“One issue that the MCLA deals with is scouting and preparing for upcoming games. There is no game tape to watch so it is very difficult to feel out your opponent before you actually step onto the field…I think if the MCLA were to create a website where every team could upload their game footage it would not only lead to an increase in the level of competitiveness in games, but also help the league and sport of lacrosse as a whole grow; buy letting people watch entire games online who would normally not be able see them.”
HomeField Improves its 40-yard Dash Time with "Dynamic Pagination"
By Dan
The Holidays are a great time to step back, relax with friends and family, and recharge for the new year. They're also a great time to write code and push out awesome features. So I added a bunch of smaller (but much needed) features to HomeField, as well as refined some details to really smooth out and improve our user experience. Dynamic Pagination is the most visible of my stocking-stuffers...
Pagination (via the "Previous" and "Next" links with page numbers between them) is common on the web: it allows you to browse many results, one page at a time - instead of a single, overly long and very slow page. As HomeField usage has been going through the roof this year, we've seen users with many videos on a page, so it was time for pagination. As you'll see in your account (and in the picture to the right), whenever you have a lot of videos (or documents) in a category, they will be split up and those orange links will appear. This improves page load time drastically for users with many videos, while still showing you your most relevant videos on the first page.
Please check it out, and tell me what you think. By the way, I've called it Dynamic Pagination because you don't have to wait for an entire new page to load. When you click Next, your list of videos - and nothing else - gets updated dynamically. This makes the entire process smooth as eggnog. Enjoy!
(psst: If you aren't seeing pagination in your chalkboard, upload some more video!)
I had a meeting with a potential investor recently, for which I prepared a pitch deck and an extended executive summary.
Prior to my meeting, I went through every slide and every paragraph to make sure our story and our projections were air-tight.
I also had versions of both prepared in Keynote and Pages as well as in Powerpoint and Word. Then I made PDF versions of each, and for the pitch deck, I made versions including every stage of the builds and without. I had copies on my laptop, on a USB drive and in my Gmail.
When I got into the meeting, guess which docs I actually used?
None.
I sat down and simply started talking. I told our story from the heart and I rattled off our pitch, our plans and our trajectory with honesty and confidence. The result? A successful telling of our business, that had my audience interested in investing.
So it seemed all that preparation was a waste, but without it, I wouldn’t have been in a position to tell the story. Sure, at this point (two years in), I can pitch HomeField off the cuff. Likewise, Tom Brady can still throw a football pretty well. But does he still practice? You bet he does. In fact, in the lifetime of an athlete, you'll generally spend more time practicing than actually playing!
In my life - whether it’s sports or business - the game is always changing and practice is the eternal must. I’m glad I know how to do it and thankful for the people who taught me the importance of practice along the way.
LaxAllstars post: Chat with Brown Bear Rob Schlesinger
By Reece
Like I said, we've hooked up with the LacrosseAllstars.com guys on a few projects, and I'm excited to show-off our latest effort - the first of many Brown Lacrosse posts featuring great players like Rob Schlesinger...
How did we help? Well besides the intro, we put together a few awesome clips of Rob from last year. Be sure to watch the video...
Fireside Chat With Rob Schlesinger, Brown University
We’ve heard there are some good players over in Providence, Rhode Island. They’re known as theBrown Bears. They took a trip to the NCAA tourney last year for the first time since ‘97, and things are looking up for 2010. One of the impact players Brown lacrosse fans are talking about is sophomore attackman Rob Schlesinger. According to BrownBears.com, he’s making a name for himself as one of the “most fearless, relentless, never-give-in competitors in the country.”
Schlesinger came up big as a freshman when his team needed him against Cornell and Hopkins. As a testament to his abilities, we have video evidence thanks to the guys at HomeField, a couple of which are Brown Bear alums and strong supporters of the program.
Check out some of his highlights from the 2009 season:
Now let’s sit Fireside and get to know this baller…
LAS: What is your fall ball schedule like this year? Are you guys doing anything differently than in years past?
Schlesinger: The schedule this year is pretty similar to those in the past, the only thing that has been different is our trip out to San Francisco. That was a great experience for us, and it definitely brought the team closer together. Right now we are done with actual team practices because of Ivy League restrictions, so we have two hour-long skill sessions a week and a couple captain’s practices.
Skill sessions are limited to 6 players per coach and we work on the fundamentals. We are also in the weight room 3 times a week and play basketball or football on Friday mornings. It’s too cold for football now, but of course the “Masshole team,” made up of high school superstars, dominated the Baltimore area team, the New York team, and the World team.
Who are some of your teammates we should watch out for this year?
We lost a lot of impact players to graduation and a few key players are abroad, so we are looking for a lot of younger guys to step up. On attack we return two starters, but look out for sophomores Parker Brown and Danny O’Brien who have been fighting for the third spot all fall.
The midfield is where we lost the most from last year. Four of our top five middies graduated, so a lot of new guys are going to see more action this year. Williams College transfer David Hawley has looked really good so far, as has freak-athlete freshman Alex Jones.
We didn’t lose a lot in the defensive side but look out for sophomore Brennan Bailey and junior Matt Greenburg. At LSM, freshman Roger Ferguson is definitely someone to keep an eye on this spring. In goal, we definitely lost a lot in All-American Jordan Burke but junior Matt Chriss has stepped up big this fall, highlighted by his 10 saves in only one half of play against UNC.
What are the team’s goals in 2010?
First and foremost our goal is to win the Ivy League championship. After that, we really want to build on our success from last year having made the NCAA tournament for the first time since ’97. It was a great experience, but we didn’t make it out of the first round. It’s not good enough for us to just make the tournament anymore. This year we want to keep winning and get a National Championship.
We hear you’re quite the competitor. How would you describe your playing style?
I’m really not a flashy player who is going to make highlight reel plays. I pride my game on physicality and playing with a fearless attitude, whether it is picking up tough ground balls or legging out a clear. That’s really how our whole team plays, and I would bet anyone who saw us play last year would agree.
What team are you looking forward to playing the most this year? Why?
Every Ivy League game is fun to play and I really look forward to those a lot. All the games are very intense and usually come right down to the wire.
Describe your pre-game… What do you do to get ready for a big game?
Everyone on the team does their own thing before we have our team warm-ups. In high school I didn’t have any real pre-game, but I kind of developed a routine last year. I’ll usually roll out my muscles for a bit in the training room, then head out to the field to shoot around about an hour before the game. After that I’ll go find a quiet place where I listen to country music and focus on what I need to do that game. While I’m focusing, I’ll have half a nutrition bar and a banana. I then head back into the locker room and meet up with the other guys who are usually bouncing all over the place listening to whatever that week’s mix is.
What’s your favorite part of Brown Lacrosse?
Brown State. You don’t understand it unless you play here.
Best place to eat in Providence?
I have to say that I really haven’t ventured out that far from the food on Thayer Street. If I want a sit down meal, it’s definitely at Spats for some nachos and a burger. If I’m looking for something quick, I’ll go for a burrito at Gordito Burrito, but there’s a new place called Baja Tex Mex that’s actually making a run for the best burrito on Thayer.
What are your three favorite songs right now?
I’m a huge country fan and I usually get a lot of crap for that being from the Boston area, but my old man liked it so I grew up listening to it. I really like anything country, but right now I would say it’s…
What kind of stick are you using right now? Type of head, shaft? String job? Tape?
I’ve always been a Brine Cyber/Cyber Pro guy, so these new rules are really messing with me right now. I was given the Brine Gospel this summer so I’ve been trying that out a bit this fall. I did order the new Cyber though, so I’ll probably use that when the shipment comes in. For a shaft, I use the Maverick Wonderboy. I’m not big on tape, I just put a little on the bottom to hold the butt end on. Stringing wise, I string all my own sticks, but no one else seems to like them. It’s probably because the ball crushes plastic on the way out.
_________________________________________________________________________________ This has been another Lax All Stars Fireside Chat. Stay tuned to the LAS Network for more interviews.
Love this post below from @bijan. He’s absolutely right here.
In our experience building HomeField, we’ve learned of a number of competitors who offer feature X or feature Y or Z. Some of them are great features (and some aren’t). But we’ve purposely tried to avoid the ‘feature creep’ that so often spreads software too thin. Applications can so easily lose focus and don’t know what they’re trying to be. They don’t know what their core purpose is.
Instead, we’ve taken a customer focused approach - starting out very simply and letting our users tell us where to go. This helps us avoid wasted time on features that aren’t necessary, and it keeps the application focused on its core value proposition.
It’s only Thursday but I’ve already heard the expression “the winner takes it all” at least five times this week.
The concept is where the winner of a market dominates the entire market. Think ebay for auctions, amazon for online shopping, google for search, facebook for social networks etc.
Often advocates of the “winner takes it all” theory also tend to believe that the best way to compete with the incumbant is too build a better/bigger mousetrap or create the “blah blah on steroids”
I don’t think about markets like that.
Often times the winner doesn’t take it all. And the best way to compete with the winner (or current market leader) is by either doing less (not more) and focusing on one thing and doing it very well. It’s actually the opposite of the “blah blah on steroids” approach.
Few examples come to mind:
1. Jobs.
The market leader for some time was Monster. This is a huge market but it’s certainly not a winner takes all market. Instead we now have powerful companies building tremendous value by focusing on different opportunities in the job market with different business models and different experiences (ie Craigslist, LinkedIn, The Ladders and Indeed).
2. Smartphone
Apple built the amazing iPhone, iTunes & App Store. Those things work together in a smooth & beautiful way. They are killing it right now. The alternative: Not an iPhone on steroids. Instead, Andy Rubin and Rich Miner created Android. A free, open source alternative. Absolutely brilliant. Google understood that vision and bought the company very quickly. I’m extremely bullish on Android’s opportunity with mobile devices.
3. Social networking
Facebook is the market leader for sure. But its not winner takes all because its just too big of a category for innovation & creativity. Right now my social network for music isn’t on facebook (instead it’s on hypemachine and tumblr). My photo social net is on tumblr and flickr. My social net for television is Boxee. My information social net is Twitter. FourSquare and Twitter are my social net for places & events. The list goes on.
There are many more examples (gaming, ecommerce, payments, browsers, etc) but this post is already getting too long for it’s own good. So let me try and bring this puppy home with one last thought.
At the end of the day, I believe that entrepreneurs are just too creative, too ambitious and too optimistic to allow for a winner takes all world.
How @OvertimeMedia relates to Paul Graham's "Startups in 13 Sentences."
By Reece
Note: I just noticed some of the formatting is messed up. I’ll fix it in a minute...
I love Paul Graham’s essays. He consistently posts excellent thoughts on start-ups. I was reading his recent post about Determination, when I started across some of his older posts.
I couldn’t be happier with my co-founders - @Spinosa and @JoeYevoli, and our first key employees @patrickohearn and @nromeo. Passionate, determined, intelligent. I love my team.
2. Launch fast.
In the last year, we’ve launched launched multiple versions of HomeFieldwith a complete re-writing of the application this summer. We’ve also built two other beta products. Paul’s right. You don’t really start working until you’ve launched.
3. Let your idea evolve.
HomeField has drastically changed since our initial concepts. We don’t say yes to every feature request, but we listen to our user feedback and use it to evolve HomeField accordingly.
4. Understand your users.
We love user feedback, but sometimes it’s not exactly clear. Users don’t know what’s possible technically, but they know how they work and we look at that and see how we can simplify and streamline the entire process. We’re proud of the changes we’ve made in HomeField 2.0, like scrapping scouting reports for discussions and allowing document and image uploading.
5. Better to make a few users love you than a lot ambivalent.
Totally agree here. We’re big fans of Seth Godin here as well, and the idea is to make a core group of people really love your product first, then allow them to spread the product for you. So far, it’s working. And to those early users, thank you!
6. Offer surprisingly good customer service.
I grew up in my family’s restaurant. It’s a fine dining establishment, and great customer service is one of our best qualities. We try to mimic that here at Overtime Media and we try to make ourselves perosnally available to all of our users. It’s easier at the beginning, but we are committed to maintaining the highest level of service as we scale.
7. You make what you measure.
We figured this one out recently, and we’ve started acquiring customers without any effort on our part. The viral
nature of HomeField is taking effect and we are working ahrd to continue this trend.
8. Spend little.
My mom is an immigrant and my dad is a chef. My mom only spends money when she gets a deal; my dad refuses to pay retail for food. By nature, I’ve been raised to be cheap, and I only spend money when it’s absolutely necessary. Funny thing is, my dad recently called me ”cheap!” I know this goes for my co-founders, too. It’s what has helped us survive this long on seed money.
9. Get ramen profitable.
We’re still working towards this. We’ve got some early revenues, and a LOT of potential in our business model. I can’t wait to get Ramen profitable… then move on to pizza profitable.
10. Avoid distractions.
This one has been tough, and I am personally guilty of it - by keeping a bartending job throughout our start - but it’s afforded me the cash to avoid taking a salary from our precious seed money. It is a distraction, and it’s tough to get up early after a long night behind the bar, but when you love what you do, it’s all worth it. Plus, I’m confident that I won’t be behind the bar too much longer.
I love this. Giving up is the easy way out. Not for us. We realized that our business is going to change dramatically. That we are going to have a lot of ups and downs, but if we persist and evolve, we will be successful.
13. Deals fall through.
Yeah. We’ve had some deals fall through. It happens. Just like in sports, your opponents are going to score some goals - but if you stay focused and keep working, you’re going to win in the end.
This quote recently came through my inbox via a fellow entrepreneur.
“Disruptive technologies do not immediately replace existing technologies because they are better. In fact, in the beginning, they are worse. They’re just simpler, cheaper, and more convenient. They appeal to the low end of the market (in this case, netbooks), which doesn’t need all the bells and whistles that the high-end needs. They initially gain share in the low end, and the incumbent doesn’t care about losing it because it’s low-margin share. But then… the disruptive products get better and more fully featured and they begin to migrate up to the mid-market. And the incumbent is forced to retreat to the high-margin high-end. And then, eventually, the disruptive product becomes mass market and the incumbent becomes a rickety old colossus that crashes in on itself.” -From TechTicker by Henry Blodget
In the past few days, @JoeYevoli and I have really been brainstorming around our product, HomeField. We have a lot of great users who love our service already, but there are still a lot of coaches sitting on the sidelines, afraid and/or unaware of HomeField can positively impact their life as coaches, and the lives of their players. If Joe has his way, he’ll go to every national coaches’ convention and just say, “This is HomeField. This is what it does. Give me one reason why you wouldn’t use it?”
But this quote has a lot to do with it. We believe we’ve tapped into a market that is rife with over-engineered junk, rooted in hardware that coaches shouldn’t have to deal with. We believe the future is in the cloud and sports media needs to get moving. The players are thirsty for video, coaches need to cut costs but keep up with player demand, administrators need to keep track of all this media, fans want to see it on their phones…
Yeah, HomeField is simple. Like, stupid simple. No unnecessary editing tools, no file format restrictions - we stripped it down to the bare bones, but it does what it needs to do, and it’s awesome at it. Is it a different behavior than usual - putting video online? Yes. But is it more efficient, and more powerful? Yes.
Update: @JoeYevoli claims the quote above is a direct bite from Seth Godin. Re-reading it, I certainly agree. It's got Purple Cow written all over it. We're trying to figure it out, but we want to make sure we give credit where credit's due - especially because Godin is the man.
"Joe Beninati!!" That was all the email said that I got from Yevoli earlier today, but sure enough, Joe Beninati called my house an hour later to talk to Yevoli about HomeField.
Pretty awesome, because tonight is the Major League Lacrosse All-Star game, and he's the announcer. What's more, all of the MLL teams are HomeField users!
I guess it slipped through the cracks on this blog, but Overtime Media partnered with the MLL earlier this summer, because we believe the players of the MLL should have the very best. Yevoli and I used to play in the League, and it was baffling to us that we didn't watch any game film.
Step back a few years, and there's Dan and I playing at Brown, trying to arrange meetings to watch game film. The system didn't make sense, so we built HomeField and we made it super easy for coaches and players to safely review their game film online, so everyone can play at their very best.
Since we officially launched this past January, we've had some stud programs using HomeField, from high school to college to the pros. They realize that we built HomeField from a player's perspective, but they've been giving us tons of feedback and feature requests and because of it, we're happy to announce the recent launch of HomeField 2.0 - a slicker, tighter application. It's still HomeField, it just looks better, works better and it's exactly what our users want. Cool, right?
If you haven't already checked out HomeField, go to TeamHomeField.com and watch our demo video... or just sign up and create a free account. Why not? Don't you want the HomeField advantage?
HomeField in the summer: Lax Elite at Bucknell Brawl
By Reece
Earlier this week, Patrick made the long trek down Route 80 West to Lewisburg, PA - home of the Bucknell Bison. Despite being an '05 Bucknell grad, Patrick wasn't back in the 'Burg to re-live his glory days at Christy-Mathewson Memorial Stadium, he was there to get some video of our partner team, Baltimore Lax Elite, coached by our former teammate at Bucknell, Ross Albers. Their team was there for the Bucknell Bison Brawl, a summer tournament for competitive players to get some exposure to college coaches. Patrick filmed eight games over a few days, and got some great footage. Here's a slick turn-around shot and goal for Lax Elite:
Since getting back to civilization, we posted all the video to HomeField for Ross's team. He's been active on their team account, using time-coded comments to stir discussion about their game video. The players, all scattered about Baltimore with busy summer schedules have a chance to log in to HomeField, check the video, communicate privately with Ross and their teammates, and be ready for the next time they'll play together which is another major tournament - Hotbeds in Newark, DE at U. Del.
Got some video of your summer lax or any other sport for that matter? Start uploading it to TeamHomeField.com and whether you're in Lewisburg, PA or Newark, DE, you'll have the HomeField advantage.
Preparing to Win: Stat Analysis of the Men's Lax Championships
By Reece
Coolest t-shirts at the Final Four.
Memorial Day weekend just isn't complete without the NCAA men's lacrosse championship. So, despite the fact that my dear Brown University Bears didn't get to dance in the Final Four, I piled the Overtime Media team (minus Dan, with his prior obligations to "his wife") into the official HomeField-mobile and headed North.
My truck, a.ka. - the HomeField-Mobile.
The Division 1 semi-finals weren't nearly as exciting as lacrosse fans usually like - Syracuse rolled over Duke with ease and Cornell dominated Virginia. I was happy for Cornell - representing the Ivy League well and further showing they are an excellent team (thereby making Brown's win over them earlier in the year that much more sweet. Maybe bitter-sweet. Cool nonetheless.). What really impressed me was Cornell's focus and discipline. They had a game plan and they stuck to it. Virginia, who seemed unstoppable most of the year, didn't seem to show up. Perhaps they were looking ahead to Syracuse in the final, when they should've focused on the steps to get there.
On Sunday, we were at Gillette for the D-III Final see Gettysburg against Cortland State. Gettysburg battled the higher ranked Cortland hard all day, and they held a good lead for most of the game. In the end though, they played too much defense and couldn't get the ball going on offense against a solid Cortland D with a good goalie. The box score shows that the game was really evenly matched: Looking at these numbers, you can't say either team had some major advantage over the other like a dominant face-off man or a stud goalie. So the difference in score at the end of the day was a matter of a few possessions, just a couple plays really. A tough loss to swallow for Gettysburg, as those little differences in the game will always stay with them and it's hard to pin-point which play it was that cost them the game.
Conversely, Monday saw an upstate showdown between Syracuse and Cornell that one may attribute to 'Cuse's OT game-winner, but really Cornell broke down in a few areas along the way. Cornell took a lead throughout the game and held fast until the fourth quarter when Syracuse slowly but surely crept back to within striking distance. Again, let's look at the box score: The game was evenly matched in most stats except that Cornell failed to clear the ball four times (to 'Cuse's one failed clear). In particular, the Big Red didn't clear the ball in the final seconds of the 4th quarter, which led to the Orange's tying goal with 4.5 seconds left in the game, and eventually, this photograph...
Joe celebrates Syracuse's OT victory over Cornell.
Again, I don't think any one or two goal losses can ever be directly associated with a single play. Cornell could've failed to clear that ball, then won in OT. Or they could've cleared it and won the game. Either way, it's the accumulative effect of every single play of the game that makes the difference in close battles like these. Every shot, every save, every possession, every turnover... they all matter.
Interestingly enough, do you know how many Division I men's games were decided by one goal this year? It's about 25%. That's a lot. Patrick's been running numbers on this and will post more info later.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that Gettysburg or Cornell failed to prepare for their games. These teams battled all year and worked hard to get to the championship. Both games could've gone either way based on a few plays. What I am saying, is that being prepared for your contest both physically AND mentally is absolutely crucial to succeeding on the field. Whether it's studying the game film or practicing the "little things" - the basic mechanics of the game - you've got to prepare to win.
Patrick and Joe, reppin' HomeField in our "Prepare to Win" T's.
I took over the Player of the Week duties from Patrick (call it veto power from the CEO), but no matter who writes it this week, one thing is for sure, you know the player of the week is coming from the Brown University Bears...
This match-up between #13 Brown and #2 Cornell was highly anticipated as Cornell was in position to take the Ivy Championship away from Brown on Stevenson Field in Providence during the lacrosse alumni weekend which brought back fans and alums from all over including the entire 1973 Brown Bears.
Brown State alums going nuts in the 4th quarter. Bonus: How many Overtime Media founders can you find?
The game was a total battle, tightly fought all the way through - the biggest story being the notable goaltending of Jordan Burke who made 18 saves on the day, 7 which came during the final quarter. But strong goaltending was not enough to beat the Big Red... an outstanding performance by the Bears defense - Fallon, Cassil, Westerman, Greenberg, Hardy, Melvin, Foote - kept Cornell in check, in particular holding Max Seibald to just one goal. The midfield got it done with guys like Walsh, Seligman, and Williams battling for tough ground balls and getting the ball started on offense. Finally, the attack put the game away with outstanding, multiple goal performances from Feinberg, Hollingsworth and Muldoon. And all these guys executed on an excellent game plan from Coach Tiffany and his staff. At the end of the day, the score was 11-9 Bears, and the fans went nuts, rushing the field to celebrate with the team.
Bruno the Bear dancing atop the scoreboard.
If it seems like everyone had a big hand in the win, it's because they did. This was the most complete, team performance I've seen in a college lacrosse game in a long time. It was the epitome of an M.O. that the Bears follow called "Brown State." Brown State is gritty, edgy, tough... and "a little weird" to quote Coach Tiffany's post game speech. It's what connects the guys from the class of '73 to the players of 2009 and everyone inbetween.
So the HomeField player of the week award won't go to Jordan Burke, Matt Cassil or Andrew Feinberg. It goes to every one of the players on the 2009 Brown State squad who won a battle for the ages and their chance at a second Ivy title in a match against Princeton this Saturday.
GO BRUNO!
The 2009 Brown senior class.
Photos via BrownLacrosse.org Check it out for more game blogs and photos.
Disclaimer: Is this award biased? You betcha! Reece and Dan are 2005 Brown alums. But it's still well-deserved. Another Brown mantra? Expect nothing. Earn everything. Bears - you earned it!
While waiting for another game to finish, I got to know some of my new teammates on the New York Athletic Club lacrosse team. I started talking with Mike Ammann. We asked the usual questions as we sniffed each other out. "Where'd you play? Where are you from? What do you do for work?" For most guys, you can just fill in the blanks with the following answers.
I played for ___________ (ACC Team/Cornell/Princeton).
I work for ___________ (major finance bank/hedge fund).
So I caught Mike's attention when I said that I was from Cape Cod, I played at Brown and most importantly, that I started a company that handles video for sports teams. He asked, "What's it called?"
"HomeField."
"Yeah, I thought so. I play with the NY Titans, too. We've been using it. It's great."
I was stoked! I had no idea Mike played with the Titans and it was great to run into one of our users (especially a pro). Sure, lacrosse is a tight network; nonetheless, I was psyched to have HomeField come back to me and I'm looking forward to the next time. Maybe it'll be that high school senior training at my gym, maybe it'll be a coach walking by our tailgate at the Final Four, and soon - it could be any super-fan following their team on HomeField.
Today I went live with some significant updates to HomeField. Although they may seem like small additions - a user forum, feedback widget and self-signup - these updates will help us expand and engage with the growing HomeField community of coaches and athletes.
Our users could always gives us feedback on HomeField, and they did, via email and phone calls. But now with the addition of a really slick feedback widget from UserVoice, coaches and players alike can see what others have requested, make suggestions of their own and vote for ideas they really like. UserVoice also helps us interact with the community. We can discuss the features they ask for and let them know the status of a feature when it gets integrated into HomeField.
We've also created a user forum for the HomeField community. It's a place where coaches can go to discuss their experiences with HomeField. Whether it's camera recommendations, tips on compressing and exporting video form their favorite editor or a question about the trade functionality of HomeField, the forum will allow coaches to help coaches (and we will stop by regularly to offer our input, of course). Complaints, caveats or gotcha's are also welcome. We want the user forum to help our users and to help us improve their experience. We love seeing the HomeField community grow, and we're looking forward to all your feedback.
Lastly, but certainly not least, coaches can now sign up for HomeField on their own. We've opened the gates and would love to see anybody and everybody who is interested in getting an edge on their opponents sign up now!
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.
We haven't run into many questions from our users on how to use HomeField, but we don't want anyone out there lost in the dark because they're too afraid to ask a question. So... I've cooked up a quick screencast tutorial on uploading and managing video using HomeField, as the first in a series of video demos.
And while I've got you here... the latest update from HomeField's public launch - over 50 teams signed up! Lots of coaches are signed on - from top D1 teams through to high school sports - and we are pumped! Thanks to all the coaches who are testing for us and a big slap on the back to Joe for doing a great job promoting HomeField.
It's been two weeks since we announced HomeField's Public Beta Launch and we just wanted to share how well the launch has been and how excited we are about it. We're proud of HomeField and we are psyched to see it growing!
With HomeField now being tested by coaches at schools including Princeton, Duke, Georgetown, Syracuse, UNC, Army, Navy, Middlebury and more, we are confident that HomeField will deliver for you and your team, too!
We've already had a bunch of sign-ups from college, high school and club coaches who realize the advantage their players will have come game time, whether it's in football, basketball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, volleyball... If you want to prepare your team for every competition as best you can, you want to use HomeField.
If you'd like to get on board, simply send us an email and we'll get you started.
Overtime Media Inc. Announces Public Beta Launch for HomeField!
By Reece
We at Overtime Media Inc. have been working hard on HomeField and now it's time for you to give it a test drive!
With the fall season approaching, this is the perfect time to get started using HomeField, so you'll be ready to post a scouting report for that all-important Game 1!
With HomeField you will: Know your opponent - Prepare your team with scouting reports before every game. Learn from your mistakes - Upload your games so your team can review every play. Trade film - No more mailing DVD's. Securely exchange your game film over the web, instantly!
If you'd like to get on board, simply send us an email with your name and school/team and we'll get you started.
Thanks and good luck this fall season! Reece, Dan & Joe
P.S. - Pass it on! If you know fellow coaches at your school or in your league who are perfect candidates to use HomeField, use this link to forward this message to up to three people.
