Website: www.heismanpundit.com

Interview With: Chris Huston

When did you start Heisman Pundit?

I started it in August of 2004.

What made you start it?

I was heavily involved in Heisman campaigns at USC and I was bubbling over with a lot of ideas about why and how the award process worked. It originally started as a way to blow off some steam for my friends to read.

What is your background?

My background is mostly in PR. I was an assistant sports information director at USC for six years, where I handled media and PR for football, basketball and a bunch of other sports. After that I had a stint as PR director for the Ultimate Fighting Championships and at Rivals.com. I have maintained my career in PR and web development while continuing to expand Heismanpundit.com.

Do you blog for fun or are you trying to make it a career? What is your goal with this blog?

Both. But increasingly, I would like to branch out and reach a wider audience and the best way to do that is through the mainstream media. My goal is to become the Mel Kiper of the Heisman and to be seen as the authority on that and a respected college football commentator. To that end, I have done a lot of mainstream stuff and hopefully, I can be snatched up full time at some point.

What was your tipping point? What put you on the map?

Getting early links from my friend Bruce Feldman at ESPN.com helped. The explosion of blogs during the summer of 2005 and subsequent wars between them and I that followed helped. The war was over me saying that the spread and other offenses of that ilk were set to conquer college football. I had special vitriol for the SEC and its style and that, of course, that stance brought those fans out of the woodwork. I think two years later, it’s pretty clear that I was the one who had it right, as the spread is now being implemented almost everywhere. But I’d say having Sports Illustrated call me the award’s foremost authority was when the tipping point occurred.

What type of blogging software do you use?

I use Bblog, a free software. It has some bugs but is really easy to use and customize. That said, I’m looking to redesign and overhaul this offseason.

What ad network(s) do you use?

Google Ads, Yardbarker…that’s about it.

How much money do you make off your site monthly?

Oh, not much. Maybe a few hundred bucks.

Who are your top 3 to win the Heisman in 2008?

Chris Wells, Jamaal Charles, Tim Tebow

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

I think that more and more, the big boys will have to compete on our playing field. When that happens, it’s all about having talent and being smarter than everyone else. My goal has always been to produce ‘original knowledge’, not just to be a waystation to link to other places and make fun of what someone else produces. I think that more and more talented writers will go online and display their unfettered abilities there instead of for more structured organizations. In response, the organizations are going to loosen up. I have some ideas of my own that I think will be big, but those are top secret for now.

STN’S

Chris knows the Heisman. The experience Chris got while conceiving and working on the Heisman campaigns of Matt Leinart and Carson Palmer is second to none. Chris has already probably swayed opinions of sports writers across America and I am sure as he gets more popular, people will listen to him more. I like Chris’ predictions for next year. He didn’t go with the easy choice of Tim Tebow and chose Chris Wells instead.

Website: www.triviafix.com

Interview with: Dani Waxmin

How many founders does Trivia Fix have and what are their names?

TriviaFix was founded by Dani Waxman and Marc Tobin in February 2007.

What are the founders background and qualifications?

Formerly VP Product Development at 2AM Games, Dani has many years of experience in gaming, community, and user experience.

Marc is a self-described sports trivia genius whose capacity to store sports knowledge can only be described as part of his genetic make up. Marc has been involved in founding and selling several start-ups.

What does your website do?

TriviaFix.com serves as the core of our B2C product which also includes a mobile WAP version and social network applications such as Facebook. On the site users can answer and submit questions as well as challenge friends. There is also a feature which generates trivia questions from RSS feeds of current sports news.

When did you launch?

The website launched in August of 2007. The Facebook application in November of 2007. A mobile WAP application will be available December. We also have a B2B sports trivia widget which went live in November.

Has it been easy or difficult to build your community?

We underestimated the work in getting the word out there. We were so focused on features that we slipped on our usage estimates. We are no in the midst of a major PR and membership drive.

What types of marketing have you done?

Google AdWords, banner advertising, Internet based radio ads.

Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement? Who is your ad provider?

We currently use Google Adsense for our web site and we are talking with advertising partners for our widget product which has built in advertising space available to publishers.

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

We are currently self funded.

Are you currently looking for funding?

We are in early stages of putting together an Angel round of investment.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

The user submitted questions which gives the players the chance to show off and challenge other players.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

We are developed on the LAMP platform

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

I believe that many advances in technology will enhance the sports fans enjoyment of the game at home. HDTV, 50+ inch LCD’s, etc. will all make the game much clearer and enjoyable to fans at home. Commentators will get a new suite of tools to use on screen and technology such as FIOS will finally bring much hyped converged TV and data into play making features such as stats on demand a reality.

STN’s Take:

For any of you sports trivia buffs out there this is a great site to visit. We created an account and went in and started answering questions. It seems like they have a great database of questions and we like that there is a timer so you can get more points for answering faster. That way no one has a chance to Google the question. To get going one has three options for questions; one can select a sport, division or team. I went pretty deep on the general sport questions but it seems like the questions may be never ending. You can pretty much stop at anytime and go look at your stats page and you can move up on the rankings list the more points you get.

I have one issue with the site though. I think there needs to be more options when you login. Right now your options are to submit a question, challenge a friend only with a question you create, and just go start answering questions in for your favorite sport or team. I would like to see an option for a daily or weekly contest possibly with some prizes, a way to challenge a friend with questions already on the site, and an option to set up a private trivia league that you can invite friends to join and answer questions on a daily basis.

All in all I think they are off to a good start.

Website: www.mlbtraderumors.com

Interview With: Tim Dierkes

When did you start MLB Trade Rumors?

November of 2005.

What made you start it?

I had first started a fantasy site, RotoAuthority.com. I found myself equally if not more interested in hot stove info, and it didn’t seem to belong on the fantasy site.

What is your background?

I graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2004. I worked in search engine marketing from graduation to present.

Do you blog for fun or are you trying to make it a career? What is your goal with this blog?

Both, but I am definitely trying to make it a career. My goal is to become a full-time blogger for at least a few years and see where it takes me. It would be cool to accumulate a solid network of inside sources over the next 10-15 years, maybe get a few good exclusives here and there.

What was your tipping point? What put you on the map?

Probably the 2006 July trading deadline, when I took the day off work and covered rumors nonstop. A lot of new readers came to the site and stuck around.

MLB Trade Rumors is a crowded space especially since you are directly competing with the big media guys. How have you been able to separate yourself from the pack?

One thing big media sites seem reluctant to do is link out to other big media sites. I have no such restrictions, so I’m able to aggregate every published rumor out there in one easy-to-read format.

What type of blogging software do you use?

TypePad.

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

It will be gradual, but the Internet will overtake print media as the top medium for sports news in my lifetime. The turnaround for getting news into the newspaper is just too long for people these days. It may be the same journalists breaking the stories, but more and more of them will do so on their blogs minutes after getting the scoop.

STN’s Take:

One can tell by looking at MLB Trade Rumors that Tim is an extraordinarily hard worker. We are really glad we created our STN Top 25 Sports Bloggers List because we didn’t even know about his blog. He does a great job of getting all the information around the web and keeping it up do date on a hourly basis. He briefly mentions that since college he has worked in Search Engine Marketing and it makes sense because every time you search “MLB Trade Rumor” or “San Francisco Trade Rumor” in Google he is either first or second. We would have to say that so far Tim is the #1 free agent at this point in the blogging world. With the kind of traffic and the type of worker he is, a media company would be stupid not to snatch him up. Maybe he has had offers or maybe he just wants to go at it alone.

If one wants to find out info about baseball trade rumors, there is only one place to go, MLB Trade Rumors.

Website: www.ballhype.com

Interview with: Erin Gurney

How many founders does Ball Hype have and what are there names?

There are two of us – myself and Jason. And we’re married. To each other.

What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

I have an MBA in finance from Michigan State University and worked at internet startups and then in online marketing at Intuit for the past 5 years. Prior to that, I dabbled in journalism as an undergrad at Yale, and was an editor at a trade magazine following college.

Jason’s the engineer, although he also has an MBA from University of Washington. He’s been working at technology companies leading development teams for the past decade. On the side, he’s always kept busy with personal web apps. One of those, lowpost.net, was started as an NBA sports-blog tracking application two years ago, which became popular enough that he extended it to baseball with striketwo.net and football with faircatch.net. These sites helped build the relationships we needed with sports bloggers to get BallHype off to a running start.

What does your website do?

We help sports fans find the best stories and videos on the web, either automatically through the 2000 or so blogs that we track, or because users post them to BallHype.

When did you launch?

BallHype launched publicly on April 1, 2007. ShowHype, the entertainment version of BallHype, launched six months later on October 15, 2007.

Has it been easy or difficult to build your community?

Both. We tapped into the sports blogging community for the BallHype launch, as I mentioned. The reception was really great and since then the site has taken off. With ShowHype, we didn’t have hundreds of entertainment bloggers who were aware of us at launch, but we’re seeing really positive momentum as the word gets out.

What types of marketing have you done?

Other than hand out a few cards at a Warriors game, none. We have web site buttons and widgets that bloggers post on their sites, or writers will link to stories they find on BallHype, which helps send new readers our way.

Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisemnt? Who is your ad provider?

No, just ads. We are using Google AdSense and testing a couple other ad networks. Revenue growth hasn’t been as big of a priority for us as building the site and community, but we’ll focus more on monetization next year.

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

Our daughter’s college fund.

Are you looking for more funding?

No – we’re earning some revenue from the site so we’re going to try to keep it “all in the family” as long as possible.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

The best part about BallHype for me is the content – on any given day there are dozens of really funny, interesting articles on the home page, often from blogs that I didn’t know of a year ago.

What Type(s) of Technology do you use?

The site is homegrown using django and yui frameworks.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

Boundaries will continue to blur, as more bloggers will cross over into writing for mainstream sites and publications, and more traditional sportswriters begin blogging. We’ll also see an increasing amount of creative content enabled via technology—video, Flash, mashups, etc. And look for robots to dominate track and field, auto racing, and combat sports by 2020, although it will take them a bit longer to master team sports.

STN’s Take:

For a few months now I have pretty much visited Ball Hype on a daily basis.  You can always find the best stories of the day on there.  Not only is Ball Hype great for people looking for blog articles, its great for new bloggers as well. All you need is a couple of friends to vote on your article and you can get it to the front page. I am sure as they get more popular that will be harder.  I really like the fact that they track over 2000 blogs. Their list actually help me put together STN’s Top 25 Bloggers.

It amazes me that they really didn’t do any marketing and were able to grow the community as much as they have so far. It does make sense that since they already had relationships with other bloggers that it was easy to get the word out. Even if you have a great idea, it is extremely importanty to have relationships with people you are creating the product for.

Anyone else think Erin had a crazy bold prediction? Robots doing track and field, auto racing, and combat sports? I just can’t see that happening in my lifetime but I commend here for thinking out of the box.

If you haven’t visited Ball Hype, do it.

The NFL and Ticketmaster have struck a deal that will make Ticketmaster the official reseller of tickets for the NFL. “We are pleased to partner with Ticketmaster, the world’s leading ticketing company, to provide our fans this service,” said Eric Grubman the NFL’s Executive Vice President and President of NFL Ventures.

Because of this deal, Ticketmaster will offer a secure and safe way to resell and purchase tickets. The seller will enter in the bar code of the ticket and if it is purchased, the seller’s tickets will no longer work. Ticketmaster will then issue a new ticket from their system to the buyer. This is a huge advantage because the seller will know they are getting guaranteed tickets. StubHub has a solid system for guaranteeing tickets but Ebay has nothing. On a side note Ebay did purchase Stub Hub earlier this year. Though StubHub system is good, someone could technically sell fake tickets through their system. “Fans expect and deserve to be able to resell their tickets in a safe, convenient and legal way,” said Eric Korman, Executive Vice President of Ticketmaster.

Now the real question is will this deal kill StubHub’s and Ebay’s NFL business since they are basically the leaders in the secondary ticket market of the NFL. Ticketmaster already provides their Ticket Exchange system for the Arizona Cardinals, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, Kansas City Chiefs, Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, New York Jets, Oakland Raiders, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers, St. Louis Rams and Tennessee Titans. We went and took a look at the exchange system and we don’t think in its current existence it will hurt Stub Hub and Ebay now and into the future unless they make some changes. Here are their problems and the changes that need to be made:

• Marketing: When one knows a game is sold out and they need tickets and don’t know where to go, they go straight to Google and search. (Lets use the Dallas Cowboys as an example) Right now when we search “Dallas Cowboys Tickets” in Google, StubHub and other resellers show up at or near the top. When we type “Resell Dallas Cowboys Tickets” in Google the same thing happens. Where is the Ticketmaster Ticket Exchange? Does Ticketmaster think they can just live on their name?
• Inventory: In their press release, Ticketmaster says they have a ticket exchange for the Cowboys but there is nothing on Ticketmaster.com or on the Dallas Cowboys website for the next 2 games. If you go to StubHub, there are 100s of tickets.
• Pricing: When we go to the current Ticketmaster Ticket Exchange, we can’t find pricing until we upload tickets. They should be very upfront about pricing and the percentage should be the same across the board just like StubHub who charges 15% to sell their tickets.

For all we know Ticketmaster could have these plans in the works but at this point it seems like they wasted a great deal of money to be the official secondary ticket seller of the NFL.

Website: www.deuceofdavenport.com

What is your name? If you want to stay anonymous, why? (Please be detailed as possible)

My name is Chimpanzee Rage…and I do want to stay anonymous for now. Anyone with some basic internet searching skills could probably figure out who I am, but I like to keep this persona up to separate the sports blogging world from my real life. Basically, I don’t want to get fired from my day job for doing the blog.

When did you start Deuce of Davenport?

We started the blog in late January ‘07

What made you start it?

Like most good ideas, we came up with it at a bar. Mustafa, Trapper and I have been discussing the same things we write about online to each other for many years now. To cure boredom at our respective jobs we constantly scoured the web for some material to made us laugh or that we found interesting ever since we all graduated from school. Jan. ‘07 is just when we got sober enough to throw something up online to give us something to do with our collective insomnia, people started reading and linking and emailing, so then we decided we were screwed and had to keep putting stuff up.

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

We all blog for fun and the aforementioned insomnia, although it would be a far more entertaining career choice for all of us. Unless someone throws a boatload of money at us, I don’t think any of us are thinking of making this a career. School loans have to get paid off somehow.

For the people out there that don’t know the story behind Najeh Davenport, please tell them. I love hearing this story.

The name originates from the current Steeler, Najeh Davenport. He was drinking hard at a university on an off day while playing with the Packers and a girl came home to her dorm room to find him, in her closet, taking a dump in her hamper. Thus, our site is one big shit joke.

What was your tipping point? What put you on the map?

Our second story ever was picked up on deadspin, I wrote something on the NFL and some of their not family friendly commercials, but I think the real tipping point was when I did a story on athletes on cereal boxes. I had no idea people were that interested in breakfast foods.

What type of blogging software do you use?

We stick with Blogger, although I wish I could switch to WordPress, seems like there’s way more options there. I just don’t think at this point a switch is possible…at least with my tech savvy…or lack thereof, i mean, have you seen our site? Yeesh…

What ad network do you use?

I’ve got some Google Adsense stuff up there, some ShareASale ads, and some Link Syngery ads on there. None of them make us that much cash, but it does give me something else to look at while at work.

How much money do you make off your site monthly?

So far, not much a month. Took us until November to get our first Google check and I still haven’t seen it. We’ve turned down a few ticket companies who wanted to put text ads up and would’ve helped our bottom line, but we didn’t want to have an ad up there for a year…that meant we would have to keep writing for the site for a year. We don’t really want the blog to be like work, its here to cure our boredom.

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

I think more and more of the good blogs and writers are going to get picked up by larger sports entertainment companies. There’s great stuff out there like 100% Injury Rate, With Malice, Scott Van Pelt Style, My Brain Says Rage, Nation of Islam Sportsblog, and others that deserve to be read by wider audiences. A lot of the sports bloggers actually do or want to do this for a living and more power to them, they’re doing great stuff and I think they’re proving to the mainstream media that there are a lot of talented writers out there that people should read. Its already started with Simmons, Henry Abbott, the Mottram brothers and others. Soon other companies will see the talent and the readers are there and will see the potential big dollar signs from it all.

STN’s Take:

The Deuce of Davenport is a great blog and everyone should take a look. They are the average sports fan writing for the average sports fan. It doesn’t get any better then coming up with an idea in a bar and you have to love the story behind their name. And of course they are apart of our Top 25 Sports Blogs.

One suggestion I would give them to help out their Google earnings is to make their ads blend in with their site. Their background on their ads should be the same as their site, their headers should be yellow like the blog titles on their site, their link address should be blue like the links on their site, and their text should be white. Not only should this get more clicks, this will also make their site much cleaner looking.

Website: www.iroto.com

Interview with: Elliot Schor

How many founders does iRoto have and what are their names?

2 Founders. Elliot Schor and Joshua Wolf

What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

Elliot has an undergraduate degree from the University at Albany and a MBA from the University of Miami. Elliot has worked in different capacities ranging from investment banking to automotive strategic planning.

Josh has an undergraduate degree from Binghamton University and a MBA from Baruch College. Josh has worked in various technology capacities at prestigious technology firms.

What does your website do?

iRoto is a free independent social network for fantasy sports players. Members can enjoy typical social networking features and numerous other innovative and valuable features unique to iRoto and specifically built for fantasy sports players.

When did you launch?

September 2007

Has it been easy or difficult to build your community?

We are very pleased with iRoto’s membership growth. While registration is open to the public, our current focus is not on building the community quickly. We are using this exciting period as a time to listen to our early members to find out what is really valuable to them. Once we feel we have features that will be valuable to fantasy sports players, we will focus on growing the community.

What types of marketing have you done?

We have done a minimal amount of marketing. This is part of our overall strategy of first making sure we have the features fantasy sports players value. We do this by listening to our members suggestions and recommendations. When we feel we have the features that fantasy sports players truly want, we have an innovative marketing attack waiting to be unleashed. Having said that, we do have an advertising deal in place where we will appear in major baseball and football stadiums across the east coast. Additionally, we have done some interviews and press releases, but that’s about it.

Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement? Who is your ad provider?

We have no other revenue streams at the moment but we have others planned for the future. One thing we will never do is charge people to become members or charge for “premium”services. We currently use Google as our ad provider.

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

Self-funded

Are you currently looking for funding?

No. But we are open to having informal meetings with potential investors.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

The iRoto Rep is my favorite feature. The iRoto Rep is a unique ranking/points system that ranks each member of iRoto based on their community involvement and their fantasy sports integrity. Virtually all your activity on iRoto is considered in your iRoto Rep. The iRoto Rep has many practical applications for all fantasy sports players. Players need to know that the stranger they invite to join their league is reputable and won’t ruin the league. The iRoto Rep solves this problem by being able to research someones fantasy sports history. Additionally, how do you know that the stranger you’re taking advice from on some random message board knows fantasy sports? The iRoto Rep ensures that your getting advice from credible people as you can go back and look at how their previous advice has turned out. Finally, the so called fantasy sports “experts” rarely hold themselves accountable for their predictions and recommendations. At iRoto, we believe anyone can be an expert and we give you the opportunity to prove it with the iRoto Rep.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

Mostly Web 2.0 technology. Soon, we will be have new features that use some Web 3.0 technology.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

I believe in the future, everything about sports will be much more interactive than today. From the way we watch sports, to the way we keep track of our favorite teams and players, to the way we interact with other sports fans, technology will play an ever increasng roll in the equation. The fantasy sports industry will be strong contributor to the merging of sports and technology by using innovative methods to increase the connection between the fans and their favorite sports, teams, and players.

STN’s Take:

I can understand that Elliot is not focused on building a community yet but it seems to me that they may not have a good enough user base to get enough feedback about their product. I logged in and created an account. There is a good amount of tools to create content and communicate that look great but there really isn’t much content. I believe that in order for a site like this to succeed they need to have good fantasy content with player updates and I don’t know if they can expect the community to do that for them in the beginning. The IRoto rep feature could be great but its not really feasible until 1000s of people are using the site. They need more of an attraction then being able to post a blog and have a profile about fantasy football. You technically can do that anywhere. Right now they are basically a message board.

Welcome to Sports Tech Now. We hope you continue to enjoy your stay. Sports Tech Now is a website that brings the business, technology, and the innovation of sport to one site. Our goal is to make Sports Tech Now the number one destination for people looking for new and interesting things in the world of sports online.

For the launch we feature 5 new websites in the sports industry and we were able to track down the founders for interviews.

We are also featuring 2 blogs, and we interviewed the person who had a hand in starting both.

Featured Websites:

Draft Mix
Play Coed
Picktastic
Sports Two
Fan Bunker

Featured Blogs:

With Leather
Kissing Suzy Kolber

Website: www.draftmix.com

Interview with: Matt Maroon

How many founders does Draft Mix have and what are their names?

4. Matt, John, Chad, and Russ

What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

2 former professional poker players (one of whom has a CS degree) and two professional programmers.

What does your website do?

Fantasy Sports for money. Right now we’re mostly short season lengths (i.e. one weekend in football) to allow people to draft as much as possible, but will soon have full seasons as well.

What is Draft Mix’s cut of the money?

We’ll typically take somewhere on the order of 10% of the prize pool for ourselves, though right now we have a lot of free tournaments and such where we are actually adding money. So our current cut is a negative number, though obviously we hope to change that eventually.

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

We participated in Y Combinator’s funding program and did a small Angel round. We’re now getting ready to raise a Series A.

Do you worry about your site being thought of as gambling? Are there
any legal ramifications?

Yes. We can only operate our cash games in 39 states due to varying state laws. We don’t really worry about any problems at the Federal level, but we definitely will be spending a lot in legal fees (and already have) to remaincompliant with various state laws.

Do you worry that the big guys like ESPN, CBSSportsline, and Yahoo
will just copy what you do if its successful?

Not really. They all seem to have stopped innovating almost a decade ago. They still use Java Applets, and as a rule I never worry about anyone who uses those because it means they haven’t updated their software in a very long time. They’re not paying attention to what’s going on in the industry or adapting to it because of their size, and they won’t until it’s too late.

I worry more about other startups. I think the industry will see some big changes in the near future. A fantasy sports site is essentially a network, and as such its value increases exponentially along with the user base. So
we’re going to do what we can to gain that early lead.

Draft Mix has a feeling of Poker on its site? Are you an avid poker player and did this help in the development of the site?

I played professionally for over five years and have published a book on the topic. I was also involved in some of the marketing aspect of the industry. It did help a lot. I’ve seen poker go from a tiny little niche in 2000 to a multi billion dollar industry in 2006, and have experimented with marketing and found what works and what doesn’t. I know why it blossomed like it did,
and think I can bring the same underlying principles to fantasy sports.

Are you trying to patent some of the processes on your site?

Not yet, though we have one we may file a provisional for at some point.

What type of technology does Draft Mix use?

We use Flash for the live portions of our site because it’s ubiquitous. More people have Flash than JavaScript turned on, and those who don’t can get it with a couple clicks.

STN’s Take:

I logged in to the site and created an account. It was pretty simple. I deposited using Paypal and there was a $25 minimum. Until the community is built up they may want to think about making it $5 for Paypal. I went ahead and chose a “heads up” game for this past weekend. The only problem is that there wasn’t anyone there so I had to sit and wait. I queued up some players and then I went to work on something else. I came back every couple of minutes but no one had come in yet. Then I forget about it for a while and came back and the draft was already half way done. I didn’t have my headphones on so it was partly my fault that I missed it because there is a sound that alerts you. They may want to think about also having a flash alert like an IM or pop the web page back up when the draft starts especially if people are drafting at work where they have sound turned off. A few other suggestions:

• In the draft room the website should show a player’s opponent for the coming week
• There should also be a link to news, injury status, and a weekly projection for the players. They could probably partner with a fantasy news site for that information

All in all I really believe this site has a ton of potential. For people who love drafting a team it is great because you get that fun on a weekly basis. I would even like to see this on a game by game basis so you could just do a draft for a Monday Night Game.

Website: www.picktastic.com

Interview with: Tim Sears

How many founders does Picktastic have and what are their names?

Picktastic was founded by two longtime friends and sports enthusiasts; Tim Sears and Brandon Corry.

What are the founders’ backgrounds and qualifications?

Tim and Brandon both have extensive backgrounds in Software Engineering, particularly within the context of the web.

Tim works in product development and consulting for a web agency in Portland, OR called ISITE Design. There, he specializes in mid to high-end content management system implementations for a variety of clients, as well as custom websites and applications.

Brandon has a background in Software Engineering for startups before the bubble burst earlier this decade. He is currently based out of Seattle, where he writes software to provide cross-platform accessibility for mobile devices.

What does your website do?

Picktastic empowers sports fans with a way to back-up their sports-related trash talking by challenging them to prove they can predict which teams are going to win. They are able to up the stakes of their picks by wagering points they earn from successful picks against other members who pick against them. Over all of that, though, it provides a community where casual and die-hard sports fans can interact and compete against others.

When did you launch?

Picktastic lauched on October 30, 2007.

Has it been easy or difficult to build your community?

Both, really. We’ve received a lot of great feedback from our community, and they have been very enthusiastically responsive to the direction we’re taking the site. Many of our features have been very effective; what’s difficult is now determining which of the many ideas on our plate will help keep users plugged in the most.

What types of marketing have you done?

Our culture has been very grass-roots, and our marketing strategy has reflected that as such. We’ve relied a lot on word of mouth, as well as features to help our users spread the word about our site. Since our site is so young, many of our campaigns are still ramping up, so much of our future strategy will depend on how successful our smaller kickoff campaigns go.

Do you have any revenue streams besides advertisement? Who is your ad provider?

Currently, our primary revenue flow is from advertising. We are using Google AdSense, and will be gradually adopting other models of advertising going forward. Our primary focus in these early months is growing the community, though. Call it a luxury of being a self-sufficient startup.

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

100% self-funded. We are both highly creative and resourceful entrepreneurs, and have been able to achieve our initial goals without outside investment.

Are you currently looking for funding?

We are not actively seeking funding at this time, as our 6 month and 1 year milestone projections don’t require it. Given the right circumstances, though, we would consider it.

Do you use point spreads? If not, why?

We don’t use point spreads in the interest of appealing to a broader demographic of sports fans. While most fans are likely familiar with how spreads work, we set out to create an environment where users could contribute content freely and easily without having to overthink things. We found through our alpha testing that even without spreads, picking very well for a week of games can be quite challenging. For example, since the start of our alpha testing last August, only one user has picked a perfect week of NFL games.

What is your favorite feature on your site?

My personal favorite is the Friends Leaderboards. Like our standard Leaderboards feature, which allows you to compare and contrast your accuracy against other users by different sports and time ranges, the Friends Leaderboards gives you a much more personal view of how you’re doing by ranking you up against your friends list. It also makes it easier for you to brag to your buddies about being the best.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

We built the site using ASP.Net 2.0 / C# on SQL Server 2005. On the front-end, we’ve separated presentation and content with XHTML and CSS and are using prototype and moo.fx for some of the AJAX and animated effects you see throughout the site. Also, if you look closely, you’ll notice we’ve done some pretty wild stuff with transparent png’s to achieve the color-coded effect for different team-specific elements.

Any bold predictions for sports and technology in the future?

I think we’re really beginning to see the birth of the mobile age. Internet users are demanding their content to be delivered more timely, and mobile devices are the most eligible vehicle for that. In the not-so-far future, we’ll begin to see mobile content in sports switch to be much more about collaboration, and less about simply information retrieval.

STN’s Take:

Picktastic is a great-looking site. The User-Interface is very easy to use. We really like the fact that when you make a selection it is automatically entered without you having to actually hit a submit button. It is much better than a lot of the sites we use right now for our picks. We thought it was really interesting how Tim discussed why they don’t use point spreads for their picks. You can tell they have done their homework. The site is a great place for the casual fan to have a place to see how well they pick.

We have two suggestions. One would be to build in a private function so people that run pick pools can do it right through the site. The “Friends Leaderboard” option may work, but I think they should set up a more formal option that says “set up private league” or something like that. This would allow them to gain a much larger user base. The second would be to build the exact same system with spreads so people have a choice. As a casual better gets more involved with picking games, they start to discuss spreads more. At least that is what happened with our friends.