Over at  Jesse Bearden’s Blog which I found via CrunchGear, Jesse meets Shaq because he was following him on Twitter.  For most people you would just think that Shaq probably used Twitter for self promotion but this pretty much proves otherwise.

Jesse and his buddy Sean had been following Shaq on Twitter and weren’t sure if it was really Shaq.  When he Twittered from a restaurant that was near them, they decided to check it out.  They walked into the restaurant and there he was.  They didn’t necessarily have the balls to talk to him but when Shaq twittered, ” I feel twitterers around me, r there any twitterers in 5 n diner wit me, say somethin.

Sean spoke up and this picture was born

Check out Sean’s Blog for the rest of the story.

Website: InstantArena

Founder: Dan Mezick

instantARENA™ platform allows instant, no-barrier entry into the booming fantasy sports gaming marketplace

North Haven, CT (PRWEB) February 11, 2009 — Player Ventures LLC today announces the immediate availability of instantARENA™, the world’s first brandable, white-label fantasy sports gaming solution.

“What instantARENA™ means for the industry is simple: Any web site with sports-related web traffic can now turn that traffic into immediate cash”, says Dan Mezick of Player Ventures LLC. “Our platform eliminates all the barriers to offering full-featured “pay to play” fantasy sports games. This is the world’s first brandable, turn-key, white-label, fantasy sports
game platform.”

The platform is a full-featured, comprehensive “turn key” solution for any web site owner who is looking to offer a branded, fun, revenue-generating game to online sports fans. The turnkey instantARENA™ solution includes total technical support for players, total site administration services, credit card payment processing, support for an affiliate network, and complete 24 X 7 on-line reporting.

Fantasy sports games are based on skill and are 100% legal in the Unites States. The market for these games of skill is growing very rapidly. Player Ventures is reviewing applications from select web site operators who have substantial sports and gaming-related web traffic.

Website: FanDome

Interview With: Ricky Joshi

Is their more then one founder? If so, who are they?:

Karim Motani

What is your background and qualifications?

Director of Business Development at GMR*Works and Kaleidoscope (IPG Companies). Sourced and led IPG’s investment in Facebook.

What does your website do?

Team Social Networks, largest sports video site om Internet. Second most popular sports MySpace Applications (bigger than Citizen Sports)

How do you generate revenue?If through ads, what ad network do you use?:

Advertising, merchandising, and team driven Fantasy (future rollout)

How have your marketed your site?:

Organic. Have reached 500K unique visitors (look at our quantcast stats) in 4 months from almost nothing in August.

Are you profitable?

No

Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?:

Incubated by Kaleidoscope as Angel.

Are You currently looking for funding?

Yes.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

LAMP architecture (Linux, Apache, php, MySQL

What is your favorite feature on your website?

Team Social Networks

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

Local communities will continue to grow.

Website: The Quest for 31

Interview with: Hans Steiniger

What is your background and qualifications?

I am an avid NFL Super fan that has been captivated from an early age by the product that plays out in NFL stadiums across the nation on Sundays. I started a journey in 2006 to challenge myself to attend a game in every NFL stadium. I realized early on that the NFL experience takes regional ces from the area around the team. Each NFL city through local food, climate, and culture has made their impression on the NFL frachise that calls the city its home. My Quest is about experiencing what it’s like to be a fan of every franchise in the league. To that end, I show up in each city for the weekend, I try to hit local hotspots and then on gameday I tailgate with local fans, wear a home team jersey, attend the game, and then write a review about my experience.

What does your website do?

My website began as a place to collect all the links and internet research tools that i’ve used to setup my trips around the league. I then figured out that if these tools were useful to me, they would probably be useful to other NFL fans that wanted to make a similar journey. So I include stadium directions, local weather, NFL ticket links, Fan forums, mileage charts, NFl schedules, and ticket prices. Anything an NFL fan would want to setup their trip or check out the area before heading into enemy territory.
How do you generate revenue? If through ads, what ad network do you use? Some ticket Sales, but I’ve developed one of the web’s best underground fantasy football cheatsheet. That helps alot.

How have your marketed your site?

I try.

Are you profitable?

Not really.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

Very simple for the website I’m running Microspft FrontPage. But my vehicle, is filled with technologies to help make the long roadtrips easier. I’ve built an audio mixer that allows me to stream multiple audio sources (either at the same time of separately) to play on the speaker system in the truck. I have my ipod streaming bluetooth audio. I have a DVD player, CB radio, and my cell phone. I also use a GPS unit everywhere I go to find each stadium and restaurant.

What is your favorite feature on your website?

I enjoy reading the reviews. Helps me remeber some of the crazy things I’ve done as part of the Quest for 31. I’ve been on the Star at the 50 yard line in texas Stadium, ran go routes in the endzone down on the field at the Edward Jones Dome, and hung out on the Priate ship in Tampa. I’ve also tailgated with some of the League’s best. I hung out with Pinto Ron, the guy that cooks all of his food on garden tools on the hood of his ford Pinto (Buffalo, NY). I broke bread with Wayne Vandevort, the Bruce Wayne of Tailgating. I met up with the commissioner of Tailgating Joe Cahn and Jay the Tailgate guy.

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

I’m looking forward to the days when the NFL will place a small sensor in the valve stem of the football. the sensor will calculate the exact dimensions of the ball and use these dimensions to determine Touchdowns and boundary limits, assess penalties, determine wether or not acatch wat made. It will take us into the huddle so we can hear what the players are saying. Basically eliminate all human error in the game. Technology will also continue to revolutionize tailgating. With our satellite packages and flatscreens that seem to bring our homes out to the parking lot with us, the trend will continue in terms of entertainment, cooking, and creature comforts.

Website: SECRivals.com

Interview With: Darrel Owenby

When did you start your blog?

We started our blog this past July, but SECRivals has ran a message board for five years.

What made you start it?

We all read a lot of sites, some we agreed with, some we didn’t. Basically, a couple of us decided that we could do the same thing, except better.

What is your background?

I have @ twelve years of blue collar work, ten years of sales experience, three years of training/development and have been online since 1996.

Do you blog for fun or are you trying to make it a career?

Fun.

What is your goal with this blog?

Develop a solid base of regulars inside as well as outside of the SEC.

What was your tipping point? What put you on the map? (if you bring in more the 5,000 uniques a month)

Creating an affiliation with MoonDog Sports really got us going. Our message board has over 1k members and we already had a decent amount of traffic, BUT the blog was put on the map with MoonDog’s help.

What type of blogging software do you use?

Wordpress

What ad network(s) do you use?

Adify through Yardbarker.com, Google adsense and Commission Junction.

How much money do you make off your site monthly?

Not a whole lot, like we said, it’s fun.

If you could get something for free to help you out with your blog, what would it be? (Ex: design, marketing, ad optimization, etc)

Wow, good question. Our biggest area would be marketing; we could always use extra traffic.

What are some of your favorite blogs?

MoonDog Sports, EDSBS, A Sea of Blue and Vanderbilt Sports Line.

Any bold predictions for the future of sports on the internet?

We haven’t scratched the surface yet. A lot of people are screaming that blogging is dead, but video is only now being played with. Podcasts were huge a couple of years ago, but the next big thing will be for video podcasts by regular people. Imagine “Jake and Luther on Sports”.

Thanks to Roto Nation we have learned that Citizen Sports formerly ProTrade has purchased Sportacular, FantasyBook, and Sport Interactiva.  By making these purchase Citizen Sports is looking to dominate the Social Network Application sports space.  Sportacular gives Citizen Sports one of the best IPhone sports apps out there.  FantasyBook and Citizen Sports were the only two companies that launched Fantasy Football facebook applications that had solid adoption.  I am sure that is going to change in the future.  FantasyBook also brings their baseball application as well.  Sports Interactiva gives Citizen Sports  the best fantasy soccer Facebook application.

Citizen Sports is well positioned to be the sports lead in the app market for facebook, myspace, and the IPhone.  Now that they have positioned themselves well it will be interesting to see how they actually make money off these applications.

Website: Fantazzle

Interview With: Ryan Parr, founder

Is their more then one founder? If so, who are they?

Only one - Ryan Parr

What is your background and qualifications?

I have worked in the sports industry for the past four years and have been a fantasy sports fans for nearly 15. I graduated cum laude from James Madison University with a triple major in Economics, Marketing, and Marketing Information Systems with a minor in Computer Information Systems.

What does your website do?

Fantazzle provides short term fantasy games you can play for free or for an entry fee. All of our games give out cash prizes to the winners and are geared towards fantasy fanatics, individuals who do not want a season commitment, those who always seem to have issues getting leagues formed with their friends for various reasons, and others who may have had bad years in their traditional leagues and still want to have something on the line in fantasy games. At Fantazzle, you can create a fantasy team any day of the week and have fun rooting for your players during the pro games. The site offers several different types of games for fantasy football, baseball, basketball, golf, and auto racing games.

How do you generate revenue? If through ads, what ad network do you use?

We generate revenue by charging an administration fee upon game entry for setting up leagues and running the site.

How have your marketed your site?

Fantazzle is slowly ramping up its marketing and has used a number of different avenues including pay per click, banner ads, press releases, and working with non-competing sites to exchange exposure.

Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?

Fantazzle is currently being funded by myself and friends and family.

Are You currently looking for funding?

Yes, we are actively looking for a partner to raise capital. We would like to find someone who believes in the opportunity and can add funding and resources to build something profitable and industry changing.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

We use PHP programming throughout the site to communicate with our back-end software. We also use an XML feed to connect with our stats provider.

What is your favorite feature on your website?

One of the coolest things Fantazzle offers is called FantaStock. You earn FantaStock when you do certain activities on the site like creating an account, making deposits, and more ways like playing games to come. You can use the FantaStock you earn to play in all of our games so its like free cash. While these types of loyalty programs are not groundbreaking, the FantaStock votes we will hold are. After every sports season concludes, we will hold shareholder votes for all of our players to vote on how Fantazzle runs its site and games. Votes will be on things like our scoring system, roster requirements, blog content, etc.The more shares you have, the more your opinion counts. This feature will put our players in power of how Fantazzle evolves.

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

As your site can attest, its an exciting time for the sports and fantasy sports online world. The development of Web 2.0 is really spurring the voice of the sports fan through social communities. All of the content and distribution of it will be a major benefit for fantasy sports. There are going to be some great innovations that will change the way we now play and view fantasy games and will make an already growing past time even bigger.

Website: Kornheiser’s Cartel

Interview With: Billy Buckles

When did you start your blog:

August, this year.

What made you start it?

I used to randomly write pieces and e-mail them out to two friends, came across Bleacher Report one day, posted a humorous NBA Mock Draft on there and just sent a link out to my few friends who’d care to read it. Some people gave me compliments, so I wrote a few more pieces. Then I wanted a customized site that could make my friends laugh, but I’m worthless with coding/design… So I asked a good friend to go halfsies on a domain name/server and design me one. We chose Kornheiser’s Cartel because it’s been our team name of choice for College Bowl, Intramurals, Fantasy Leagues, etc… It stems from an online game called PimpsLord we played years ago.

What is your background?

23 years old, Leo, blue eyes, great hai— er, 2008 Purdue graduate, extremely knowledgeable fan of a ton of sports, and I’ve had some interesting working experiences in the sports world. My co-founder is one of the nation’s best trivia competitors, and we took Purdue’s College Bowl team to nationals. But we’re not nerds. We’re not!

Do you blog for fun or are you trying to make it a career?

I’d always like to write on the side, and I’m open to writing opportunities, but it’s hard to envision writing eight hours daily.

What is your goal with this blog?

To entertain. And I like to have a vehicle to spread ideas and opinions I care about.

What was your tipping point? What put you on the map? (if you bring in more the 5,000 uniques a month)

We went into this expecting to get 200 hits a months, but we somehow received 5,000 UV’s in our first week, and almost 50,000 UV’s in September, our first whole month. We’ve been fortunate to have some heavyweight blogs appreciate our writing, and that’s how we get a decent chunk of views. Additionally, we’ve had a number of pieces receive thousands of views from StumbleUpon.

What type of blogging software do you use?

Blogger

What ad network(s) do you use?

Yardbarker, AdSense, Ad-Brite

How much money do you make off your site monthly?

Over a hundred bucks a month.

If you could get something for free to help you out with your blog, what would it be? (Ex: design, marketing, ad optimization, etc)

A few more writers…

What are some of your favorite blogs?

Indy Cornrows, Ball Don’t Lie, The Offside, Deadspin

Website: YouSport.com

Interview With: Willy Chataigner

Is their more then one founder? If so, who are they?

Ahmed Elbortoukaly, David Roser

What is your background and qualifications?

We have a very talented team with diverse horizons and skills

What does your website do?

YouSport is connecting people with a passion for soccer.

How do you generate revenue? If through ads, what ad network do you use?

no revenue yet, YouSport has launched in beta beginning of August.

How have your marketed your site?

Social marketing and SEO

Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?

Self funded

Are You currently looking for funding?

Yes

What type(s) of technology do you use?

Open source, Php, MySql, Symfony

What is your favorite feature on your website?

The two new features that will be launched in a couple of weeks Otherwise I like the video and team manager features

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

The reference for sports social networking site.

Bleacher Report who raised $1.5 million back in Febuary has now raised another $3.5 million according to TechCrunch.  The round of funding included Hillsven Capital, Gordon Crawford, SoftTech VC, and Jacob Lodwick, founder of College Humor and Vimeo.

This is great news for Bleacher Report’s 13 employees as they now have job security.  We hope they didn’t burn through their original $1.5 million in 8 months already.  Hopefully they raised this money knowing that they are going to need it for a while due to no end in site of deteroriating ad sales.

If you would like more information on Bleacher Report, we interviewed Dave Nemetz of Bleacher Report a while back.