Smack Caster

Website: SmackCaster

Blog: SmackBlog

Interview With: Peter Barry

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

Michael Gelfand, Joe Halpin

What are your backgrounds and qualifications?

Avid sports fans, plus…

Michael Gelfand
(co-founder, CEO) spearheads the online communications strategy for TD AMERITRADE. He has more than 16 years of leadership experience in online, interactive TV (ACTV Inc), and entertainment publishing (Hachette Filipacchi, CurtCo Media).
 
Joe Halpin
(co-founder, COO)
has been a performance technologist for 18 years specializing in solutions that cost-effectively impact the performance of workforces and businesses. He has been a successful business owner and raised more than $1M capital. Clients include Philips Electronics, Mindspeed Tech., Merck, Altera Corp.

Peter Barry
(co-founder, CMO), has 20 years of executive experience creating content and corporate strategy for large media companies (Hachette Filipacchi, CurtCo Media). As co-founder and VP of KnowledgeLINKS, a start-up Internet software company, he helped raise more than $28M and oversaw growth from 8 to 75 employees in less than 28 months.

What does your website do?

It’s a community for fans to talk about the teams they love and love to hate, share knowledge, and get into passionate exchanges.
 
How do you generate revenue? If through ads, what ad network do you use?

Currently, just Google AdSense.
 
Have your marketed your site?

Yes, virally through the Internet.

Funding:

Self funded

Are You currently looking for funding?

Yes

What type(s) of technology do you use?

Open Source Joomla! with multiple extensions
 
What is your favorite feature on your website?

Our video interface allows users to respond directly to other posters to create a video debate/conversation.

Swing Academy

Website: Swing Academy

Interview With:  Rick

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

No, Only myself

What is your background and qualifications?

Golfer for 10 years, Developer for 20 years

What does your website do?

FREE Online community of golfers who submit videos for instruction by peers.  We use very sophisticated video analysis tools to enable our users to improve their games and to help others improve as well.

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

Ad based revune. We use commission junction though that is about to change.

How have your marketed your site?

We haven’t. Our users are spreading the word at a decent clip although advertising and trade shows are in our future.

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

Self-Funded

Are You currently looking for funding?

Yes.. but it must be on our terms.. so I guess “No” is a better answer.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

Flash video and application development. ASP.net for the web. We have created a proprietary method for video analysis.

What is your favorite feature on your website?

Community-based Video Analysis and Side-by-Side comparison of any 2 videos.

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

Well.. we hope to pioneer some new ways for golfers to learn and improve. We are just beginning to scratch the surface of what can be done.

Sports Blog Net

SportsBlogNet.com is a website that incorporates original sports content and a network of sports blogs that puts sports fans and writers in the driver’s seat.

At SportsBlogNet.com you can:

• Read all the quality blogs in the network
• Write for a blog in the network
• Discover new blogs
• Build a new free sports blog
• Join the network as an additional revenue and traffic source for your sports blog

“We feel that we have built a quality product that gives sports bloggers the ability to succeed and sports fans an easy way to find great content. We have received great feedback from the bloggers in the network so far and plan to always be adding great new features,” said Rich Spott CTO and Co-founder of SportsBlogNet.com.

SportsBlogNet.com currently has approximately 56 blogs in the network with a reach of approximately 200,000 unique visitors per month which is growing daily. Currently SportsBlogNet.com links out to all our blogs in the network and also sells direct ads for all the blogs in the network.

It is SportsBlogNet.com’s mission to make both small and large sports blogs as successful as possible in terms of their revenue and traffic. Their goals are to get all the blogs in the network out to the masses, give new bloggers the ability to get the exposure they are looking for, and give sports fans a destination that they want to visit everyday.

Along with the launch of SportsBlogNet.com, Union Sports Blog will launch as a SportsBlogNet.com property. Union will be “The Most Collaborative Sports Blog on the Internet”. “Eventually we plan to have a new writer every day of the month. We found that there are many sports bloggers out there that cover a certain team or niche but they also want to write about other topics. Union provides that,” said Rich Spott Co-founder of SportsBlogNet.com.

(Disclosure: We are part owners of SportsBlogNet)

Goal Line Blitz

Website: Goal Line Blitz

Interview With: Peter and Jesse

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

GLB was Co-Founded by Bort (Peter) and DigitalDaggers (Jesse)

What is your background and qualifications?

Both of us have been plugged into the internet since were young, so we kind of grew up along with the computer.  We both love sports too, so GLB is a great fit for us!

What does your website do?

It’s an American Football MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games)

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

Through the sale of teams, players, levels, equipment.

How have your marketed your site?

We have a referral system in place, that is currently our only marketing.

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

Self-funded.

Are You currently looking for funding?

No thank you.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

Fancy intarweb codes / algorithms

What is your favorite feature on your website?

There are so very many things (aren’t there always), but we’ll go with Instant Replays!

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

Nothing but up for the Sports/Tech field…the number of people online worldwide will continue to grow.

eCouchCoach

Website:eCouchCoach

Interview With: Zach Harris

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

I am a co-founder with another fantasy football guru Eric Mattingly.

What is your background and qualifications?

I have been an NFL follower and Fantasy League Commissioner for over 6 years now.  I am an IT consultant with lots of knowledge about the web and about football.  Also if you have suggestions for the site I am the man to ask, as I like to let the site have a little bit of something for everyone.  The site has been up for 2 years, however, this is the first year it has become public.

What does your website do?

It is a completely free fantasy football league website.  Everything from live scoring, to injury updates, to custom scoring, to custom league types, to news, to articles, etc. are all free.  I was tired of paying for what I wanted a fantasy football site to do so I decided to create my own.  Now that it is up and running I would like to share it with others.

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

I am not looking to make a profit off this site.  I am just looking to pass the word about a completely free fantasy football website.

How have your marketed your site?

I have basically just used word of mouth so far.  I have used forums, to blogs, to telling people verbally.  The site is starting to pick up in the Indianapolis area.

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

This is a self funded site.

Are You currently looking for funding?

No I am not.  I am just looking to get people interested in eCouchCoach.com.

What type(s) of technology do you use?

PHP, MySQL, Javascript, Ajax

What is your favorite feature on your website?

I really enjoy the free live scoring.  Most sites make you pay for that.  I also enjoy the free stat tracker and the “My Challenges” portion of the site.

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

Fantasy football is going to take off now (as if it hasn’t already)  that it is becoming so easy to following the NFL online.  So why not be able to do it for free?

Sports Data Hub

Website: SportsDataHub

Interview With: Kevin Goodfellow

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

It’s just me.

What is your background and qualifications?:

During the week I’m a Data Warehousing consultant for Fortune 500 level companies. During the weekend I’m a 12 year fantasy football fanatic bulldozing my fellow league owners. In a previous life, I designed commercial aircraft mechanical/hydraulic systems for Boeing.

What does your website do?

Sports Data Hub provides interactive football data for avid sports fans and fantasy players.  Our point and click visualization tools allow fans to analyze football data the way their minds work - forward, backward, and sideways….in real time.  We make football data analysis easy, convenient, fun, flexible, and more productive.

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

We have a combined revenue model: Ads, Subscriptions, and B2B white labeling of our tools. Fantasy Sports Ventures is our ad network.

How have your marketed your site?

As a start up we have a very small budget, so we have to spend our marketing money wisely. We have focused primarily on native search rankings, since they are relatively inexpensive to attain and can be grown if you have the time and knowledge. Our alpha site was up for a year prior to our beta launch for just this purpose and has resulted in our site being highly ranked in related search terms.  We are also including a small amount of print advertising in fantasy related publications, online banner ads, e-mail advertising, and some direct marketing near NFL events. Our schwag has been popular, with Post-it notes and fliers the size of a business card instead of something bulky.

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

To date we are self funded with team members, friends, and family investments.

Are You currently looking for funding?:

Yes. Depending on our success, we will be looking for a growth sized investment near the end of the year. This investment would be to grow faster and bigger than we could do on our own.

What type(s) of technology do you use?:

Top Secret.  However, we are big supporters of open source and without the open source community this concept would have been impossible. In fact, this concept would not have been possible just last year….it is that bleeding edge.

What is your favorite feature on your website?:

I like our analysis tools, they are the heart and soul of our site. I blow my own mind every time I use them.

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?:

I think what we are doing at SportsDataHub.com is opening a new door of high technology tools for the sports consumer. Anything to get an edge…

Better late then never above are the top 25 Blogs for July.  We have brought on yet another site to help us rank websites and that is Quantcast.  Quantcast has actually gone out and done deals with major websites like Wordpress to provide the most accurate data possible.  If you haven’t quantified your site, go check it out.  We decided to use a mix of Quantcast and Google Ad Planner because it seems that Quantcast is way off on a few sites that they don’t have accurate data for.  They do a great job with subdomains so that allowed us to eliminate Alexa.

You can view why we pick these sites and not others at the bottom of April’s Top 25 Sports Blogs.

Open Sports, started by the former founder of Sportsline.com Mike Levy, has launched into Public Beta.  We previously covered Open Sports when they first announced their funding.

At first look it looks to be a standard sports fan site and it looks like they got Sean Salisbury involved.  If we are choosing someone notable to partner with when launching our site we would probably would put Salisbury last on our list. 

This is what there About page says they are going to do:

• Read national and local stories from around the web
• Read and write insightful and entertaining blogs
• Stay up-to-date on teams and players
• Keep your friends and other sports fans informed by uploading videos, photos and stories
• Become friends with other registered members
• Participate in passionate discussions through commenting and forums
• Be entertained through engaging community programming experiences

It will be interesting to see if they can garner the amount of unique visitors a venture backed site needs to be successful.

Website: The Sports Bizzo

Interview With: Toph Miller

When did you start your blog?

The Sports Bizzo was started in April.

What made you start it?

Jon (”co-founder”) and I (Toph) decided it was time for us to get our voice out. One of those things where we thought we were really witty, clever and had insight, so we decided to share it. We started off wanting to do podcast (and do currently), and The Bizzo evolved around that.

What is your background?

Jon’s background is in playwriting. Mine is in advertising and copywriting.

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

We blog because we enjoy writing and think we have relevant opinions. Who wouldn’t want this to be a career? But, it’s not our main goal. Becoming obscenely famous is our main goal. Our goal with The Bizzo is just like every other blogs goal - drive traffic and get noticed.

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

Our first visitor was our tipping point. Someone once said to me, “If only one person shows up, then it was all worth it.” Sure, that person had no idea what they were talking about, but I still listened.

What type of blogging software do you use?

We use Wordpress.

What ad network(s) do you use?

7 million……

How much money do you make off your site monthly?

Money? People make money off these things?!

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

Advertising. Lots and lots of advertising.

What are some of your favorite blogs?

TophSpeaks.com, BlogMaverick.com, BloggingTheBoys.com, MavsMoneyball.com and your various top Sports Blogs.

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

Bold predictions? Sports will no longer be on TV, but streamed lived online. No? How about, traditional newspapers and beat writers will all be put out of a job, and blogs will take over. How does that sound?

Website: www.U-SCORE.net and www.U-SCORE.tv

Info: U-Score Demo (We highly suggest you watch it)

Interview With: Johnny Richardson

Is there more than one founder? If so who are they?

No.  Scratched and clawed to get it here.  But had some “friends and family” that came on to help along the way.

What is your background and qualifications?

Well, I had a technology background since before high school.  However, I started a design and engineering firm back in the mid 90″s and sold it and started this company in 2003.  Mainly been under the radar, during that time perfecting our technology and platform.  Basically, we have built something pretty great and scalable.

What does your website do?

In a nutshell, our platform/website provides users, fans, parents, student-athletes, coaches and scouts with real-time play-by-play video of 6 seconds after it happens of each play by a specific player (video, and stats) to our website and to any mobile phone.

How have you marketed your site?

We are planning on marketing in a big way this football season, nationally (grass-roots approach)

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

Self-funded and angel investment

Are you currently looking for funding?

Yes,  we definitely looking for strategic and equity partners

What type9s) of techonology do you use?

LAMP, linux, PHP, MySql and Flex

What is your favorite feature on your website?

Our real-time capability of finding any specific player and just looking ONLY at that players video through the game or season, seconds after it happens

Any Bold Predictions for Sports and Technology in the future?

Well, my strong belief is people will  shift continually to consuming video content online, the more relevant and personal the better.