It’s March, and March means the end of Winter, beginning of Spring and a whole lot of sports. From the start of professional soccer to pre-season baseball, the month of March offers unparalleled sports action.
But March is best known for college basketball. The 2017 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, colloquially known as “March Madness“, tips off next Tuesday, March 14th and runs into April with the Final Four, followed by the Championship Game on April 3rd.
History: Why is it called March Madness?
The term ‘March Madness’ traces back to 1908 with the start of Illinois’ statewide high-school basketball tournament. In 1939, an official with the Illinois High School Association, Henry V. Porter, wrote an article titled “March Madness” for the association’s in-house magazine. The article read, “A little March madness may complement and contribute to sanity and help keep society on an even keel.”
For almost 50 years, the phrase was confined to Illinois, until 1982 when CBS broadcaster Brent Musburger used it during his network’s NCAA tournament coverage. The phrase stuck, and March Madness as we know it was born.
Battle of the Apps: Which is your favorite?
So why give you a history of March Madness? Aren’t we a digital product development company? Well, we love sports, and we love technology, so we decided to combine two of our favorite things to produce (drumroll, please): The Battle of the Apps!
We wanted to know, when pitted app versus app, which one came out on top. Our team conducted research to create our own Sweet Sixteen – a collection of top-rated apps separated into four “brackets”. Now during this March Madness season, we want you to give us your feedback on which app should win each bracket.
The brackets and applications are as follows:
Business/Productivity
Dropobx; Gmail; Evernote; Salesforce
Chat
Slack; Skype; Hangouts; Whatsapp
Social
Facebook; Twitter; Instagram; Snapchat
Convenience/Lifestyle
Uber; Airbnb; Amazon; Waze
To paraphrase Mr. Porter, help your sanity, and keep society on an ‘even keel‘ by voting on which app you think should win our inaugural: Battle of the Apps (link). Form will be open until 3/30. Results of this (unofficial) poll, will be released at the end of the month on 3/31.
May the best app win!