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SALT LAKE CITY — Hey bosses, productivity around the office may wane a little over the next few weeks.
March Madness is upon us, and that means college basketball fans are gearing up for three weeks of hoops.
It's not likely we can all sit glued to our televisions during the tournament, but lucky for us there have been a number of technological advancements over the years, including the Internet.
Here's how to keep tabs on this year's March Madness games:
Social media
You can monitor all the action on the court right from the comfort of your cubicle by keeping an eye on your Twitter feed using hashtags. Twitter users place keywords in their tweets with a pound sign (#) in front of the word, and when you search for these hashtags, all of the corresponding tweets are organized chronologically.
Some of this year's hashtags include #marchmadness, #ncaatourney and #FinalFour, among others. To follow specific schools, search for the school name, team name or mascot name with the pound sign. A more comprehensive list of the popular hashtags can be found on 24saltlake.com.
#poll
Another way to keep up with the games is with Google+. You can follow the official NCAA March Madness page here, while the search box at the top of the page will also let you search hashtags as well.
Web streaming
March Madness Live is the only legal way to watch the tournament online, and the games not broadcast on TruTV, TBS or TNT will be available without logging in. Last year, users had to pay $3.99 for access to the streams, but this year access is free, provided you log in through your cable TV service provider.
Mobile apps
The NCAA offers live, streaming access to games through March Madness Live in conjunction with its broadcast partners Turner and CBS. You can access the live streams through the Android or iOS apps.
Block your schedule: There are 67 total tourney games - 52 of them are played in the first 6 days! #MarchMadness
— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) March 21, 2013
Here are a few of the apps:
- NCAA March Madness app (Android)
- ESPN Bracket Bound 2013 (Android)
- Bracket (Android)
- NCAA March Madness Live (iOS)
- SportStream (iOS)
- Sportacular (iOS) Google searchFinally, keep up with the latest scores and schedules directly in Google's search results. Just type march madness or ncaa brackets, and a large box will appear with each game listed.
Clicking on a game will let you drill into more specific searches for those two teams, including news and blog posts. You can also navigate between the Round of 64, Round of 32, Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight by clicking on the arrows above the box.
How will you be following the March Madness tournament online? Tell us on the comment boards.
Andrew Johnson is a multimedia journalist whose work has been seen on KSL.com, read in the Deseret News and heard on KSL Newsradio. He previously reported for and anchored the weekend news on KSL Newsradio, and now runs 24saltlake.com.