SportsFanLive wants to be the Facebook of sports social networking
SportsFanLive.com is a new startup aiming to take on large sports sites such as ESPN and Fox, while adding a social aspect to the mix. Combine this with fantasy gaming, and unique user-generated content and customization, and you might have yourself a variable Facebook for sports fans.
The company’s founder, David Katz, left Yahoo a few years back as head of sports, entertainment and studios. In in his role with Yahoo, he helped to boost the company’s sports site into a rivalry with ESPN.com as the top spot for sports information on the web. It’s with this experience Mr. Katz feels he can create a unique following to SportsFanLive.com, according to the New York Times.
Katz believes his competitors are behind the times, and their sites are to crowded for normal users to wade through. “Those other sites are fundamentally all the same,” he said, calling them “imbued with traditional media DNA.” He added that they are “not built for the next generation and for the evolving needs of sports fans.” The basic idea is the same- to provide a one-stop resource for sports information, but Katz wants to throw some new-age media ideas and a more user-generated edge into the mix to take it in a new direction.
The central idea is to have features that flow naturally into one another to create a community that would quickly turn viral. Also, rather than connect to existing social networking sites to jump-start his distribution, Mr. Katz says SportsFanLive will become its own Facebook-type social network with no help from anyone. That’s a pretty heft claim, but I guess with his background, he deserves to be a little cocky.
Another priority high on the list is the aspect of user customization similar to MyYahoo and MyESPN. Users will be able to set teams and players they like and dislike, and receive news accordingly from over 4,500 aggregated sources. Katz says this trumps competitors that only aggregate hundreds of feeds compared to thousands. “Our secret sauce is aggregation,“ Mr. Katz said. “Google is good for a general search but not at understanding the specific needs of specific people like sports fans.“
It’s a rather daunting task- taking on large well rooted and trusted sources in the sports world, but maybe SportsFanLive has what it takes. In my opinion, I wouldn’t want to try and change people’s minds who are already well-rooted and oriented to a specific source. When people think sports news online, ESPN is usually the first name to come to mind.
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