Future US Shuts Down DailyRadar, Ballhype, 'Blips Sites

As Andy Beal from Marketing Pilgrim discovered earlier this week, a once-promising news and social networking family of sites, owned by FutureUS, including ones dedicated to sports, Hollywood, politics, and much more, was snuffed out with little warning. In its wake, sites I often visited in the last three years, including BallHype, MacBlips and many others, are gone, and aren't coming back. The move was said to be a "reluctant" one, derived from "continuing shifts in consumption and sharing patterns", which made the sites stodgy dinosaurs in a Twitter and Facebook dominated landscape.

Ballhype sparked the genesis of the network way back in April of 2007, gaining visibility not just from me, but from TechCrunch and MG Siegler, before most folks in the Valley had heard of either of us. The promise was to make a Digg-like site focused on specific topics, and tap into real communities. For a while, it worked. Six months later, the Ballhype team went for the glitz of Hollywood and launched Showhype.

The success of these sites, and promise for even more subject-centric vehicles, led to Future US picking them up in July of 2008 for a rumored $3 million, which brought even more sites, including Beltway Blips for politics, spawning an avalanche of "Blips" clones, like MacBlips and GadgetBlips. The sites themselves were very cool, pulling headlines from around the Web by topic and letting you vote them up or down.

But this alone seemingly didn't help the long term success of the network. The engagement once a hallmark of Ballhype didn't make it to all the other properties, and it was well known that Future US scaled back its plans in 2009. Now, it seems the two year experiment has been closed.

The husband and wife team behind Ballhype, Showhype and the rest, Jason and Erin Gurney, ended up being good friends with my own family, and even provided our twins with some of our most-enjoyed toys, after their kids had outgrown them. It seems the social Web outgrew the Daily Radar and Blips sites, and we'll be watching the pair to see what they come up with next.

TechBlips Puts Me Under the Spotlight

When Future US purchased the BallHype and ShowHype properties, there were questions in some corners of the blogosphere in terms of what the company had planned - and if they had overspent. When lacking details, many people tend to jump to the conclusion that there are no plans at all, but in the ensuing months, Future US has stepped on the accelerator in terms of rolling out new vertically-focused communities, covering everything from gadgets and Macintosh, to general tech, marketing, politics and even Wall Street.

TechBlips, the 12th property to be rolled out by the same team behind the "Hype" properties focuses on tech Web sites, big and small. Speaking of small, they made an effort to reach out to me, and delivered a solid Q&A profile, posted to the site this afternoon.

In the post, Douglas C. Perry, who sent me the questions, and does a great job in his intro, we talk about how louisgray.com got started, what sites I read every day, reactions from friends and coworkers, how I use Twitter, and why I blog in the first place, how I make time to do it, and some of my favorite stories. You can find the article here: TechBlips Spotlight on Louis Gray.

As I mentioned yesterday, it's a very unusual thing, still, for me to get the opportunity to speak up, but I very much appreciate TechBlips' interest, and the effort to put the piece together. They also have a very interesting site, much like Digg but with actual class and focus.

And if you like the interview, check out some similar pieces from the past:

Mark Evans: Who’s Louis Gray?
Scribkin: I AM BLOGGER: LOUIS GRAY

Gawkk Delivers Video Discovery Engine With a Social Center

It doesn't take a scholar to recognize the commentary around most YouTube videos appeals to the lowest common denominator. As is common with many Web services that have gained mass popularity, the discussion on YouTube more closely resembles a junior high locker room than an exchange between friends and family. At times, the nonsense spewed underneath the most popular videos is practically enough to make a person avoid the site altogether.

In contrast to the banal free-for-all at YouTube, where the inmates are in control of the asylum, we have seen the rise of more personal, friend-centric services to exchange links, images and video through social media in the last few years, including sites like FriendFeed, Twitter, Ballhype and Socialmedian. A new name to be included as part of that conversation is Gawkk, a social video discovery and sharing site, which pulls in the most popular videos across the Web from services including YouTube, Hulu, Break.com and others, and sets up a platform to see what videos your friends have shared or commented on.


A Gawkk Video from Hulu, With My Comment
The service, created by former Direct Hit co-founder, Gary Culliss, lets you subscribe to channels as diverse as CNN and the History Channel to The Simpsons Channel, Law & Order, and even Budweiser Commercials. You can also browse the site's many different categories, see the most popular videos of the day, or simply follow the channels your friends have subscribed to.


Some Popular Videos Found on Gawkk, via MSNBC and Hulu
As a Gawkk member, you create your own personal channel, and can add videos to your channel by hitting "Save" underneath any video. You also can create an activity stream by voting videos up or down (like with Digg) or through your comments.

For example, my channel can be found here: http://www.gawkk.com/louisgray/channel and my activity feed can be found here: http://www.gawkk.com/louisgray/activity.


My Gawkk Activity Stream
Unlike YouTube and Hulu, Gawkk does not actually store the video media on its site. Instead, it acts as way for users to share video they have found from anywhere on the Web and share it on the site (using a bookmarklet, found here). Videos are brought to Gawkk both by users themselves, or imported from the many external sites, which are then organized into thousands of public channels, chronologically, by topic, from TV shows to actors. As a member, you can subscribe to any number of channels, and even have the option, at signup, to rate each channel from one to five stars to signal your interest, and also indicate what other channels you might like.


Rating Each Gawkk Channel, Choosing to Subscribe


My Gawkk Channel Subscriptions
Videos that receive the most "up" votes are promoted to the home page for the entire community to see, just like the most popular items on Digg, Ballhype, Reddit and other social voting sites. The hope is that by breaking out of the muck that is YouTube, you can enjoy sharing video with friends and finding common interests.

You can find me on Gawkk with the ID of louisgray (as with most other services). And if you want more friends than just me, find who else is already on Gawkk by checking your online mail address book.

SportsBlogs Nation Raises Funding Round to Expand Platform

Long-time readers of louisgray.com know that behind tech, one of my most avid passions is that of sports. Be it baseball, college football, or basketball, I'm a huge fan. I have my team loyalties and want to know all I can about my favorite teams. As part of this sports obsession, I found Web communities like SportsBlogs Nation and Ballhype to help me get the latest and best sports news from fellow fans around the world, as well as engage in community around our shared passion. As I recounted in July, the Ballhype team was acquired by Future US for $3 million, and yesterday, the SportsBlogs Nation team announced they raised a funding round in the single-digit millions of dollars, without more details being disclosed. The funding round was led by Accel Partners, the same team who helped bankroll Facebook, and by Jim Bankoff, former AOL programming chief. The funds will be used to further expand the rapidly growing sports blogs network, and help improve the platform.

Overnight, I connected with SportsBlogs Nation president Tyler Bleszinksi, who I've known through his family of sites since 2005, and consider a personal friend. Below is part of that Q&A done over e-mail:

LG: How large is SportsBlogs Nation today in terms of individual sites and users?

TB: We currently have 152 and we are growing that number weekly. We are very deliberate in our approach in that we only invite the highest quality bloggers, with established track-records, to join our network. Therefore, we will never rush to launch sites just to grow our blog numbers. We don't release any details about our registration base. I can tell you that internal numbers show that we have about 2.5MM people using the sites each month and that we're seen explosive growth across our entire network in all metric categories (in some cases doubling our metrics every six months.)

LG: What is helping to drive the growth of the network?

TB: The growth is likely driven by several factors:

1. positive macro-trends as new people discover and engage with our blogs each day
2. more engagement with our existing users as we add great new writers, features and technology - including our new blogging platform which is a huge success. Just last week for instance, we added two of the top sports bloggers on the web: Jeff Clark/Celticsblog and James Mirtle/From The Rink
3. the declining investment by newspapers and other media in local sports coverage, which makes us the go-to source, particularly for mid and smaller market teams like Oakland for instance
4. the traffic-driving network effect of intelligent cross-promotion across our network and the general sports and blogging ecosystem
5. our team/tribe focus where we enable fans to publish and discuss within specific communities built around their passion.

On that note, one important and overlooked fact is that we are the leading regional independent sports network in many areas. For instance, in the Bay Area we have the top sites (Athletics Nation, McCovey Chronicles, Golden State of Mind, Niners Nation, etc) for just about every team, add it up and we're bigger than just about any other media property focused on Bay Area sports. Same can be said for other markets like Chicago, Texas, etc.

LG: How much funding did you raise, and what will it be used for?

TB: We're not releasing the amount, but we basically went after an amount that would allow us to become the top sports social community on the Internet. We're still cheap, even more so in this economic climate, and running this company on a shoestring, only spending where there is a measurable return.

We plan on using the money to further advance our sports-centric social media and publishing platform, which is already, in my opinion, the best blogging platform ever created for sports publishers, contributors and audiences. We want to iterate on it and continue to invest in advancing an open platform for sports fan activity streams.

It will also allow us to expand our leagues much more quickly by getting more man hours working on bringing the best bloggers on board. Our aim is to truly have the best team blog for every team in every sport and we need our league managers to be spending more time working on bringing the best bloggers in.

The other thing is that it gives us a talent like Jim Bankoff on board. And Bankoff is a supremely skilled executive who is laser-focused on making SportsBlogs Nation a large and profitable business. He knows this space well considering his past experience at AOL. He's already working to bring aboard other executives who will be focusing on business partnerships and generating revenue opportunities.

---

I have been an active participant on SportsBlog Nation for the better part of four years now, and have enjoyed the community at sites including Athletics Nation, Sactown Royalty and California Golden Blogs. My user ID can be found here: http://www.sbnation.com/users/louismg.

Also see:
SportsBusiness Journal: Tech Leaders Back Sports Blog Network

Liking the Dislike: Social Networks Don't Force the Love

Newton's third law of motion says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Many technologies have ratings features built in with equal and opposite choices these days, from the thumbs up and thumbs down on your TiVo remote control, to rating songs from zero to five stars in iTunes, and of course, deciding whether to Digg or Bury. But as social networking tools don't necessarily need to subscribe to Newton's laws, not all services offer diametrically opposed activity. You can't offer a negative share on Google Reader, canceling someone else's share out, for example, and FriendFeed limits you to "liking" items, making users oddly "like" things they hate, if only to draw attention to the item. Social Median, which is increasingly looking like FriendFeed, added the ability to "like" and "dislike" items on Monday, through what they call a "mood button", drawing more attention to the battle between love and hate. (See a discussion on FriendFeed about the new feature here)


Social Median gives articles mood, based on the like/dislike ratio
With so many people consuming as much content as we are these days, with more Web sites, RSS feeds and social networks to imbibe, services are making it ever easier to make our feelings known in the shortest amount of time, with the least amount of effort. While a year or two ago we may have left a comment and engaged with the blog author, these days, we're just as likely to vote up the number of stars on their Outbrain widget, share the item in Google Reader, or just click "like" on FriendFeed, essentially "checking the box off" on what was required for me as a reader, taking the easy way out. Often, this is done even by reading just the headline, and not the full article. (Do you really think people are reading all the items they Digg?)

Social news sites like Reddit, Mixx and others tend to simply show the sum total of votes by its members, subtracting the down votes from the up votes to determine an item's popularity. As a moderator on the Elite Tech News Reddit, I recently found myself looking at what the community had selected as the best news items. Usually they will have anywhere from only 1 to 3 points, but by looking deeper, the actual up and down votes are more like 12 to 9, or 11 to 10. Negative voting is almost always approaching 50 percent.


Ballhype says, "Don't be a hater"
I'd always thought if I didn't like something, I should just skip it rather than calling out that I don't like it. I do bury some items on Digg, if I find them to be duplicates, from shady Web sites, or, punitively, if I see the authors relentlessly pimping for votes on Twitter, but those are exceptions, rather than the rule. So who are these people who are just as likely to vote items down as up? So far, typical social networking behavior has let you play the role of hit and run, disliking an item and taking off, if you have that option, letting you do so anonymously, even if the system knew it was you. In fact, Ballhype would put up an alert to "Stop being a hater" if you gave too many thumbs down in a row.

Social Median's new approach to "Mood" not only lets you "dislike" an item, and see the percentage of people who dislike it, but you can see just who voted it down, adding a level of accountability to your vote. I am curious to see if the community takes to "dislikes" as quickly as they took to likes on FriendFeed. It's always easy to be in a group of friends who like something, but if you say you dislike something, it begs a follow-up. Why did you dislike it? Was it the subject matter? Was it poorly written? But again, that takes you out of the realm of doing as little as possible, and actually needing to answer the questions. I bet the community would vote thumbs down on that idea!

MacBlips and GadgetBlips Launch to Capture Leading Tech Stories

When I met with Jason and Erin Gurney of Ballhype and Showhype fame earlier this year, I practically sold them on the idea of launching an Apple Macintosh-focused site, which would distill the many Apple related stories from around the Web and provide a centralized site where Mac fans could discuss news, rumors and find a community with other Mac fans. Today, with the launch of MacBlips, they made good on that idea. And as if that weren't enough, in parallel, they launched a site called GadgetBlips, which gathers the top stories from sites like Engadget and Gizmodo, and provides gadget lovers a place to talk up their cell phones, TVs, laptops, or video game consoles, to name a few.


Both sites share a common foundation. MacBlips and GadgetBlips are constantly scouring the blogosphere to find those stories most-frequently referenced in articles, and bringing them to the site's front page, where users can vote them up or down, or make comments, like Digg, and of course, like BallHype and ShowHype.


MacBlips and GadgetBlips users can also submit stories they find from around the Web, and blog owners who write about Mac, Apple and gadgets can register their sites and track activity, to see which of their articles were found the most interesting to the community.

Speaking of community, any user can create or participate in subgroups on either site, focused on specific topics, be it iPods, iPhones, Mac Rumors, the BlackBerry or Nintendo Wii, for example. And as with most social networking sites, you can befriend other users, and be alerted when they have activity on the site.

The idea behind MacBlips and GadgetBlips is essentially to provide a single site that finds the very best Mac news and Gadget news, without forcing you to read all the related RSS feeds, and to help you find other Mac-heads and gadget freaks like yourself who like to debate wireless plans, discuss how to switch from Windows to Mac, or just when Apple might release the iPhone Nano.

As somebody who in the past has scrolled through screen after screen on MacSurfer.com to find the best articles, or gone one by one from MacWorld to AppleInsider, MacRumors and MacInTouch to be on top of the latest Apple news, the arrival of MacBlips is a welcome sight. But with so many other Mac-related sites out there, it should be interesting to see if the new addition will have folks changing where they choose to engage. And given the Gurneys' efforts on BallHype, which included game picks for sporting events and tournaments around March Madness and the NBA playoffs, for example, I'm very interested to see what kind of predictive behaviors they can do for the next MacWorld Expo Keynote.

You can find MacBlips at http://www.macblips.com/
You can find GadgetBlips at http://www.gadgetblips.com/

On both sites, you can find my ID as "louismg". (MacBlips | GadgetBlips)

BallHype Crew Takes a Vote, and Launches BeltwayBlips

Last week, the increasingly popular Ballhype and Showhype sites were acquired by Future US for a cool $3 million, as the Digg-like sites, focused on sports and entertainment respectively, were seen growing as destination sites for fans of all flavors. Less than 10 days after that news, the Future US team is already seeing dividends from the acquisition, as the husband and wife team, Jason and Erin Gurney, turn their attention toward Washington and politics with the launch of BeltwayBlips.

In the tradition of Ballhype and Showhype, BeltwayBlips aims to bring the hottest political news to the front page by both auto-discovering hot blog conversations through the number of external links, but also adding on users' up or down votes, like Digg. Those hot items receiving many votes in a short amount of time rise to the top, and after some duration, will drop lower in rank.

Earlier this year, when meeting with the Gurneys at their home, they said they didn't want to get into more serious issues, like politics or technology, and the pair felt two sites was just about all they can handle. But following the acquisition, Future US has allowed the Gurneys to add to the team of developers, and given them the support to expand their site portfolio.

The addition of politics to the arsenal should make for some very "lively" discussion for sure, given the clear partisanship shown by both the right and the left in today's charged climate. I have concerns that McCain fans will always vote down positive Obama stories, and vice versa, or a few unsavory characters could make the environment unfriendly. While in sports, one can divide their attention between about 30 professional teams in each league, in Washington, you're usually either "with us" or "against us", as has been frequently said.


Headlines reaching the top of BeltwayBlips in the last few days have included the news of Robert Novak being involved in a hit and run accident, rumors of John Edwards fathering a child out of wedlock, and the two presidential candidates taking opposing positions on Iraq. Forget C-SPAN, this political hotbed isn't going to be a snoozefest by any means.

As with Ballhype and Showhype, the site offers the usual array of features, including comment threads, leaderboards for users and blog sources, embedded video links, and the ability to create groups. If you already have an account with one of the *Hype sites, you can log into BeltwayBlips today.

BallHype Acquired by Future US In Attempt to Join Big Leagues

After 18 months of progressing beyond the rookie stages of product development, Ballhype, the sports story discovery, submission and voting site, announced this morning that they have been acquired by Future US, a San Francisco-based media company. The purchase, for an undisclosed amount, enables the company's properties, including BallHype and a sister site, ShowHype, focused on entertainment news and gossip, to continue, but with a partner to help increase their monetization as traffic and engagement grows.

As an early Ballhype user in the first half of 2007 (See: Hype It Up: Ballhype Is Here to Change the Game), the site quickly became a go-to for me in terms of finding the best sports news from around the blogosphere, without being married to the front page of ESPN. More than just a news discovery site, BallHype also offered community engagement through votes, comments, and contests, for game predictions and tournaments, like March Madness.

By October, the husband and wife team of Jason and Erin Gurney, saw the growth BallHype had delivered, and pointed their knowledge to Hollywood's glitz, with ShowHype (See: ShowHype Connects Hollywood With Silicon Valley Geekery)

When my wife and I met with Jason and Erin during a viewing of the NBA All-Star Game festivities at their home this last year, they told me despite its later start, ShowHype's traffic eventually eclipsed that of BallHype, soon becoming the primary driver of engagement, page views, and advertising. But the pair didn't want to reinvent the wheel again and again, making customized sites for the more mundane topics of technology, politics, or religion, choosing instead to keep focused on those things they themselves liked.

The purchase of BallHype by Future US shouldn't mean any dramatic changes for the pair of sites. They are still going to be running, and finding the best of the Web's news for sports and entertainment.

In an interview with AOL Sports' FanHouse, co-founder Jason Gurney said, "Our traffic had reached the point where it was substantial enough to prove the value of our model--but we weren't monetizing well, and didn't have enough resources to take advantage of some of the opportunities we saw."

The Gurneys built BallHype and ShowHype almost single-handedly, alongside some technical help, and partnership with other smart sports folks, including Tom Ziller of Sactown Royalty, as well as advice from Gabe Rivera of Techmeme. The pair reside in the Bay Area with their two young children, a boy and a girl.

You can learn more about the acquisition on the official BallHype blog or at AOL Sports' Fanhouse.

LOUD3R Launches Massive Semantically-Driven Network

As I mentioned in yesterday's story on OneSpot, the quest to separate the wheat from the chaff in news and blogs through leveraging RSS and social tools is a vibrant market. Whether Web users are relying on Digg, Slashdot and Reddit to bring the hottest items to the top, or if they are instead turning to automated memetrackers like Techmeme to rank stories' popularity, a lot of people are asking to not read every single story, but instead, put their faith in the hands of others.

A new network debuting today, called LOUD3R, hopes to leverage this automation and social prioritization of stories, through a vast network of sites, including 25 at launch today, each one of them utilizing a semantic publishing engine, which finds, clusters and ranks content for a number of vertical topics, ranging from technology to sports, fashion to business.

Each one of the sites carries their trademark - 3R ending. For example, a site dedicated to Web 2.0 and community, isn't called Buzzer, but instead is translated as BUZZ3R, and can be found at www.buzz3r.com. Similarly, an auto site is called ROADST3R and can be found at www.roadst3r.com. I'll let you guess as to some of the others, including GLITT3R, WATCH3R, and FOUND3R.


A sampling of LOUD3R's 25 sites at launch
Like many other topical Digg-like sites, including Ballhype and Showhype, the LOUD3R network family promotes stories that have received attention from throughout the Web. But instead of getting voted up or down by users, the articles are driven by background rules, in Techmeme-like fashion, as Gabe Rivera has implemented on his own family of sites, including BallBug, Memorandum and WeSmirch. Users can make comments on the items, see related stories, or e-mail them.


A lead story on one of LOUD3R's sites.
The sites also use the same background semantic engine to highlight hot topics on each site. On PUTT3R, it's no surprise that Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate are hot topics. On WOOF3R, the topics instead turn to terriers and poodles.

Like Digg, you can see the "Most Popular" items, as well as "Newest", and the LOUD3R algorithm also tries to make a best guess as to what is most "Interesting".

Will LOUD3R's cute naming strategy and interesting use of semantics gain them significant traction? The company certainly hopes so. They have gobbled up more than 550 topically-oriented domain names with the "3R" brand, so today's launch is just the beginning. They hope that their semantic engine will help filter all the content on the Web and only bring visitors the "best available". And they definitely believe that through targeting topics that are historically underserved, they can get a leg up against competition.

With more than 500 sites planned for launch, not every single topic has to be a dramatic success for LOUD3R to make some coin, they hope. Their press release, also issued today, says each site has a low maintenance cost, and each will deliver advertising revenue. If the audience doesn't get QUIET3R, then LOUD3R should get BETT3R and BIGG3R.

Ballhype Revamps Web Site Ahead of Turkey Day

Ballhype, the sports news, discussion and game picks Web site, one of my personal favorites, upgraded their look and feel late tonight, giving a fresh "2.0" like appearance to the site which continues to grow by leaps and bounds in terms of traffic, users and story submissions.

With the advent of the NBA season and college basketball on top of college football, the NFL, NHL and Major League Soccer, it's no wonder the activity at the site is at all time highs. And while a simple Web site upgrade isn't exactly breaking news, it signifies to me another stage in the community's growing up. We've been happy visitors and participants of Ballhype for about eight months now, and have had the good fortune of meeting the site's husband and wife co-founders, who have the enviable position of doing what they love and starting a business at the same time.

The new look draws the site in line with its sister entertainment-focused community, Showhype, which debuted just last month. The new, more professional, look highlights the concept of "Hyping Up" a story, and with stadium lights in the background, reminds us it's all about the games and the athletes.

Of course, that doesn't mean everyone's happy. One occasionally irascible user immediately pounced on the changes, complaining, "....I can't stand it. Maybe make it an option for people to use the old theme?" But as the saying goes, you can't please all of the people all of the time, and as a site grows, in order to gain new members, sometimes you have to leave the originals behind.

More detail around the relaunch can be seen on the official Ballhype blog.

ShowHype Connects Hollywood With Silicon Valley Geekery

Take the community submission format of BallHype or Digg, the blog ranking algorithms of a TechMeme leaderboard, and sprinkle in the gossip and glamour of Hollywood, and you get the unique community news and discussion site of ShowHype, which debuts today, brought to you by the minds behind BallHype.

The latest "Hype" in the family aims to take the mantra of "The best stories, the biggest fans" and apply it to a world where people are more familiar with movie scripts than JavaScript, and the box office is more closely watched than the NASDAQ. ShowHype users can log in to view the most popular entertainment news, videos and blogs of the day, submit new articles or even create unique ShowHype stories for what's sure to become a focused audience trading in the latest Hollywood dirt.


The ShowHype front page highlights today's stories with the most buzz.

Six months after the successful debut of BallHype, the site's creators, Jason and Erin Gurney, just may have another sleeper hit on their hands. Speaking to them a few weeks ago about the site in a sneak preview at their home, we talked about how they're eager to find fun topics, like entertainment and sports, for their users, and are steering clear of more divisive subjects. So don't wait around for PoliticsHype or GodHype any time soon!

Anybody familiar with BallHype will find the ShowHype interface extremely familiar. If you already have a BallHype login, the same credentials will get you into ShowHype. In fact, I've already started a users' group in ShowHype for "TiVo Fans", where we can share tips, news and tricks. If you're into Hollywood in a big way, or even if you're the more casual type who secretly wants to know what exactly is going on with Lindsey Lohan, Kate Hudson, and Justin Timberlake, then ShowHype should be a must-bookmark destination.

Also see: TechCrunch | ParisLemon | Frantic Industries

Ballhype T-Shirt Contest 2 Winner: Redsauce

After claiming our seventh Ballhype Golden Picks contest victory last week, achieving a controversial record score in the process, for the second time, we offered our t-shirt trophy to another member, who registered on the blog.

This time, we had eight entries, from "Reasonable Doubt for a Reasonable Price", "Zorgon", "VicTimes", "Redsauce", "Chone", "Patrick", "GREGSKY" and "Jason", the site's co-founder.

As with our last t-shirt give-away, we cooked up a quasi-elaborate scheme that featured Molly, our 18-year-old beagle, her love of food, and our camera. The conquest is laid out below.

Step 1: Create one Master "Bingo" Card

I listed out the eight entrants' names in equally-sized boxes and printed them out. The center square in the 3x3 table was "Molly's Free Kibble Spot".


The Eight Entrants: Click for Larger Image

Step 2: Introduce Molly to the Square

Molly asked to be shown the card before selecting the winner. Upon her approval, we could continue.


Molly Finds the Card to Her Liking

Step 3: The Judge Gains Incentive

Molly was escorted into the other room, and a piece of kibble was placed on each of the nine squares. The winner would be selected by being the LAST piece of kibble eaten. There were no doubts Molly would eat all nine.


The Card With Prizes for the Judge

Step 4: Molly Picks a Winner

With the card full of kibble, Molly first wrongly raced to the kitchen only to return to the card and started wolfing down the pieces, one by one. The very last to go was that of Redsauce, and due to that delay, Redsauce is our winner! You can see Molly in action below.


Molly making her selection

Congratulations to Redsauce! Erin should be in touch with you shortly to claim your prize!

If you're not yet a Ballhype member, you certainly should be. Join the site now!

Ballhype T-Shirt Give-Away #2, and a New Record!

A few weeks ago, we offered a free Ballhype t-shirt to a randomly selected individual who left a comment on the blog stating why they most deserved to win. In the end, with help from our 18-year-old beagle, Dharr18 was the lucky winner.

Well guess what? We won yet another Ballhype t-shirt again this week, after a controversial record-setting week of long shot picks aimed at predicting upsets. (See some discussion here)

It's once again time for you to put your name in the ring, and possibly walk away with a brand-new shirt from one of the hottest Web communities to debut this year.

To earn the Ballhype t-shirt, I ask only you comment to this post, and list:

1. Your login at Ballhype.com (or create one).
2. The game you most enjoyed watching in the last week.
3. Why you enjoyed watching.

It's that simple. Assuming we have more than one respondent, the rules are:

You must respond by 11:59 p.m. PDT, Mon. Sept. 24th.
Ballhype management will ship in USA only.

As with the previous contest, it is highly likely that Molly, our beagle, will be selecting the winner. We will cover that process at the time the winner is awarded. But until then, take a look at the Ballhype T-shirts available, and see what you could win!

Good luck!

Ballhype T-Shirt Contest Winner: Dharr18

After claiming our sixth Ballhype Golden Picks contest victory last week, we offered up our spoils, a free Ballhype t-shirt, to any site member who posted their user name, their favorite team, and their reason why they best deserved to wear the Blue and Orange colors of the Web's hottest social network centered around sports.

We had four entries, from "dharr18", "McLovin", "Alan1066", and "Jason", the site's co-founder.

With the midnight September 1 deadline having passed, it was time to pick a winner!

Step 1: Create The Name Cards

I took some nearby construction paper (ooh, pink - pretty!) and wrote the names of the four entrants in equal sized squares (as pictured below).


The Four Entrants: Click for Larger Image

Step 2: Add Some Incentive to the Judge

As I already promised I wouldn't make the selection, I got four pieces of dog kibble, and assigned one piece each to the four entrants (as pictured below). As our aging hound is still scent-oriented and food mad, this made sense.


Four Small Treats: Click for Larger Image

Step 3: The Selection Process

Kristine took Molly, the beagle, out of the room, while I took the four squares and placed them on the floor, hiding the pieces of kibble. The squares were placed in equidistant areas from where Molly would be emerging, as to not curry favor with one over another.

Step 4: Molly Picks a Winner

With the squares in place, Molly darted out, but first headed to her food dish. Finding nothing, she came back to the living room, and ran by "McLovin"'s square, and missed it entirely. We saw her then sniff at the "Dharr18" square, and turn away, eventually heading to "Alan1066", turning it over and eating the kibble. A winner! Or so we thought... we then looked back and found the "Dharr18" square was missing its kibble. Somehow, she had eaten it without moving the square, and in fact, "Dharr18" was our winner! You can see Molly at Alan1066's square, with a little pink showing below.


Our Humble Judge: Click for Larger Image

Should we get the opportunity to win again sometime, a less likely event with baseball giving way to college football, I'd like to offer this contest again, just maybe with some more entrants. So congratulations to Dharr18. Erin should be in touch with you shortly to claim your prize! We hope to also soon see you win the Golden Picks contest legitimately in the near future!

A Free Ballhype T-Shirt Can Be Yours!

Last week, for some reason, my combination of frequent game picks, combined with a slant toward underdogs and dumb luck, led me to my second consecutive Ballhype Game Picks win (my sixth overall). Now that both my wife and I have Ballhype t-shirts, as well as three of my colleagues, I'm thinking it's time to extend the opportunity to be clad in the colors of one of the most exciting Web communities to debut in 2007 - to you.

To earn the Ballhype t-shirt, I ask only you comment to this post, and list:

1. Your login at Ballhype.com (or create one).
2. Your favorite sports team (any sport, any level).
3. Why you best deserve the t-shirt.

It's that simple. Assuming we have more than one respondent, the rules are:

You must respond by Midnight PDT, September 1st
Ballhype management will ship in USA only

I will put your names on paper and have them selected randomly by a member of the Gray household who is not me (a.k.a. the wife or the beagle). Take a look at the Ballhype T-shirts available, and see what you could win!

Good luck!

Last Week's Win Marks 5th Ballhype Trophy

As Ballhype has continued to grow its feature set and user base, the most addicting feature for me has been an old standby - the weekly "Golden Picks" contest, where site visitors can select winners of the day's games in professional sports, gaining extra credit for correctly selecting underdog winners. By consistently making my picks on a daily basis, being willing to take risks and occasionally using strategy, its been common for my name to be near the leaderboard each week, ever since the contest debuted in early April.

Grandfathered into the site, thanks to being part of its beta testing, I managed to win the first week's contest, and by week four, I had repeated the success, taking my second first-place finish. After fellow user "Joski" swept through May, I gained my bearings and took the first two weeks in June for my third and fourth wins. And last week, after 5 different people won in between, three of them (including Joski) doing so twice, I stumbled to the top, winning out in one of the closest margins yet, forcing the site to go into two decimal places to separate first place from second.

Erin and Jason Gurney, the site's co-founders, have been kind enough to offer a prize to the week's winner, of a Ballhype t-shirt. I've spread the love around, giving away three to colleagues, and of course, making sure my wife and I have our own. Pretty soon, with continued luck, I'll have to start picking new styles, selling the much-coveted shirts on eBay, or helping clothe the homeless. But the one thing I won't be doing is stopping my picks. Given that Joski's got 7 wins to his credit, and I only have 5, you better believe I'm going to keep trying until I've got the all-time record. For some reason, I'm just competitive that way, even in a very virtual contest.

Ballhype Interviews Sports Blogs Nation

Ballhype scored a coup this morning, when the site's co-founder, Erin Gurney, lassoed a group of Sports Blogs Nation bloggers, including the aforementioned Tyler Bleszinski, for a roundtable interview. (See: Big Tent Sports Blogging)

In the interview, Erin asks some tough questions, about how bloggers are integrated into the Sports Blogs Nation family, how much traffic the network is receiving, and even some questions on why the network hasn't yet been acquired by a household name, given all its success. Additionally, some of the site's bloggers are asked if there are any downsides to forgoing their original blogs in favor of joining the SB Nation family. As one responded, "I honestly can't think of too many disadvantages to being a part of SB Nation; it's truly been a long series of advantages."

It's the second major story Erin's gotten in the last week, following her Sports Bloggers Survey.

As an active participant in Ballhype, and an assistant editor of two of the Sports Blogs Nation franchises, I'm clearly very open about rooting for both sites' success. It looks like they're on their way.

Ballhype Surveys Sports Bloggers

Ballhype, the user-driven Digg-like sports site which publicly debuted at the beginning of April, recently completed a study of 135 sports bloggers from around the United States, from a variety of sports focuses, to learn if this unique breed of uber-fans was best characterized by the unwashed basement dweller, or instead, a well to do self-made individual. The answer? Some of both. But by and large, the sports bloggers community is led by job-holding, house-owning (or renting), 20 or 30-something folks who don't get paid much, who could sink anywhere from 1-5 hours a day into their work.

According to Ballhype's survey, more than 80% of sports bloggers hold a college degree, while another 18% are full-time students, assumed to be working on getting one. Additionally, a strong 26% have a post-graduate degree as well. Most of these bloggers see their work as a hobby, rather than a career. And it's a good thing, because most aren't paid much, if anything. The results show 58% see their blog as a hobby that's just for fun, while 26% see it as a hobby that just so happens to make some revenue. Another 17% see it as a part-time or full-time job. But that can't be all that rewarding for the non-basement dwellers, as fully half report making less than $20 a month from the blog. Only one of every six bloggers (16%) claims revenue exceeding $500 a month - which just might keep you in stock of Top Ramen and Cheetos.

Almost 60% of sports bloggers see more than 1,000 visits to their sites per month, with just under 20% of all sports bloggers seeing an incredible 100,000 visits or more per month. As expected, this level varies wildly, from the one-off just for fun hobby blogs, to the very serious, frequently updated sites like DeadSpin, TrueHoop, and SportsBlogs Nation network, where you can find me at Athletics Nation and Sactown Royalty.

Most promising, 70% of sports bloggers who responded to the survey found the experience more rewarding than expected, and a full 90% would love to blog full-time if paid to do so.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the survey skewed to privileged white males, with 95% of respondents being men, and 87% being Caucasian. This could be due to early adopters of Ballhype slanting this way, or simply evidence of a good old boys network reaching new networks as well. My expectation is that in further editions of the survey, you will see these demographics return to the mean a bit, as there are some fantastic sports blogs authored by women and others of all backgrounds.

Be sure to check out the survey, the first of its kind that I'm aware of which focuses on the fast-growing sports blog community. Great work, Ballhype!