SPORTS | If you're like me, the next few days, the ones before the Major League Baseball season starts, are the worst kind of anticipatory torture ever conceived. But fear not. There is relief in the form of a subscription to MLB.TV. Winner of the 2014 Emmy Award for Technical Engineering Achievement and the best $110.99 you ever spent, MLB.TV allows subscribers to watch every out-of-market game and some spring training games. The premium version, for $20 more, includes a subscription to MLB At Bat, the mobile app that lets you watch games on mobile devices. For a displaced Cardinals fan like myself, MLB.TV is the only way I'll survive my first summer away from St. Louis.
APP | Now anyone with an iPhone can livestream video on Twitter thanks to MEERKAT. The app has been touted as one of the most user-friendly ways to transmit video to followers on social media, which might be one reason why many politicians are starting to use it. Case in point: Mitt Romney. Good ol' Mitt told Mashable that he started using the app to "keep up with the stuff the kids are doing." Good for you, Mitt. Other politicians have joined in as well: Senator Rand Paul livestreamed from the SXSW festival, Gov. Terry Branstad livestreamed himself signing a proclamation for Iowa flag day and Jeb Bush livestreamed a speech in Atlanta. Links to Meerkat streams are sent out via Twitter, and viewers can watch on mobile devices or computers. The only problem? Once the stream is over, the video is gone. Unless someone copies the video into YouTube. Because on the Internet, nothing is ever gone.
WEBSITE | This one's been around since 2013, but it's definitely worth noting. EPIC MAGAZINE, the long-form journalism site founded by Joshuah Bearman (Argo) and Joshua Davis (Spare Parts) publishes exemplary narrative nonfiction articles and helps writers navigate the often complex process of optioning those stories into movies (as both Joshes have done). The site, which is partnered with The Medium, features work by both of its founders and other writers and presents each story amid killer designs, graphics and photos. Read Argo, Into the Zombie Underworld and Pipino: Gentleman Thief, among others, in their entirety and get lost in a great figurative page-turner. ♦