Sports fans - would you use this?
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I spent some time adding a sports news reader to SportsLizard. Unlike my other projects, this is one that I primarily did for myself and I will enjoy regardless of whether or not anyone else finds value in it.
I wanted to be able to read sports news from several sites at once, without having to sign up for something like MyYahoo or having to download a feed reader. I also didn't want to have to go out and find all of the feeds I want to read. I wanted all of the sports feeds already picked out and organized for me.
So that's what I did. Here's a screenshot of the default homepage...
...and the description-tag when hovering over the headline (which saves some time from actually having to visit the site for every story)
...and finally you can customize the 10 feeds from over 450 unique feeds that I handpicked. I included sports sections from local newspapers, so fans in Detroit can subscribe to the Free Press or fans in NY can subscribe to the Times. It remembers your favorites with a cookie so there's no registration! It's literally a two-file site with no database.
I'll talk more about ideas I have to market this in the future, but I do think there is some potential here. Most programmers will say "big deal" because it's just an RSS reader, but the reality is that most people still don't know what RSS is, and many who do still don't see advantages over just bookmarking a site. Hopefully the simplicity of this application will impress "average joe sportsfan". Nowhere does it actually try to "push" RSS...or even mention that RSS is where the news is coming from.
For you sports fans out there, I'm curious if you see value in this or not. An email or a comment would be greatly appreciated.
As for me - I set it up with feeds from my favorite sites and favorite teams and I'm loving it...although I'm a bit biased :)
I wanted to be able to read sports news from several sites at once, without having to sign up for something like MyYahoo or having to download a feed reader. I also didn't want to have to go out and find all of the feeds I want to read. I wanted all of the sports feeds already picked out and organized for me.
So that's what I did. Here's a screenshot of the default homepage...
...and the description-tag when hovering over the headline (which saves some time from actually having to visit the site for every story)
...and finally you can customize the 10 feeds from over 450 unique feeds that I handpicked. I included sports sections from local newspapers, so fans in Detroit can subscribe to the Free Press or fans in NY can subscribe to the Times. It remembers your favorites with a cookie so there's no registration! It's literally a two-file site with no database.
I'll talk more about ideas I have to market this in the future, but I do think there is some potential here. Most programmers will say "big deal" because it's just an RSS reader, but the reality is that most people still don't know what RSS is, and many who do still don't see advantages over just bookmarking a site. Hopefully the simplicity of this application will impress "average joe sportsfan". Nowhere does it actually try to "push" RSS...or even mention that RSS is where the news is coming from.
For you sports fans out there, I'm curious if you see value in this or not. An email or a comment would be greatly appreciated.
As for me - I set it up with feeds from my favorite sites and favorite teams and I'm loving it...although I'm a bit biased :)
posted by Adam McFarland at
11/26/2006 03:19:00 PM
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