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!

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!)

Re: Will the future of TV start with sports? [@bijan]

By Reece

So, I’ve fully bit into DISQUS and really love it. Consequently I’ve been participating in some great discussions online.

Here’s another comment I made on @Bijan’s blog asking “Will the future of TV start with sports?”

Great point about sports advertising, but like Bijan said, the DVR has done a lot of damage here. Last spring, I watched the Celtics in the NBA playoffs solely on DVR. Avoiding tons of ads, but I also had to turn off my phone/Internet to avoid spoilers.

Now, I don’t even own a TV, I’ve just got an iMac (on which the US Open experience is awesome). If the NBA could duplicate (and improve) such a robust viewing experience as this, then I’d be glued to the screen. And of course, same for the NHL and NFL.

I think it’s really about customization. Allow consumers to make choices about their content. Let me watch exactly what I want to watch. If you build a channel for consumers to do this, they will.

Bijan made a point above about piracy/P2P. It’s just like the music industry. People ‘stole’ lots of music, until there was the iTunes store, Amazon, Amie Street etc. Now that there’s a channel to consume legally, there’s a business there. (Just noticed Kirklove’s comment like this above. Total agreement here.)

The SEC almost made a serious mistake in banning social media at games. They have since fixed their mistake and clarified their terms, however, I think they need to go a step further and figure out a way to embrace a group of people (customers) who are so in love with their games (products) that they want to tell everyone about them.

I suppose my overall point is, there is a ton of sports media out there. All of it has value to someone, somewhere. The people in control of this media need to figure out the ways in which they can create value for their fans/customers, and in turn make a tremendous profit as well.

And where is ESPN during all of this? I think ESPN has the potential to become more of a portal or a switcher for the online content. They will act as the great curators of the sports world and people will use ESPN as a gateway… unlesssomeone beats them to it.

Finally, the one thing that sucks about sports video online? The quality is still catching up. This US Open video is great, but from a technical standpoint tennis (and baseball for that matter) are low movement sports making streaming video quality much easier. The good news? This will only continue improving. But for this reason, the NHL will continue to lag behind the other major sports, so I’ll be waiting for the Bruins via iMac a bit longer…

And to actually answer Bijan’s original question. Yes. The future of TV will most definitely start with sports. It is the most engaging content over time, attracting fans year in and year out (I know, I’m a Red Sox fan who rememberswhat it was like before 2004).

Joe Beninati called my house/HomeField + the MLL

By Reece

"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?

P.S. - Got some ideas of your own? Let us hear 'em.

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.

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.

Go ahead, Upload, I dare ya.

By Reece

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.

On Preparation...

By Reece

"Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win."

- Bobby Knight [As crazy as he is, he knows a thing about winning].

Dan stumbled across this quote recently, and it's a great point. Wanting to win is nothing new or uncommon. Every competitive athlete wants to win... the difference in those who win and those who don't, is their preparation.

And if you don't agree with me, then hear it from a legend...

[Note: I got this video from Joe who was kind enough to send me an email full of Jordan YouTube videos as workout inspiration leading into our MLL Training Camps.]