HomeField Upgrade: Organized, Supercharged

By Dan

We just went live with the latest in a series of updates to HomeField, so I wanted to take a few minutes away from writing code in Eclipse to tell you about the recent changes you can see, and those you can feel. I'll start with the stuff you can see...

Video Organization and Link Share
We have greatly improved video organization for players and coaches alike. You can fluidly browse your films based on the teams you want to watch, the year of the film, and any tags the coaches have added. This makes it so easy to jump directly to recent films of your next opponent, and then watch the ones that impact you as a player. As an added bonus, you can bookmark, email, or otherwise share the current URL while you browse, and later go directly to that selection of films with one click.

Original File Downloads
This one is strictly for the coaches. We have added the ability to download the original file for any of your films. So, if you've uploaded an entire game and something happens to the original (a crashed harddrive or lost laptop, for example), rest assured you'll be able to get it back from HomeField. Additionally, if you receive a whole game film in a trade, you'll be able to download and then edit the film in your favorite video editor. These downloads are very secure, so only you can download the films. If we detect unauthorized access, the link stops working almost immediately, keeping your media in your hands only.

And now the stuff you'll feel...

Under the Hood
First, retrieving your films - even if you have thousands - is much quicker. You'll notice the extra pep in our step every time you click on the Chalkboard, or begin browsing your films. Second, Google recently released version 1.5 of their Google Web Toolkit, and we're taking advantage of it. This toolkit helps us provide you with a fluid desktop-like application over the web, without waiting for page loads after every click. HomeField is a web application, smooth and intuitive, as it ought to be. And now it's faster than ever. Enjoy.

Stealth Upgrades
Finally, we want to remind you that you will always be using the latest and greatest version of HomeField. You never have to deal with an install or upgrade, it just works. The only thing you may notice from time to time, is your browser taking a little longer than usual to bring up HomeField. This happens after we upgrade, as your browser automatically pulls down the new version of HomeField. We think this is a lot better than asking you to manually download and perform an upgrade of a traditional application, and we hope you do too. This allows HomeField to stay on the cutting edge, and allows you to stay focused on your opponent.

Why We're Still in Private Beta

By Reece

I'm glad we haven't made any promises on release dates and launches and whatnot. The few we have, we've met (cut it close, but we did it). It's just the nature of application development to take longer than expected. The problem is the 'expectations.' The point of Beta testing is the 'unexpected.'

As we developed HomeField, we thought through a specific process for our users, based on our time as players, and research we did with coaches. We tried to build the system so that the work-flow of HomeField fell right in line with any coach who used it. So we handed it over to Brown Lacrosse and within thirty minutes we discovered a nasty glitch and an opportunity for a great new feature - not what we expected.

Sure, our proud delivery sort of failed, but it was actually a huge success. We had the bug fixed by the end of the day, and future users (you) will never have to worry about it again. We then took the time to weigh the options of adding a new feature, designed and developed it and now players and coaches can print text-only versions of their scouting reports to paper or pdf.

There were actually a few ideas born out of our testing period so far, and we appreciate them all, but we ultimately chose to implement our printing functionality because it is a major step in the process of scouting another team. In our playing days, we always received a paper scouting report. In the spirit of being green, however, some teams have left this behind and leave printing up to the individual players. So, we felt it was necessary to accommodate those players and we think all users will benefit from this added feature.

Thank you to everyone who has shared ideas with us! We'll keep picking the ones that make the most sense and continue building HomeField into the best resource for you and your team.

Development Status: Pre-season

By Reece

In lacrosse, it's way too cold. For football, it's way too hot. Some players are in shape, sharp and ready to go, others are still nursing injuries and egos from last season. Either way, pre-season is a tough stretch of the year when you fight adverse conditions, do double sessions and generally put yourself to the test in anticipation of that first, epic battle... Game 1.

While we still have the Major League Lacrosse season to look forward to in April, our pre-season focus currently involves more mouse-clicks than wind-sprints. Officially, we're in the midst of our internal testing phase, but we hope to have our private beta going soon after with great D-I programs - Brown, Princeton, Maryland, Dartmouth and Bucknell.

Dan, our Chief Technical Officer, is pumping out line after line of code (I'm pretty sure he spent Valentine's Day with his computers. I spent mine watching game film.) and everyday we get closer and closer to launch (Game 1!), so the excitement is tangible here in NYC.

We've gotten a few emails asking how to get started, and "why can't I use HomeField right now?" so, I'd like to apologize for any confusion on our status and trust me when I say, you will know when HomeField is ready for you.

For now, shine those whistles and get those vocal chords ready to motivate, the spring season has begun!