set up yet but they will by spring according to Sprint. I have a full browser on my phone though and I can even look at porn.


As for text messages, with Sprint you get 50 for free per month (you get unlimited text messages for free from other sprint pcs users) and then 10 cents per message after 50. I havn't tried this yet for MLS though, but I did set it up for the coming season. You can have them send you score updates each 15 minutes, each goal or each half and end of regulation.


Now what I want to know from any other Sprint PCS users is this:

1) I have downloaded Pac man and various other games and they are supposed to cost money but I was never charged for any of the games I downloaded. Am I just lucky?

2) WHy did ESPN mobile drop it's soccer section?


3) when is FIFA world cup gonna be able for Sprint like it is for Verizon? On the Jamdat website it says coming soon for Sprint.....so when?

 

SoccerPhone

I wrote an automated voice application at the beginning of last season that reads live MLS scores to you over a phone. My app scrapes them right off the MLS website everytime you call, so you get to hear exactly what people looking at the MLS website are seeing. It even reads scoring details to you when you ask for a single team's games.

This is a good alternative for people without a mobile phone service that provides text messages or access to something like Sprint PCS Vision. My app will even work with a payphone that allows toll-free calls. It's completely free to use, assuming you can call toll-free numbers in the US without charges.

Check out my SoccerPhone homepage for more info.

Since the MLS website still has the scores from the last week of the regular season, you can even try it out right now.

Quick and Dirty Guide:
1. Call 1-800-555-8355 (TELL)
2. When you hear the call answered, either say 172673 or enter 172673 (1-SCORE) on your phone's keypad
3. After the recorded voice stops talking, there is usually a 10-15 second delay as SoccerPhone is loaded
4. After you hear me say "Welcome to SoccerPhone", you can say an MLS team name, such as "San Jose", or say "all teams".

I have to mention one caveat about the free thing for Sprint subscribers. Last month Sprint PCS tried to charge me $1.25 for 4 calls to the TellMe service. I had to call them and complain to get the charges removed. The TellMe number is a toll free call. This wasn't related to SoccerPhone, since I was just calling the regular TellMe service to check stock quotes. SoccerPhone runs as an extension to the TellMe service.

The idiot at Sprint tried to tell me that a toll free call to an 800 number is just like any other call and that if the company I called billed Sprint, Sprint would then pass on the charges to me. He tried to make me feel I was lucky that Sprint wasn't billing me for TOLL-FREE calls. I haven't received my bill for this month, so I don't know if they will screw up the billing again. In December, they screwed it up for only the second week out of four, as the other 15 or so calls I made before and after that week were free.

 

Two questions. Can you get it only for MLS goals and not any other sport. How much do you have to pay for this service?.

 

data ferret,

I called the SoccerPhone line. That was great! Thank you for posting that!!

 

Glad you liked it. It worked pretty well last year, except during the times that the MLS website was hosed because of problems with their MySQL database. If the MLS website is screwed up, obviously SoccerPhone can't get the scores.

One kind of nice thing about SoccerPhone is that you can ask it to read you results just for games involving specific teams. Then, you can get results for some of the games without hearing other scores for games you might be taping.

I also frequently used it last year to quickly check the times for upcoming games. Since I'm in California, I converted the times to Pacific.

I'm also working on voice enabling the SoccerNet live scores page. It's a lot harder, though, due to having multiple leagues and the wide range of team names. Getting the speech recognition and text to speech engines to deal with such a wide of range of team names is pretty challenging. I had it mostly working a month or two ago, and then they totally changed the format of the web page.

 

Do you realize what kind of uber-dork you sound like? Haven't called the number yet, but it actually does sound pretty cool.

 

Well, I would prefer uber-geek to uber-dork. I do this kind of stuff for a living, so I sometimes forget that technical jargon isn't a part of normal speech for most people. So, I'm guessing you won't be reading the section on my website where I explain the details of how it works?

It was pretty nice to have access to it last year, though. It's not like my life was somehow transformed by getting to hear updates for other games while I was on the road or at an Earthquakes game, but I think anyone else who has bothered to read this far into this thread probably shares the same interest. I was just fortunate enough to already know enough about writing voice and web applications to be able to build whatever I needed.

 

True, much more appropriate. I wish I knew more about programming. Good business to be good at.

 

SoccerPhone Updated for New MLS Scores Page

I updated SoccerPhone today to work with the new page layout on the MLS live scores page.

Although I like the new look of the scores page and the fact that it updates every 3 minutes instead of 5, there are two changes from last year that I really don't like. And not just because they are a pain in the ass for my program.

First, the end of a game is not indicated by 'Final'. Some games ended with the time at 90:00, but one ended at 91:00. When I first checked the scores page, I thought I was catching a couple games in injury time. After they didn't update for a couple minutes, I realized that they must be over.

Second, the scoring details are littered with the cumulative number of goals or assists for that person. If I want to know season-long stats, I'll go look at the statistics page.

 

So how much are all these services? I have a verizon cell phone. It's like a year or 2 old.....

 

Usually, the only cost is whatever your service provider charges for "mobile web" or "text messaging" services. Yahoo, MSN, etc don't have any fees for their service.