Website:  Score OS

Interview With:  Randy Burgess

Contact: info@scoreos.org

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

The SCORE OS project was founded by Don VanDemark (Lead Developer), Randy Burgess (Lead Developer), and Jim Burgess (Business Manager). Don has worked with fantasy sports statistics retrieval and fantasy sports management systems for almost a decade. Randy has developed and hosted fantasy sports management systems for fantasy college football, college basketball, and major league soccer for the past eight years. Jim Burgess has run the business operations of Pre Pro Sports for the past four years. The SCORE OS is a side project for all three founders in addition to their normal day jobs.

What is your background and qualifications?

Don has worked with both open source and closed source technologies with IBM and Microsoft technologies prior to learning open source systems and has a business degree from the University of Florida. Randy has worked with ASP.NET, SQL Server, MySQL, PHP, and Drupal technologies and has a Business/MIS degree from the University of Georgia. Jim has a management degree from Georgia Tech and is a Certified Public Accountant. All three of the founders have played fantasy sports for the past 10-15 years.

What does your website do?

SCORE OS is an effort to develop an Open Source Fantasy Sports Management System for businesses and hobbyists, alike. The goal is to develop a technology foundation for any fantasy sports game that would need a database and a web-based interface (i.e. hosting, user management, scoring, roster management, waivers, database, messaging and communications, etc), which would then give developers more time to create new, innovative games for the fantasy sports industry. From your typical head-to-head fantasy NFL games to your Major League Soccer niche roto league manager to your combined MLB and Minor League baseball player stock-trading game, the SCORE OS platform will be designed to help develop them all by laying the groundwork.

How do you generate revenue?

After the SCORE OS platform is developed further, we expect that revenue could be generated for business-quality technical support, site/application hosting, or from custom fantasy game development for specific firms. However, the higher goal of SCORE OS is to provide a means for other firms to utilize and develop the technologies with which to drive their own revenues and make the entire fantasy sports market better for small business owners and fantasy sports consumers.
 
How have your marketed your site?
 
Thus far, we have only sent out a single press release and we have started a weekly blog to discuss news related to progress being made on the SCORE OS project and the fantasy sports technology industry.
 
Funding: Self funded, Angel Investment, or Venture Capital?

Self-funded at this time, but always looking for contributions in development time and technology resources.
 
Are You currently looking for funding?

Not at the current time, but we would be open to offers.
 
What type(s) of technology do you use?

Our next system will run on a LAMPD stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Drupal). This system will give the SCORE OS platform the benefits of security and design by the thousands of developers who work to improve the Drupal CMS system while SCORE OS developers can work on the fantasy sports management system core.
 
What is your favorite feature on your website?

At this point, we haven’t released the application, but we are looking forward to releasing a League News Feed and Team News Feed that works similar to Facebook, FriendFeed, and Twitter: A continuous RSS Feed that can be subscribed to and retrieved in an RSS Reader or elsewhere that provides details on Fantasy League news, chatter, and transactions.
 
Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

As the bandwidth of the broadband pipe grows and more consumers use Internet-based tools for their entertainment and social networking, we expect Sports Technology to increase the amount of live data streams, audio, and video feeds available for both current and archived sporting events based on fans/users preferences. We also expect to see a trend where fantasy sports games and highlights/clips will be delivered in “customized packages” based-on fantasy owners’ specific rosters and player choices.