@LARGE
By Scott Kirsner
ESPN doesn't understand the excitement, and Fox Sports doesn't grasp the inherent danger. The New England Sports Network simply can't appreciate the technique and strategy.
That's why none of those channels carried live coverage of the first-ever @Large BlackBerry Invitational Tournament, held last week. Their mistake. This would've been a ratings bonanza. Who cares about baseball or golf when you could be watching a middle manager surreptitiously typing 60 words-per-minute under the conference table during a plodding PowerPoint presentation?
Nearly 50 entrants vied for the grand prize: a mention in print, and the right to add a line to one's e-mail signature boasting, 'Winner of the 2005 @Large BlackBerry Invitational.' Proceeds from the competition went to the American Association for the Prevention of Thumb Tendinitis, a painful affliction that sadly ends the careers of many talented BlackBerry users. (Perhaps you'll donate, as there were no proceeds this year.) Two observations led me to launch the tourney.The first was that people with hand-held e-mail devices tend to get obsessed with responsiveness. (I use the term BlackBerry to encompass devices like the PalmOne Treo and the T-Mobile Sidekick, which I'm sure infuriates the legal department at Research In Motion, the Canadian company that makes BlackBerrys.) They volley back answers mere milliseconds after the sender has asked the question.The second observation was that as people have been getting more comfortable with their devices, responses have been getting longer.