Introducing: Video Growler

By Dan

In half a year we have watched you - the HomeField Coaches and Athletes - write thousands of comments about the video that you have uploaded.  With time-coded comments, these discussions interactively played back the video at the exact moment you wanted to discuss.  Hitting the play button didn't make it obvious that additional insights and discussions were taking place though.  So we fixed that last week with the launch of the Video Growler...

When you play back your video, and hit a point where a teammate or coach has added a comment, the comment will growl in the upper right corner of your browser.  Click the comment to go directly to that part of discussion, or click the time-code to repeat that part of the video.

I love the growler.  I built it.   But I'd love to hear from you, so please tell us what you think!

Stale Accounts Removed

By Dan

We introduced HomeField 2.0 (the HomeField you all know and love today) after the end of our inaugural season last spring.  This major upgrade included many improvements, but a small amount of cruft from the old version remained, including a few hundred unused accounts.  I removed these stale accounts about an hour ago.

Although I'm confident that no active user accounts were deleted, I wanted to share this update with our community, in case anybody was affected.  So, if you can no longer log in to your HomeField account, and resetting your password does not work, please drop me a line.

p.s. First post (of the new year)!

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!)

HomeField Update - Growing The Community

By Dan

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!

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.

HomeField Beta Launch: Awesome progress!

By Reece

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.

Thanks!

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.