FBG Interview - Mike Hall (Wednesday 8/9) (1 Viewer)

[David Dodds]

Mike will interview with us on Wednesday, August 9th at 8:00 pm ET.

He runs both the MyFantasyLeague.com and FFLM.com websites. His products continue to evolve around the needs of fantasy enthusiasts.

Here is your chance to ask Mike about his software's new features, to do list, and whatever else is on your mind.

 

[s_ezy]

no question, just want to thank him for putting out the best product of its kind on the market

 

[Musesboy]

I love the site too.

Is there any possibility of enabling owners to pay for their individual team, rather than asking for a lump payment for the entire league? I think I could get a lot of my leaguemates to switch if that were the case.

 

[ltaylor]

Here's some questions for Mike Hall:

1. How come when you click on another person's team name it goes to thier "Franchise Information". THen you have to click another button on that page to see their roster? You rarely need an owners email address or phone number compared to needing to look at their roster daily for trade possibilities. It seems to me, MFL would be much better if when clicking on a team name you were taken directly to the roster. Is this possible already or do you have plans for this in the future?

2. Is the draft room improved this year? Last year you couldn't even see which players had been drafted without having to individually look for each player. The draft room is very far from user-friendly.

3. Why dopes your site not make it more clear when a trade has been offered to your team? We have had many times where owners were on the site but didn't see that they been offered a trade. I think it would be a huge upgrade to have it set-up where new trade offers showed up somehow at the top of the league page in red font. "New trade offer from Team Titans"

 

[BassNBrew]

Is "spam" part of your business model?

Maybe better stated...What is your company's policy regarding use of e-mail addresses obtained during the course of people using your software?

 

[Mike]

Hi Mike. Love the product and recommend it often.

If I have my history straight, and of course, this is from an outsiders viewpoint, you (Sideline Software/FLM) purchased MFL from Kevin Austin at a very risky time of the Internet and for MFL in particular. Ad revenues were drying up, CBS Sportsline was pushing their commissioner product for free and not many businesses could very easily charge for services they provided online. (Pay for fantasy football?!? Never!)

Anyway... can you refresh us a little on the chain of events leading up to and through the purchase of MFL? How did you come to the decision this was going to be a solid investment given the state of the Internet for small business? What key events/milestones helped lead to the success of MFL?

 

[Jiggyonthehut]

2. Is the draft room improved this year? Last year you couldn't even see which players had been drafted without having to individually look for each player. The draft room is very far from user-friendly.

A list of avalible players, sorted by position, would go a long way. Dodds: Also could you ask if they plan on integrating an actual 'draft room' interface? As such, each person must look at the taken players on one page and then draft on another. Very clunky and irritating.

But good software nonetheless, tell them that their work is appreciated.

Certainly beats Fanball :X

 

[BigRed]

no question, just want to thank him for putting out the best product of its kind on the market

:X

You have got to be kidding me... every other FF provider looks like crap next to MFL.

I think he was :X at the brown-nosing. Anyway -

1. How come when you click on another person's team name it goes to thier "Franchise Information". THen you have to click another button on that page to see their roster? You rarely need an owners email address or phone number compared to needing to look at their roster daily for trade possibilities. It seems to me, MFL would be much better if when clicking on a team name you were taken directly to the roster. Is this possible already or do you have plans for this in the future?

I've asked for this 2 yrs running now and agree. Email/phone # info is about the last thing I want to see. Also -- This thing of having 2 separate pages for "basic" and "advanced" team links to see or update info is a pain and pointless. Just put everything on one page....and at the top should be the logo (as it is now), the roster (as stated above), maybe the schedule, and a link to propose a trade w/that team.- The commish SETUP page is - still - painfully overdue for an major overhaul. It is not intuitive or very user-friendly IMO.- Ditto the league calendar thing. Love the flexibility/power this thing has but it is also user-unfriendly. A specific note: the deadlines should be 1 minute before or after the hour, at least for midnight. That aside, agree MFL is - at least from what I've seen (and I've seen most) - the best thing going. FFLM was awesome in its day too.

 

[Kleck]

Hey Mike,

I'm a long time supporter of MFL after using it and many other competing softwares through the years. I have a question/request. I have a live 12 team draft that I conduct in my home each year. Owners select one player a a time, yada, yada, yada. I'm sure you can picture the scene.

Anyways.... After the draft I have to sit down with a friend and enter the rosters one team at a time. It takes us hours to get it done manually. I'm obviously looking for a shortcut here.

1. Is it possible to enter the picks one at a time as they are happening on one computer? Some sort of live draft that one person can operate in this setting?

2. Is it possible for the MFL software to accept a file that is exported from The Draft Dominator software at the completion of a draft? Or possibly an excel file?

Thanks bunches. I keep coming back mostly because of your superior service.

 

[Bri]

Hey Mike,I'm a long time supporter of MFL after using it and many other competing softwares through the years. I have a question/request. I have a live 12 team draft that I conduct in my home each year. Owners select one player a a time, yada, yada, yada. I'm sure you can picture the scene.Anyways.... After the draft I have to sit down with a friend and enter the rosters one team at a time. It takes us hours to get it done manually. I'm obviously looking for a shortcut here.1. Is it possible to enter the picks one at a time as they are happening on one computer? Some sort of live draft that one person can operate in this setting?2. Is it possible for the MFL software to accept a file that is exported from The Draft Dominator software at the completion of a draft? Or possibly an excel file?Thanks bunches. I keep coming back mostly because of your superior service.

if I may jump on here, I was wonderring if this could be done by saving a spreadsheet in XML or CSV format and uploading it

 

[Bri]

Mike,

your FLM program is a favorite of alot of folks that have been on the web for a long time. Can this work hand in hand with FLM in anyway?

The XML files on your board and the development/using them to develop stuff intrigues me. What's on the agenda with them?

NFLPA licensing, do you guys have to? have you been hit with an "order" to do so? Can you shed any light on how that really all works?

If our gov't were to contact people about FF to determine if it's gambling I'd figure your site would seem a central location for FF surfers to them. Have you been asked for data or thoughts on FF is gambling? IIRC You(like TC and/or Greg) think of it as a passionate hobby, right?

Serious Q-How difficult are FFers with some league site problem to deal with? Generally very passionate and likely emotional when their site gets messed up....I always wonderred.

Kudos on a great service and a great product for such a long time

 

[Grimmett]

Ever considered college FF as part of your setup?

 

[Cybergeek]

Are there plans to add Open (Ebay style) bidding or a +1 Proxy bidding system on free agents?

 

[bonscott]

2. Is the draft room improved this year? Last year you couldn't even see which players had been drafted without having to individually look for each player. The draft room is very far from user-friendly.

All new draft room was developed this year. There was a beta a couple months ago where users helped test and refine the features. Anyway, you should get your free league and check it out and see if it's what you need.

3. Why dopes your site not make it more clear when a trade has been offered to your team? We have had many times where owners were on the site but didn't see that they been offered a trade. I think it would be a huge upgrade to have it set-up where new trade offers showed up somehow at the top of the league page in red font. "New trade offer from Team Titans"

For a couple years now there is a home page module called "pending trades" you can put on your homepage which shows all trade offers made to you with links to act on them. You can also have the system email an owner when a trade offer is made. But no matter what, you can't force an owners to pay attention. You can see this module on my homepage: http://football3.myfantasyleague.com/2006/home/27323

Click the "Transactions/Trade Bait" tab to see it.

 

[bonscott]

Mike,your FLM program is a favorite of alot of folks that have been on the web for a long time. Can this work hand in hand with FLM in anyway?

You can transfer league data easily between the two. So you could run your league mostly on MFL.com and use FFLM to run a few reports that MFL doesn't offer (for example). Or you can use FFLM to draft and import the results into MFL.

 

[Mike]

Hey Mike,I'm a long time supporter of MFL after using it and many other competing softwares through the years. I have a question/request. I have a live 12 team draft that I conduct in my home each year. Owners select one player a a time, yada, yada, yada. I'm sure you can picture the scene.Anyways.... After the draft I have to sit down with a friend and enter the rosters one team at a time. It takes us hours to get it done manually. I'm obviously looking for a shortcut here.1. Is it possible to enter the picks one at a time as they are happening on one computer? Some sort of live draft that one person can operate in this setting?2. Is it possible for the MFL software to accept a file that is exported from The Draft Dominator software at the completion of a draft? Or possibly an excel file?Thanks bunches. I keep coming back mostly because of your superior service.

Hey Shick!1. I believe the person with commissioner access can enter all the picks no matter who is up in the draft.2. Maybe not the whole draft at once, but you can do a team at a time. Commissioners > Setup > Players and Rosters .. Load/Unload Rosters. Select franchise and at the bottom is a text box. In the program I use it tracks players by team, so I could copy those and paste them into that box to update the rosters. Only issue was team defense didn't seem to translate properly, and the occassional player name was different.

 

[Cybergeek]

Hey Mike,I'm a long time supporter of MFL after using it and many other competing softwares through the years. I have a question/request. I have a live 12 team draft that I conduct in my home each year. Owners select one player a a time, yada, yada, yada. I'm sure you can picture the scene.Anyways.... After the draft I have to sit down with a friend and enter the rosters one team at a time. It takes us hours to get it done manually. I'm obviously looking for a shortcut here.1. Is it possible to enter the picks one at a time as they are happening on one computer? Some sort of live draft that one person can operate in this setting?2. Is it possible for the MFL software to accept a file that is exported from The Draft Dominator software at the completion of a draft? Or possibly an excel file?Thanks bunches. I keep coming back mostly because of your superior service.

Hey Shick!1. I believe the person with commissioner access can enter all the picks no matter who is up in the draft.2. Maybe not the whole draft at once, but you can do a team at a time. Commissioners > Setup > Players and Rosters .. Load/Unload Rosters. Select franchise and at the bottom is a text box. In the program I use it tracks players by team, so I could copy those and paste them into that box to update the rosters. Only issue was team defense didn't seem to translate properly, and the occassional player name was different.

In Live Draft Mode, someone with commissioner access can easily switch from team to team and enter picks on the fly.