December 01, 2005
Fox Steals A March On The Rest Of The Field
Only a couple of days ago, Fox Sports took an important step in online sports media when they launched their own blog service -- and kicked it off with a contest that will end with the winner becoming a contributor to FoxSports.com.
In a way, I'm jealous of the folks who are getting into the game now, as I'd like a shot at a gig like that myself sometime.
Oh, and did I mention that McDonald's is the big name sponsor?
Our old pal Reemer, formerly of ESPN.com (take note), was the project manager on this little baby. I'll let him tout the rest:
It's a small, but important step that demonstrates how FOXSports sees its audience: as creators and owners of valuable content, as a group to talk with, not broadcast to, and as people who want to converse about topics they care about. I think the attitude here towards openness is underscored by the exec who asked me where the feature was for a user to get their content out of a FOXSports blog should they want to take it elsewhere. Media 2.0, here we come!
In essence, Fox will let you produce the content (along with thousands of others), and they'll have the happy task of selling advertising over God knows how many page views -- which is what Blogger did after all when you think about it.
And unlike other big organizations that have tried their hand at blogging (hello NHL.com), Fox has provided all the bells and whistles that make a blog different, like RSS, permalinks and commenting. He's promising more features, and I don't doubt that they're on their way. Here's one suggestion: Why not adopt a version of the Technorati trackback system that the Washington Post has implemented? And how about a rotation of a sports most recent blog posts in the appropriate section, along with the headlines?
It's a brilliant idea, and I can't understand why ESPN.com didn't jump on it first -- a question Reemer answered, perhaps inadvertently, a few days earlier in a discussion about big companies and innovation:
Maybe if some of these structures were in place at Disney, Mike and his gang wouldn't have left. I don't know, and I suspect they don't either. But the upshot is that Newsvine was no doubt conceived of in the halls of Seattle's Smith Tower, and not only is Disney not reaping the potential reward, they've lost a few bright, motivated, curious employees and are now looking at a company that could very well eat part of their lunch someday.
I wonder what George Bodenheimer thinks about this? Does he even know what a blog is? He better get on the stick soon.
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Eric -- Did you notice the spamming that came about through the Post's Technorati calls? I looked up a Wilbon column and found that first three blogs linking to it were "Blogs4Christ.com - see what Jesus can do for you."
I agree with you, and yet I don't agree with you. Having blogs isn't a magic bullet. The people who do the best job of bringing blogs into mainstream sites are often the people who produce the best content, anyway.
Posted by:
at December 1, 2005 06:00 PM
You win the right to give Fox Sports 20 well written posts for $5000. That is $250 a post for the one lucky winner out of a few hundred, possibly a few thousand. This is better than the Ebay auctions Fox Sports had in years past selling the right to write a column for their website, but really only slightly better.
And don't forget to read the fine print:
"By posting NGS Blogs to FoxSports.com, every Submitter hereby grants to FSIM the non-exclusive, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, sublicense, transmit, distribute, publicly perform, publish, delete or display such NGS Blogs in any media now known or hereafter devised"
I guess that would leave out posting photos if you wanted to retain the copyright for them. This is really an interesting move by Fox Sports, but it is one that is heavily lopsided in their favor, geared to deliver content on a site that needs more.
I hope they get a few new voices, and give them not just the technical benefits, but also work to try to give them access to different events as well.
Posted by:
at December 1, 2005 07:30 PM
Eric & Beau-
One of the big problems with some trackback services is that they don't return the most relevant results. We're actively working on getting this problem solved... it's a good idea, and please stay tuned. ;)
pj48-
I t think it's quite likely that the contest winner will get much more value out of winning than the $5k he gets from the FS gig.
Also, thanks for bringing the TOS to my attention.
Kareem
Posted by:
at December 2, 2005 01:32 AM
Also, if you'll notice, there's no advertising on individual blog pages, and we don't have plans to put any there.
Kareem
Posted by:
at December 2, 2005 01:34 AM
pj48-
One of the thing I was happiest about was that the whole gang here understood that blog content should be owned by the author.
The TOS hadn't yet been updated to reflect this, but it is now. Basically, we have a non-exclusive license to use a blogger's content as long as it lives on the site: "You authorize FSIM, and any entities affiliated or in privity with FSIM, to utilize the Blogs posted on the site on a non-exclusive basis, in any manner FSIM sees fit, for as long as such Blogs are posted on the site."
You retain the rights to the content, but we can use it--not a bad trade-off, because if you post good content, it will almost certainly be called out by the FS team.
Kareem
Posted by:
at December 2, 2005 01:23 PM
I think FOX deserves props for the clarification on the TOS, and for the advertising free hosting.
Good luck with the contest. I am going to promote the best hockey blog during the final rounds of voting.
Posted by:
at December 2, 2005 03:36 PM
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