MLB.tv Problems
People are paying full price for a great product (in theory), but are being used as beta testers at the expense of their own time and money. This is more excusable for mid to low level businesses attempting to get a remarkable product off the ground; but for an established brand like Major League Baseball, it reeks of greed, and lack of foresight.
MLB’s online strategy seems to be what many companies’ strategy was in the 90s: Launch a website that serves as nothing more than a billboard that pushes their own agenda.
I don’t think people care about how awesome MLB thinks it is, and I certainly don’t think people want to be ostracized, and alienated when trying to figure out why their $119 investment isn’t living up to its billing. Just try finding and contacting their customer support; it’s a joke.
MLB should be taking advantage of what the web is today: the Social Web. A web that makes it easier than ever to communicate with, and learn about customers. It’s far too costly (long-term) for any company to give “every day Joes” like me, a reason to write a post like this. And I’m not a lone.
Have you had any problems with MLB TV?
You’ve said it all perfectly. Being able to watch virtually all MLB games over the web is a great idea. And the idea behind Mosaic of being able to watch six at the same time is fantastic. But for the 3rd straight year, opening day has been a disaster. We are being used as beta testers and MLB.com’s customer service stinks. The message I get back whenever I write is basically, “we have your money. Go to hell.”
The message I get back whenever I write is basically, “we have your money. Go to hell.”
Amen!
It feels like you’re dealing with a taxi cab company or something.
Last year I subscribed to mlb.tv with hopes of watching it in full screen - as advertised! - on my Apple Cinema Display. After paying for the service, I launch it and can’t find the “full screen” feature. I try to launch it on Real Player, and it times out while loading. I write them and they tell me that mlb.tv doesn’t work in full screen on Macs, and that they are making no strides in correcting this for Mac users (they actually said they’re doing nothing). Why not? I ask. Because we’re working on mlb.tv mosaic, they say. That didn’t make any sense to me - but it’s indicative of the mentality you’re expressing frustration with. “Be patient, paying customer, we’re making something awesome!”
I haven’t even tried to use Mosaic yet after reading about all the problems on other forums.
Other than that, my only other problem is that I can’t watch my favorite team play, which is just silly.
This is enough to convince me to wait for MLB but I’m curious if anyone has experience with watch-Baseball-live.com. They purport to show live feeds of most major league games. The site is, however, very uninformative. I think it’s a TV for PC kind of thing.
DJP,
I haven’t had experience with watch-baseball-live.com, please let me know how it works out for you. (if you try it out)
MLB.tv is a good product; it’s live baseball on the internet.
Just don’t pay for it expecting it to work as advertised. If you can deal with some load problems, and the other system-edits that require it to work (turning off anti-virus/firewall/pop-up blocker) and don’t think you need help from their support, it’s fine.
This might sound like a bit of a contradiction, but what i was trying to stress in my post was their faulty business model, more than a bad product.
DO NOT get watch-baseball-live. Basically all they do is point you to this: http://tvfileshosting.ru/list/Public/Games.aspx
That site’s completely free.
They give you their own webtv player too, and it has no program listings so you are in a total crapshoot.
Josh:
Thanks for that info. The lack of information on that site made me very suspicious and I decided not to order it. This reinforces that I made the right choice.
Josh:
I checked out the site with the link you provided. It was as advertised I notice that you have to download (free) a webtv player. I notice that the site (or at least the server) is based in Russia. The questions I have are: Are the players safe to download (free of spyware or other malware)? and Have you used any of them?
I greatly appreciate the help you have provided.
From what I’ve seen so far there is no spyware/malware. I’ve only downloaded the TVAnts and Sopcast applications.
Thanks again Josh. I’m going to give these a try.