BallHype Blog

Ballhype is now picking up thumbnail images from stories we track. With no scientific evidence to back me up, it appears that users are more likely to hype up a story with a photo than those without. Even drawings work to attract attention. Yesterday while we were still working out some of the kinks of image capture, I read the Manny Ramirez story from The New Yorker. I noticed that we were missing the graphic, so I added it to the post and within a couple of hours it shot up to the top story on Ballhype. It’s further down the page now, displaced by the Warriors-Mavs recap and NBA Hair Watch.

Also over the weekend, we added autos, tennis, and golf. If you notice we’re missing some great sites in these categories, please send us the links so we can add them to the list.

Anyone playing the Golden Picks Contest can provide a quote for the contest’s weekly leaderboard. (Yes, they look a bit like epitaphs.) A couple of people this week have posed questions, which I thought I would answer here rather than in private messages. It may be that the questions were simply meant to be rhetorical but you never know.

Dex, who had the top score in the NBA category two weeks ago (Jason was disqualified - no one really knows why), asks: “Eventually, do we get money or something from this or is this another useless talent like my ability to tell when my cat is lying to me?”
We’ll be giving out small prizes for the weekly contests soon. In the meantime, it’s good to practice. Plus, the NBA weekly game picks will be used as the tie-breaker for the NBA Playoffs Pick’em Contest. I also think being able to read your cat’s mind must have monetization potential, you just have to think harder.

bucksox, currently this week’s NHL games leader, asks: “why does the week begin and end tuesday?”
Monday night football. I know it’s not football season, but we like to plan ahead around here. That, and weekends tend to be a little slow on Ballhype — apparently a lot of sports fans do their web surfing on company time — so we want to let people get back into the office on Monday, check their picks and change them if they want before midnight.

That wraps up the Q&A. If you have any others, you can send them to me directly, use the contact us form, or just ask the leaderboard.

While waiting for the Warriors to end their 12-year playoff drought (Dallas, we’re coming for you!!!) we created a new game to play on Ballhype: The 2007 NBA Playoffs Pick’em.

Think NCAA bracket meets Ballhype Game Picks. You fill out a bracket like an NCAA tournament, except that you get to update your picks after the games begin, and the points you earn are based on how many other people participate and how they’re picking. Of course, as you change your picks to follow the wisdom of the crowd, you may lose potential points. But if you have the courage to stick with an underdog that ends up pulling through for you, you’ll score big.

Sound fun? Wait, there’s more! We’re offering a prize to the user with the highest score at the end of the Finals. One smart, lucky person will get the new official game ball of the NBA! Players love it and we know you will too, so get truckin’ over to the contest page, read the little primer on scoring, and fill out your bracket.

You can make the Playoffs Pick’em Contest even more exciting (but not addictive - Ballhype does not condone gambling) by competing against your friends and family. Create a Ballhype Group, get your buddies, co-workers and favorite in-laws to create an account, and you’ll be able to track your scores and rankings within your Group.

If you’ve been making game picks on Ballhype the past few days, you may have noticed that we started tracking results on a weekly basis. And the first winner of the Ballhype Golden Picks Award: louismg! For his reward, louismg receives a featured spot on the Ballhype home page and on the Games page. His avatar will also sport a nice glowing halo all week.

The top users in each sports category will be featured on the NBA, MLB, and NHL Games pages this week. Those winners are: NBA - Dex, MLB - louismg, and NHL - kcudah. Congratulations to all of the winners!

Wondering how you ranked? Check out the Golden Picks Contest Leaderboard. (Note that Jason’s score for NBA picks is not counted since he’s a Ballhype employee.)

Got him to come work for us! Yes, that’s right, Howie The Hype Guy is our new Community Manager. He’ll be doing things like responding to user requests and feedback and more when we can get him to blow off classes and blogging for a while.

If you’ve read The FanHouse or NBA Basketball and Other Unrelatedness, you already know that Howie is a huge sports fan and prolific blogger, cartoonist, fotoshop master, and possesses a fertile imagination. Just who we’re looking for, Howie — welcome to Ballhype!

Ballhype is now open to the public! You no longer have to be a member to view stories, but you still need to create an account to do any of the fun stuff — vote, comment, join a group, make a game pick, write or submit a story.

To all of the beta testers who provided feedback, pointed out bugs, and submitted some of the funniest sports stories I’ve ever read — thank you!! We’re intent on making Ballhype even better so keep the feedback coming.

Update: We’ve had a couple of great reviews so far on TechCrunch and louisgray.com.

Update 2: More from The Big Picture, franticindustries, and Pronet Advertising (by parislemon).

Update 3: The Ballhype Press Room has links to all of the reviews. The sports blogging community (and a few tech bloggers) really came through and supported the launch in a big way. Thank you!