Miracle at the Meadowlands, Seen with my Eyes – Confirmed via Mobile

For me, Sunday at the Meadowlands usually means a Jets game. This past Sunday “Gang Green”, as they are affectionately known, snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
With just two minutes left in the game, Buffalo was leading by 3 points.  At this point they inexplicitly called a pass play that resulted in a sack, and fumble, with an eventual lucky bounce into the cement-like hands of Jets Lineman Shaun Ellis.  To copy a quote from “Analyze This”, Sean Ellis is so large he creates his own gravitational field, which is the only explanation for the ball finding his hands and him rumbling 9 yards into the end zone. The Jets held on to win 31-27.

The fans started a cheer of “Holy Sh**, Holy Sh**”    We just could not believe that a miracle would happen for our team.   By now you might be asking yourself, “so, what’s the wireless angle on all this?”

My wireless football experience began with the tailgate ritual.  I cooked steak and shrimp and had to send an MMS of this delicacy to a friend of mine who is a Buffalo Bills fan.  In complete disclosure, this friend is also a Boston Red Sox fan, so being a Bills fan is the least of his offenses.  I exchanged several SMS messages with him while engaged in the macho tradition of cooking in a frozen, dusty parking lot with 75,000 other men and about 20 women.

Inside the stadium my wireless game experience continued with two shortcode invitations from the Jets.  The first is a shortcode to send a message if I feel there is a problem with my seat of my section.  Just text your section and seat to “NJSEA” and what the problem is and, in theory, something will happen other than getting sent an offer to subscribe to ringtones.  This service is provided by a company called Guestassist.  I did send a text during the game.  I mentioned that from my seat I had determined that the Jets defense was not pass rushing enough and should start to blitz more.  Maybe this text message got through to the Jets coaching staff and resulted in the sack and fumble that won the game?

Another texting offer was to subscribe to “Jets News“.  I send the keyword “Go Green” to the shortcode and got a response that included an advertisement for AllState insurance.  Besides the advertisement, I got no other alerts or news during the most exciting game in recent Jet memory.  This service gets flagged for “Why bother?”

I had previously subscribed to the ESPN sports alert service for the Jets (and the Rangers, btw).  This service sends me an alert every time there is a change of score in a game.   The alerts are timely, usually arriving a minute after the score.  I needed this service, because after Shaun Ellis scored I was still in disbelief until my ESPN SMS confirmed the event.

Uploaded to my Facebook

Arriving concurrently with my ESPN confirmation,, I got an email that my wife sent to me via her I-Touch.  She was at my son’s Lacrosse game and the facility has free Wi-Fi, and televisions that were tuned to the game.  This was my second confirmation that this play that I had witnessed with my eyes, had indeed occurred and that the Jets had taken the lead.  I now, thanks to mobile technology, could stop pinching myself.

Once the event was independently confirmed by mobile sources, I sent the Buffalo Bills fans another MMS picture with the fans going crazy, along with some gloating comment.  I would only have done this after dual independent confirmation, via mobile of the play.  After all, I am a Jets fan, and seeing the miracle happen in person is a necessary, but not sufficient criteria for actually believing that it happened!

Lastly, I have become a big fan of the Facebook application for my Blackberry.  I took several pictures during the game and with one click, posted them directly to my Facebook page via my Blackberry.  This capability opens up the realm of “Face-casting” a sporting event.

Seeing a miracle happen at a Jets Game is good, getting it really confirmed by wireless- Priceless!

Miracle at the Meadowlands

Yes Virginia, Santa does TXT!

When I was leading Upoc we would create “Themed” social networking groups around different holidays.  We had particularly interesting groups, and results around Thanksgiving, Valentines Day, New Year’s, Hanukah, Kwanza, MLK’s Birthday and Halloween.  The most interesting, and memorable group was the Christmas group of 2007.

Each social network had a particular question that the members were asked to answer and comment upon.  For Thanksgiving the question was simply, “What are you giving thanks for this year?”  For Christmas it was, “What do you want from Santa this year?”

These social networks were created from the existing Upoc community.  We used our in-house tools to invite members to join.  When a network reached a critical mass of between 500-1000 members, we had a vibrant group.  Since I enjoyed the social networking, group psychology, and the pure fun of these networks, I was often the group moderator and owner.   The majority of the messaging within the group was done via SMS text messaging.  It was not unusual for one of these group to generate millions of messages during its life.

So you probably guessed by now.  I was “Santa”.  I would watch the group discuss their  various needs and wants, and then once or twice a day, as “Santa”, I would interject some pithy (hopefully) comment.  My username was “Santa”.  As Santa I would also boot from the group anyone who wanted nothing more than carnal contact with Santa!

This pattern continued for about a week, when a particularly classic desire bubbled up from a member.  She was a single Mom, with another baby on the way.  She lived in a very rural section of a Southern State.  To protect her identity I will call her “Virginia”.   Either Virginia thought she was text messaging with the real Santa, or she was really good at role-playing.

She texted Santa and said she “really believed in Santa”.  We had several text conversations about her living situation and she would ask about the reindeer.

After communicating with Virginia for two days I decided it was time for Santa to practice some real  holiday spirit . I messaged her that if she really believed in Santa, then she would get a call from one of Santa’s helpers, “Charlie the Elf”.

In terms of full disclosure,  “Charlie” worked in our customer service department and was eager to play the role of an Elf.  Charlie called Virginia and got her address.  She was a little curious why Santa did not already have her address since he visits every house on Christmas Eve, but we and she let that one slide.

Once we had her address, I went to the web page of the real Santa helpers – Toy’s R Us.  I purchased various items to brighten her holiday- some toys, books, and baby clothing.  These items were shipped directly to her home.

After I made the order I checked out her home on Google Maps.  Using the Satellite view I discovered that the address was in fact a trailer on a secondary dirt road, connecting to the main dirt road, that connected with what may have been a paved road about 5 miles away.

Santa sent a message to Virginia to tell her that her package was on the way and that it would come from Toys R Us.  She messaged back asking why Santa needed to use Toys R Us.  I thought about sending an explanation about outsourcing and the global flat economy, but instead just told her that Santa needs a little help in reaching the most rural areas.

As Santa, I used another of Santa’s helpers – UPS- to track the package.  When the UPS service send me a message that the package had been delivered, I texted Virginia to ask her about her gifts.   She got back to me and messaged that there was no package by her door.   I went back to the UPS web page and it informed me that the package had been left behind the carport.  Santa then messaged Virginia to look behind the carport.  She messaged back in a couple of minutes, totally amazed that I was able to tell her exactly where to look.

If she did not believe in Santa as a magical figure before that, with the help of text messaging, Charlie the Elf, Google, Toys R Us and UPS, she was clearly a believer now!