MyESPN Hits Beta

MyESPN is here.  I think it’ll get a lot of talk because it’s ESPN, it’s customizable and it’s RSS-friendly, but I’ve yet to find another reason why anyone will mention it.

Put simply: it’s a customizable portal, similar (very similar) to My Yahoo!.  Outside of a few ESPN-friendly only options, there’s not much more to it (yet?).

I was clued into MyESPN via Reemer, who was expecting something more:

They’ve made some curious decisions, for example, not displaying links to outside sites (they’re one click away). Intentionally making the product less useful is an interesting strategy.

Reemer points to FatMixx, who worked on the project.  If you’re as impressed as Reemer is, FatMixx says don’t be quiet:

Based on early feedback, people are happy but a lot of folks have suggestions. Leave feedback. I guarantee that the team is paying attention. Your feedback will shape what we do next and how we make this product even better.

Some thoughts so far:

* During setup I was asked to put in a zipcode to find teams close to me.  I don’t think it said “or city”.  If so, disregard this: due to the internet, sports tv packages and fantasy leagues many are now fans of teams in cities they’ve never been to.  Chances are, they won’t know the zipcode, don’t make them look it up.  Yes, I know you can add/edit later, but initial setup should be as easy as possible.

* The scoreboard isn’t sortable.  It should be.  Leagues and teams in whatever order I want and maybe even a “hide when no games are played” option.  Things are collapsable, but having them disappear completely is even better.

* Some sort of feed search would probably be helpful to many.

* Adding a feed is quick and easy, the way it should be.

* An autoplay on/off option on the video module!  Thank you to whoever implemented that.

* Having the television module probably seemed like a great idea to promote whatever’s on ESPN, but having one channel at a time in a module is basically useless.  This need to be asked when making a “My” page: if this wasn’t automatically on the page already, would anyone add it themselves?

* I don’t use ESPN for any of my fantasy leagues.  I’m sure this module is useful for some and just wanted to point that out.

* The team modules are nice, but relatively basic.  Links to ESPN pages like schedule and rosters along with the next game listed, news on ESPN (which primarily is ticker stuff you see on other portals) and local links, which could wind up being the bread and butter of this module, but I’m not sure how ESPN will feel about having the one of the better features simply be a collection of external links.

* You can add more customizable pages, which does push it outside of the “just a landing page” type of portal, but it’s not a feature I played around with (because honestly, I’m not looking for a multi-page portal).

So would I use it?  Well, I’m not in the market for any portal right now, so no, but if I was, I couldn’t see any feature that would make me switch from a portal like My Yahoo! or even Excite (still the best tv listings) to ESPN.  I can add all my RSS feeds to anything now (Y!, Google, AOL, etc…) and the original content doesn’t seem all that original outside of the videos, which are available elsewhere.  I’m not sure how much else is going to be added between beta and “true” launch, but without any other big features, it’s just like any other portal with an ESPN Video module.

Posted by David M Singer on Oct 19, 2006 at 01:17 PM

Comments:

  1. Thanks for the feedback.  I’ve passed it around internally, and we’ll see what we can look at. 

    Ignoring Reemer’s snark (he’s just jealous he didn’t get to work on this… just kidding!), he’s probably right.  The original version had a directory of RSS feeds, but our challenge was fitting the sheer number of ESPN content modules PLUS the full list of suggested RSS feeds.  I suspect we’ll see the RSS list reemerge before it goes “final.”

    Thanks again for the feedback.

    Sujal

    Posted by Sujal on Oct 19, 2006 at 04:52 PM

  2. On Tuesday, Chris was writing about how Paramount could have done a better job with a site relaunch by including RSS and other technologies, just because it would have been a good business decision. In a way, that's a way…

    Posted by http://www.openthedialogue.com/2006/10/myespn_beta on Oct 19, 2006 at 05:41 PM

  3. hehe… partly jealous wink  but why cripple it?

    Posted by kareem on Oct 21, 2006 at 05:56 AM
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