
FanState.com Launches: YCNews thoughts? - veritas

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veritas
Link: <http://www.fanstate.com>

Its a digg like website for football (soccer) news that I launched yesterday.
It allows you to gain points (like Digg/Reddit) and then wager those points on
matches being played.

Built using Ruby on Rails. Thoughts?

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ktus
Wow... I had the exact same idea (even the terms you used for some of it) and
was gonna start implementing as soon as I'm done with my current project.

I guess you saved me some work :-)

I wish you a lot of success. I would love to see the site grow and become a
great place for soccer fans to get their news. You can count me in as a
member. I'll join soon.

~~~
veritas
Thanks, and I'm glad to have you on board. If you have any ideas, drop me a
line.

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ktus
First observation, I'm logging in from a laptop with a small screen (15") and
I have to scroll left-right. It would have been nice if it fits into the page
(like news.yc).

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veritas
Huh really? I'm logged in from a macbook (13 in) and it fits fine. Its also a
fluid layout so it should resize automatically. I'll take a look and see
what's causing it. Anyone else having this problem?

 _Edit: alrite... I've deployed a fix to the CSS. It should fit the screen
now. Can you try it out and get back to me?_

~~~
ktus
It's looking good now but i'm using Firefox on Ubuntu.. Earlier I was looking
at it in Firefox on a PC running Windows...

I'll look at it again tomorrow from my windows machine at work and get back to
you.

~~~
veritas
You probably don't need to. I think it was an error on my part in the CSS
file. In either case, let me know if it recurs or there's another bug. Thanks
for the input :)

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r7000
I added some tags when I submitted an article. But they sort of disappeared
which was confusing. Will they eventually be displayed elsewhere along with
the article? Will I be able to search by tag?

<http://www.fanstate.com/tag/MLS> maybe?

How do I make a bet?

I also think you shouldn't track 'karma' and 'points'. It is too confusing for
a 'harmless bit of fun' website. Let the people bet their real karma. Why not?
If they lose it they will be driven to participate more. You could display
subtotals of how much karma was gained/lost due to site activity and how much
was gained via skillful betting. That way someone with a lot of activity but a
bad betting record could have a total like [r7000 (8 488 -480)] maybe colour-
coded or something. I think if you want to make a distinction a single total
with subtotals makes more sense. If people aren't betting their actual karma I
don't think they'll take the bets seriously.

Just some ideas.

~~~
veritas
I'll take the karma/points thing into consideration. I actually thought it
would be clearer this way since I had only karma at first.

The tags do disappear (like Digg I believe), but they are used for the search
function. So when you do search (upper right corner) you search by tags. Also,
the tags come into play when finding the 3 similar articles for each link.

But the tags themselves are hidden away to reduce the clutter.

To make a bet, there needs to be a live match going on. There are no live
matches right now so there's nothing to bet. Come September when the seasons
start up there will be matches. Basically you follow the "Fixtures" link the
navigation and you'll see a list of matches. Then you can go view a fixtures
details and there will be a simple form you can use to submit your bets.

_Edit:<http://www.fanstate.com/main/search?query=YOURQUERY> is the search
function_ Better to just use the form.

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r7000
You may want to consider adding the rest of the MLS season.

1) it is during the downtime of the EPL and other European leagues so it gives
you year-round content so users don't drift away.

2) you can have some fixtures to test your site with right now while you are
trying to get some activity going and iron out the usability and the bugs

anyway, good luck

~~~
veritas
Ah yea! I'll definitely do that. Thanks.

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veritas
Okay... today's MLS match between KC and Columbus has been added. Feel free to
sign up/login and place your wagers :).

_Edit: Too late lol. The game's started already. Check tomorrow when there's
another match._

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8en
I would take a look at BallHype.com. It seems like it's well-designed and
well-executed, but hasn't taken off just yet. It would be good to understand
what happened - whether they were too broad in focus, or whether there is
something about the digg model that doesn't quite resonate for sports fans. As
a side note, I would not require registration to vote, and I would not require
a valid email address. It don't feel like I should have to send you my email
address to say that an article is good or bad.

~~~
veritas
Fair enough Ben. The register to vote is so that people just can't vote up an
article (their own) over and over again.

The email address isn't checked to be valid. I just ask for one so that if it
is ever needed (email lost info, close accounts etc) I can use it.

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r7000
Is there a reason you are not displaying the logged in user's login name? I
think people tend to expect that.

~~~
veritas
You mean at the very top?

 _Edit: I see. I'll change it so that instead of "Logged In" it displays the
username_

~~~
r7000
preferably at the top where it says 'Logged In!'

It looks like something that could be fun. Most soccer/football news sites
suck pretty bad. The use your 'karma' to 'bet' on fixtures is pretty clever.
But to be fun it will need a community.

~~~
veritas
Yea I know. I'm going to try and slowly ramp up the website. Thanks for your
input and participation. Great find on the St. Paul video. Hope you keep
coming back.

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Alex3917
I heard a story about some guy who started a sports website six months ago,
and then sold it for thirty million dollars three months ago. Not sure of the
details, but it seems like there's money to be made.

~~~
paulgb
It is probably not the one you are thinking of, but ArmchairGM has a similar
story - created in early 2006, sold for $2 (to Wikia, Jimbo Wales' wiki
startup) in December of that year.

veritas, You might want to take a look at ArmcharGM(.com), they are probably
one of your bigger competitors.

~~~
veritas
Thanks for the insight paul. Will take a look.

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ashu
quick impression: font letter spacing is a bit too much.

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veritas
Okay.. I'll fiddle with it :) Thanks

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volida
change the font

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veritas
Any reason why? Its set to "Lucida Grande" which I believe is an okay choice.
If someone doesn't have that it defaults to Times New Roman which is safe.

What font would you suggest?

~~~
volida
It felt getting me tired reading...

