Be it a Cricket Match, a Soccer Game, a Formula-1 race, or a game of Tennis doubles; today’s fast paced generation wants to be the first to be informed about any ongoing event of interest – watching it LIVE is the call of the day. While there are those who content themselves with the brief highlights or the quick previews, let us face it; the true sports fan never likes a quick preview of his favorite sport – which is many cases has almost acquired a cult status. Be it Cricket in the Indian Subcontinent, Soccer in European Union or Baseball or Basketball in the United States, the world map is dotted with avid sports followers who would do anything to catch but a glimpse of what they admire and enjoy.

Reality however, all but fulfills the usual sports fan’s desires. Owing to today’s smartphone-flaunting, ever-connected generation’s busy schedules and the increasingly ambitious work-centric expectations from even the most average of workers in today’s world, even catching up with one’s favorite sport is a far-fetched cry and all one ends up with is a quick preview of the highlights, which, to be honest, take the sheen off the sport – neither being engrossing to even the average sport follower’s fantasy, nor giving him the much craved high-pitched, emotionally-engaging, adrenalin-pumping action he expects and desires from what he sees.

This situation, needless to say, more or less created a vacuum in the space-time fabric of the average sports fan, who on one hand, having his worldly commitments, would neither enjoy the sport at the stadium – without giving up on something supposedly equally, if not less important, nor would be in front of his television screen. The life of the average modern man, dotted with close commitments, had but little space to accommodate all that he desired. While on one hand, time schedules became more compact, life became more closely connected and most commitments, so to say, pinned on the same coordinates in his schedule, the advances in technology brought forth tools and applications to deal with the same – be it better management of time or connectivity on the move. This era of contrasting commitments saw a boom in technological applications, which sought to bridge the divide and make life easy and balanced for humans in all spheres of life.

The needs of the average, working-class, sports fan too found their place in the fast expanding universe of mobile application ecosystems. These applications provided the users with an option of being a part of the event, connected to what they liked, even while on the move. The individual’s virtual presence replaced the much sought after physical presence which never seemed to fit in with dynamic individual lifestyles. Many of these applications, while providing users with the feeling of “being there” all along, also managed to sustain it throughout the event while engrossing the user.

The advent of easy-to-access and easy-to-use mobile technologies has been a boon for sports fans word-wide, allowing them to be a part of their favorite sport on the go without compromising any of their priorities. This niche mobile application market, catering to a very specific clientele continues to grow by leaps and bounds by the day. Owing to the fact that a majority of these apps ride on a mobile phone or a tablet and always need a network to facilitate data transfer, they complement both the network service providers by offering them a rich app basket for their users as well as mobile/tablet hardware by adding to the bundle of add-ons that may be provided to the end user.

The service offering for sports apps, which in its nascent stages started initially with disbursing brief and periodic information via SMS, has come a long way, with newer, more technologically advanced applications allowing for live updates of whichever facet of sport an individual desires. The market has evolved, although not even near its entire potential, to provide sports fans with a variety of options to hook on to and stay informed about events related to their favorite sport.

This evolution, while on one hand has been fuelled by ever rising user expectations, which created the initial pull for the technology and offering, has simultaneously been dependent on the advent of new and powerful mobile devices allowing for greater technical creativity and sophisticated packaging to put together useful and informative applications capable of riding over multiple systems and devices, to provide the end user with a complete sports experience thereby pushing many of them over the counter.

An ideal mobile app for sports needs to focus on the fundamentals and get the basics right to script its success mantra. Whilst an attractive user interface is the first stepping stone to a successful mobile application, its success is measured not by the looks or service bundle but rather the overall user experience it provides.

Amongst the most important strands of DNA of a successful mobile app for sports is the initial download and usage experience. As they say, well begun is half done – the first point of impact and thereby, inflection, any mobile application has on the user is during the initial download and installation; anything over a couple of minutes or beyond a few keystrokes allows for the application to bypass the initial attention span of the user, losing the most important time period in a mobile applications lifecycle. Whist flexibility is important and the importance of customization can never be negated for the advance user, a good app always stands for a balanced approach, offering just the right amount of customization options while tingling the inquisitiveness of the user.

A good sports mobile app needs also to strike a balance between information displays – putting forth the most relevant customizable updates at the front-end in almost real-time to keep the adrenalin pumping throughout the course of the game. It is of utmost importance to the life of a sports mobile app for its user to forever keep asking for more, to be on the edge wanting to know what would come next, any prior information – offering even a slight value advantage from any other source would, needless to say, would dock such a response from the user.

Apart from the overtly visible traits, social-viral-ability of content in todays connected world can prove to be the secret sauce adding a unique flavor to any potential app. Additional social features increase the engagement quotient of an app by manifold and cement the constant spread of the app with new users.

Like all other ecosystems, the mobile application ecosystem too allows for only the survival of the fittest. Needless to say, the adaptability of the app, its ability to connect the dots in a field pinned with variables, plays a vital role in its survival in today’s ever competitive marketplace; be it the ability of the app to adapt to a variety of mobile devices, a multitude of screen sizes or ride on all available operating systems, while offering great synchronization capabilities – the list is limited only by the imagination of the creator.

As much as the modern user craves for well researched, timely, almost-live information, he also seeks to overcome any mundane, everyday task – which also includes using the same old sports app every time he desires an update. Application upgradation is one of the most important considerations, imperative to an app’s survival. Mobile users crave for constant improvements and this process needs to be continuous and seamless to desist from any urges to replace the app.

The global application providers should be wary of the constraints in their path, be it multiple information paths or the fastest mode of transmission to the user or the most user friendly OS over the counter. The backend data carrying capability of mobile networks varies across a wide range globally. While 3G and higher is common in most of developed countries, in India we are still plagued with nominal data speeds over an intermittent network. The apps need to be able to provide real time updates with the richest possible experience across the wide spectrum of changing conditions and always be part of the user’s retinue.

All said and agreed to, it must never be forgotten that we are in business to do business. The apps while staying focused on content also need to work towards generating a constant revenue stream while maintaining the delicate balance between revenue generation through advertising and subscriber comfort by optimizing screen space utilization and allowing for customization.

An ideal mobile app thus needs to get all the basics right and display the most relevant updates at the frontend while recognizing and optimizing the backend limitations to provide the best possible user experience and engagement while accounting for a variety of screen sizes, serving mobiles with small screen sizes to tablets. The apps need to stay focused on the content and work towards constant application improvement while striking a balance between revenue generation through advertising and subscriber comfort by optimizing screen space utilization.

The huge demand of such applications, customized to tackle and simplify many daily and sometime mundane needs at the tap of a button, has seen unprecedented growth off late. According to a market analysis by IDC, the number of mobile application downloads are estimated to touch 183 billion by 2015. This huge market opportunity has generated great interest among young technocrats thereby witnessing a number of new entrants wanting to encash their fortune from the mobile application development market.

The article is authored by Vikramjiet Roy, Director, Cricket Companion.