See? I told you.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Who are the rockies?
The Rockies are going to win the World Series. They may never lose another game, for that matter. I think the Rockies and the Patriots will need to play in the spring to determine which is the greatest team in the history of sports.
So who the heck are the Rockies? I was watching the game last night and one of my friends literally did not know that there was a baseball team in Colorado.
I think some of these sports websites need to do some sidebar profiles on the Rockies. There have been a lot of stories about how hot they are and all of that, but most of them only make a brief mention of who they are and what they did throughout the season. Most of the team is relatively unknown aside from Matt Holliday, and even he is not exactly high-profile. Seems to me that it would be in the best interest of the various media outlets to try and get people interested in the players and make some sort of attachment.
As a baseball fan it's interesting to me to see two young and relatively unknown teams going at it in the NL, but I imagine that the casual fan is asking "Why should I care? Where's Derek Jeter?"
You could definitely do entire stories about the Rockies (and the Diamondbacks and Indians, for that matter) detailing who they are and what they did this year. Failing that, however, it seems obvious to me that they should be sprinkling their stories with player profiles and highlights. Stuff like that to make the readers feel some sort of connection to the team. All I see on ESPN is pictures and highlights from the current games.
Like I said, as a devoted fan of the game I am already interested in the series. However, I recognize that a more casual fan probably feels that they are not being given any reason to care about any team other than the Red Sox, and instead are just being told to care. As if the networks (TV, print, online, etc.) are saying "this is interesting. We won't tell you why it's interesting. Just know that you are interested."
On a somewhat related note, I'm not sure how to post pictures or video on my blog.
From a technical standpoint, I know how. I'll prove it later.
The thing is that the subject matter that I'm commenting on doesn't really have videos on the net that are able to be posted to a blog. mlb.com has a bunch of videos, but I'm pretty sure they all stay on their site. I will look into that though.
The same thing goes for pictures. They're all subject to copyright laws.
I can post pictures of random things i guess, but they may not be related to my subject.
Hmm...
So who the heck are the Rockies? I was watching the game last night and one of my friends literally did not know that there was a baseball team in Colorado.
I think some of these sports websites need to do some sidebar profiles on the Rockies. There have been a lot of stories about how hot they are and all of that, but most of them only make a brief mention of who they are and what they did throughout the season. Most of the team is relatively unknown aside from Matt Holliday, and even he is not exactly high-profile. Seems to me that it would be in the best interest of the various media outlets to try and get people interested in the players and make some sort of attachment.
As a baseball fan it's interesting to me to see two young and relatively unknown teams going at it in the NL, but I imagine that the casual fan is asking "Why should I care? Where's Derek Jeter?"
You could definitely do entire stories about the Rockies (and the Diamondbacks and Indians, for that matter) detailing who they are and what they did this year. Failing that, however, it seems obvious to me that they should be sprinkling their stories with player profiles and highlights. Stuff like that to make the readers feel some sort of connection to the team. All I see on ESPN is pictures and highlights from the current games.
Like I said, as a devoted fan of the game I am already interested in the series. However, I recognize that a more casual fan probably feels that they are not being given any reason to care about any team other than the Red Sox, and instead are just being told to care. As if the networks (TV, print, online, etc.) are saying "this is interesting. We won't tell you why it's interesting. Just know that you are interested."
On a somewhat related note, I'm not sure how to post pictures or video on my blog.
From a technical standpoint, I know how. I'll prove it later.
The thing is that the subject matter that I'm commenting on doesn't really have videos on the net that are able to be posted to a blog. mlb.com has a bunch of videos, but I'm pretty sure they all stay on their site. I will look into that though.
The same thing goes for pictures. They're all subject to copyright laws.
I can post pictures of random things i guess, but they may not be related to my subject.
Hmm...
Monday, October 8, 2007
ESPN vs. SI
I was doing a side by side comparison this morning of some sports illustrated baseball coverage and ESPN's coverage of the same story and realized why i like ESPN so much better: they give you everything you need on one page.
SI tends to have nicer pictures, I'll give them that, but in terms of information ESPN gives you pretty much anything that you could want from a story on one page.
SI basically gives you the story, a picture or two, some links to relate stories, and maybe a table sometimes.
ESPN gives you the story, pictures, video (to be fair, SI probably can't get the rights to the video sometimes), tables, etc etc. I really like their scoring summaries and their box scores, both of which SI could definitely have. It's all factual information, so ESPN couldn't copyright it. SI would just have to find a different way to do it. Same thing with the box scores. Sure, SI links to a box score, but why not just include one at the top like ESPN does? It really doesn't need its own page.
Another thing that ESPN has that i really love is links to player data. Again, I can't see a reason why SI couldn't do something like this. On ESPN the first mention of any player's name is a hyperlink to that player's profile, which includes stats, pictures, and all sorts of stuff. I like to look at that stuff, so having the link there is very convenient. On SI you have to go back and run a search to find that information.
It seems to me that SI is really missing the boat on a lot of extra information that they could be including in their stories.
And oddly enough, despite the fact that it has way more information on the page, i find that ESPN's page design seems to look way less cluttered than SI's.
SI tends to have nicer pictures, I'll give them that, but in terms of information ESPN gives you pretty much anything that you could want from a story on one page.
SI basically gives you the story, a picture or two, some links to relate stories, and maybe a table sometimes.
ESPN gives you the story, pictures, video (to be fair, SI probably can't get the rights to the video sometimes), tables, etc etc. I really like their scoring summaries and their box scores, both of which SI could definitely have. It's all factual information, so ESPN couldn't copyright it. SI would just have to find a different way to do it. Same thing with the box scores. Sure, SI links to a box score, but why not just include one at the top like ESPN does? It really doesn't need its own page.
Another thing that ESPN has that i really love is links to player data. Again, I can't see a reason why SI couldn't do something like this. On ESPN the first mention of any player's name is a hyperlink to that player's profile, which includes stats, pictures, and all sorts of stuff. I like to look at that stuff, so having the link there is very convenient. On SI you have to go back and run a search to find that information.
It seems to me that SI is really missing the boat on a lot of extra information that they could be including in their stories.
And oddly enough, despite the fact that it has way more information on the page, i find that ESPN's page design seems to look way less cluttered than SI's.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Error by omission
I was looking at a story on ESPN yesterday and noticed some glaring holes in their content. Being as the story was on the web, there were a ton of things that the story could have, or even should have included, but did not.
The story is about the Roberto Clemente award nominees, and the fact that 6 Hispanic players are nominated this year. There were a number of sidebars and such that could have added some interesting and valuable information to the story, but instead the story only included a few pictures.
First and foremost, the article says that there are 30 nominees for the award. I wanted to know who the other nominees were, since the article only names 6 of them, and I had heard Ryan Zimmerman's name thrown around. I actually searched the web for this and couldn't find it anywhere, so in all fairness it may be that the names aren't supposed to be published yet, or something.
Second, they could have included a chart of the previous winners. I remembered that Carlos Delgado won the award last year, but I'd be curious to know who the historic winners had been. This would have been a perfect opportunity for a simple table on the page, but for whatever reason there is nothing of the sort.
Finally, I don't really know that much about Roberto Clemente, since he was before my time. I know that he died in a plane crash while doing humanitarian work, and I know that he is considered one of the all-time great players, but that's about it. This article definitely could've benefitted from a timeline highlighting some of Clemente's key accomplishments.
At first i thought that maybe the extra content had been omitted because the story was from AP, but then i checked again and the story is from an ESPN Deportes writer. The only reason that I can come up with for leaving out information like that is that they thought that the page would be too cluttered. If that's the case, I think I'd have rather seen them do away with the second picture on the page and replace that with one of the tables that i suggested.
At least, that's how i would have done it.
The story is about the Roberto Clemente award nominees, and the fact that 6 Hispanic players are nominated this year. There were a number of sidebars and such that could have added some interesting and valuable information to the story, but instead the story only included a few pictures.
First and foremost, the article says that there are 30 nominees for the award. I wanted to know who the other nominees were, since the article only names 6 of them, and I had heard Ryan Zimmerman's name thrown around. I actually searched the web for this and couldn't find it anywhere, so in all fairness it may be that the names aren't supposed to be published yet, or something.
Second, they could have included a chart of the previous winners. I remembered that Carlos Delgado won the award last year, but I'd be curious to know who the historic winners had been. This would have been a perfect opportunity for a simple table on the page, but for whatever reason there is nothing of the sort.
Finally, I don't really know that much about Roberto Clemente, since he was before my time. I know that he died in a plane crash while doing humanitarian work, and I know that he is considered one of the all-time great players, but that's about it. This article definitely could've benefitted from a timeline highlighting some of Clemente's key accomplishments.
At first i thought that maybe the extra content had been omitted because the story was from AP, but then i checked again and the story is from an ESPN Deportes writer. The only reason that I can come up with for leaving out information like that is that they thought that the page would be too cluttered. If that's the case, I think I'd have rather seen them do away with the second picture on the page and replace that with one of the tables that i suggested.
At least, that's how i would have done it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)