Made a Simple Twitter-based Player News Aggregator (2 Viewers)

[Deamon]

Excited to try it out this week, but looks good.

Couple suggestions that may be good or bad, but could think about.

- WHen searching players, is 5 the maximum it will show in your drop down box? For example I wanted to find Calvin, so I typed in JOHNSON but he didn't show up in the drop down box. Not a huge deal as we are all capable of typing Calvin in, but if this gets bigger, there may be people searching for players by last name and them not showing up because its capped to a 5 drop down box.

- Do you ahve general sources too? Let's say you didn't have Schefter, but I wanted to add him (just an example), would I have to add him to any of the teams' sources or if I add him to just any of them, will all his tweets still come up for info on the other teams' players too?

- How far back can you scroll? It obviously won't show all tweets for a year ago on the player, is there a cut off date that you start at?

Cool ap though!

 

[daves]

Excited to try it out this week, but looks good.

Couple suggestions that may be good or bad, but could think about.

- WHen searching players, is 5 the maximum it will show in your drop down box? For example I wanted to find Calvin, so I typed in JOHNSON but he didn't show up in the drop down box. Not a huge deal as we are all capable of typing Calvin in, but if this gets bigger, there may be people searching for players by last name and them not showing up because its capped to a 5 drop down box.

- Do you ahve general sources too? Let's say you didn't have Schefter, but I wanted to add him (just an example), would I have to add him to any of the teams' sources or if I add him to just any of them, will all his tweets still come up for info on the other teams' players too?

- How far back can you scroll? It obviously won't show all tweets for a year ago on the player, is there a cut off date that you start at?

Cool ap though!

Thanks! I appreciate the suggestions.

1) Yea, the drop-down is limited to 5. The searchable pool of players includes every football, basketball, and hockey roster, so even if I bumped it up to 10, searching "Johnson" would probably not get you to Megatron (limited it for aesthetic reasons also). I might try to refine the search down the road, but for now it's best to just enter enough of the player name so that they show up in the results. "Calvin J" would probably work.

2) You could add Schefter to your team sources. Though if the player being searched has common last name you might get a lot of false positives from his tweets.

3) It loads the 20 most recent tweets. I might bump this number up now that I've improved the sources pool for every team. The timeframe is the last 6 days (limit set by Twitter itself).

 

[Maurile Tremblay]

2) You could add Schefter to your team sources. Though if the player being searched has common last name you might get a lot of false positives from his tweets.

I find that local beat writers retweet Schefter's (and similar national media guys') tweets pretty quickly when they pertain to players on the teams they cover. So we're still getting Scheter's tweets in this app, just indirectly (with a small delay).

 

[GregR]

I'm not sure it's showing retweets. I tested it, removed a source who another source had rewtweeted, and then refreshed and the tweet disappeared.

 

[daves]

First of all, let me echo what everyone else is saying about how great a tool this is. You've identified a key need for fantasy users and created a solution.

As for career advice, I'm going to differ from the people recommending you try to patent this idea, yank the thread, etc. The idea is great, but it's probably not all that defensible. If one of the Big Boys decides they want to do something like this, I'm sure they could throw it together in-house. Besides, based on the (very limited) information you've presented about yourself here, you don't sound like you have a burning desire to become an entrepreneur, and without that, it'll be tough to succeed as one.

What I would recommend, especially given that you're an unemployed recent grad, is that instead of selling your idea, you use it to sell yourself. If you want to work for one of the fantasy businesses, try to make some contacts at companies you'd like to work for and say, "I'd love to break into the business. Here's this cool tool I built. Curious to hear your thoughts." That will separate you out from the typical networking contacts they get, and they will hopefully recognize that you're a smart guy who has some initiative, which is exactly what most people are looking for when they hire entry-level roles.

When Sylvester Stallone first wrote the script for "Rocky", the studios all wanted to give him a lot of money for it. But he held out -- and ultimately took less money -- until they agreed to cast him as the lead. Looking back over his career as an actor vs. that as a screenwriter, I'd say that was a smart decision on his part.

You're your best asset. Sell yourself.

Thank you! I appreciate the support. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a natural entrepreneur. For now, I'm just going to keep growing the user base (doubled in the past 3 days) and working to make GTD the best tool it can be. And then I'll see where that takes me. My only real defense against the big boys is to become established ASAP.

 

[daves]

I'm not sure it's showing retweets. I tested it, removed a source who another source had rewtweeted, and then refreshed and the tweet disappeared.

Weird. I'll check it out. If you follow a source it should display their relevant RTs no matter who they RT.

 

[GregR]

Hrm, just tried again, though slightly different test and it showed a retweet.

First time I tested, Mary Kay Cabot had retweeted one of the other Browns sources. I removed the original source from the source list but left Mary Kay, and the tweet disappeared, it didn't show her retweet of him.

This time I did it differently, I picked a writer not in your sources (@injuryexpert) who had done a retweet about Josh Gordon from someone not in the Browns source list. When I added @injuryexpert the retweet showed up too.

Could be I messed something else up on the first try I guess.

 

[daves]

I just tried it with a Denver Post Broncos RT of a Nicki Jhabvala tweet about Peyton Manning and it worked as intended. Hmm. When I get the tweet data from Twitter they display all RTs as a post made by the RTer (Post Broncos in this case) prefaced with "RT". So it shouldn't register as an actual tweet by Nicki Jhabvala.

 

[dickey moe]

1) I don't know if possible, but maybe you can give the user the option to save more players at a lower refresh rate. I know 90 seconds vs 60 seconds is nothing and I'd prefer more players. I can see how others wouldn't. Is that something you can allow the user to decide?

2) You need to get this into a mobile app.

3) You seriously need to profit from this. I'd strongly consider some kind of copyright on this (if possible) and/or look into some kind of partnership. In particular, if you turn this into a mobile app, you can and should profit from this.

Thank you for the feedback! I appreciate it. I worked hard on this so the positive feedback means a lot to me.

1) I've thought about this and it's definitely a possibility. I've tried to keep the site as simple as possible but I may have to do something like this to accommodate all of the different uses for the site.

2) I'd like to do this at some point. I chose a javascript framework that converts well to mobile (using http://ionicframework.com/).

3) I'm an unemployed recent college grad with student loans so that'd be fantastic haha. But still, that's a ways down the road. To my knowledge, patents are expensive and aren't effective for non-radically-novel websites so the only option is to build the best product.

Doesn't :hawkscreech: FGB Otis practice patent law or something likw that? You should seriously discuss this with him.

 

[daves]

I've gotten a lot of feedback on the 9 player limit in the past week. I think I'm going to make 18 players / 2 min refresh the default with a setting option where you can switch to 9 players / 1 min.

 

[Da Gildz]

Is this only for Beat reporters? Is it possible to just list anyone u 'follow' that mentions the player in question?

ie. Some CBS analyst or something posts an update, does this thing track that also? or just strictly the 'beat reporter' only...?

thx

 

[daves]

Is this only for Beat reporters? Is it possible to just list anyone u 'follow' that mentions the player in question?

ie. Some CBS analyst or something posts an update, does this thing track that also? or just strictly the 'beat reporter' only...?

thx

By default it just includes team-specific journalists, but you can add CBS analysts or anyone else to the team sources list.

Edit: It doesn't access or do anything with your 'Following' list.

 

[Da Gildz]

Is this only for Beat reporters? Is it possible to just list anyone u 'follow' that mentions the player in question?

ie. Some CBS analyst or something posts an update, does this thing track that also? or just strictly the 'beat reporter' only...?

thx

By default it just includes team-specific journalists, but you can add CBS analysts or anyone else to the team sources list.

Ahh ok. Its great but that would make this thing really stand out, any way to customize that w/o the user adding all these separate people? Basically like filtering all your follows with 1 'keyword'... ? u follow?

 

[daves]

Is this only for Beat reporters? Is it possible to just list anyone u 'follow' that mentions the player in question?

ie. Some CBS analyst or something posts an update, does this thing track that also? or just strictly the 'beat reporter' only...?

thx

By default it just includes team-specific journalists, but you can add CBS analysts or anyone else to the team sources list.

Ahh ok. Its great but that would make this thing really stand out, any way to customize that w/o the user adding all these separate people? Basically like filtering all your follows with 1 'keyword'... ? u follow?

I see what you're saying, but it's designed so you don't have to clutter your actual Twitter account with hundreds of NFL journalists. The beat reporters normally break the news before or at the same time as the national analysts and cover their respective teams better than the national analysts. I do agree in that I need to find a way to make it easier to add journalists, though.

 

[Maelstrom]

Cool idea. Looks like it's based on Angular? (I do web dev myself, been doing a lot with Angular.) Really interested to see how you like using Ionic if you use it to wrap it into a mobile app, been looking into using it myself soon. What kind of back-end are you using (if you don't mind sharing).

As for monetizing, you might consider offering the basics for free, with limitations (i.e. 3 players) and users have to pay for additional things like more players per account, additional sources, custom sources, stuff like that. That way you stay away from the ad model which is overdone for stuff like this.

 

[daves]

Cool idea. Looks like it's based on Angular? (I do web dev myself, been doing a lot with Angular.) Really interested to see how you like using Ionic if you use it to wrap it into a mobile app, been looking into using it myself soon. What kind of back-end are you using (if you don't mind sharing).

As for monetizing, you might consider offering the basics for free, with limitations (i.e. 3 players) and users have to pay for additional things like more players per account, additional sources, custom sources, stuff like that. That way you stay away from the ad model which is overdone for stuff like this.

Hi there! It is based on Angular. I used the MEAN stack so the back end is express/node/MongoDB. I'll definitely let you know how porting it with Ionic goes.

I'm waiting to grow it some more before I start monetizing it, but a paywall with new features is a definite possibility. It blew up on the fantasy football board on Reddit this past week so that's been a big help.

 

[Cheesedawg]

Mad props. Excellent tool. Thank you!

 

[Johnny Rock]

 

[Das Boot]

Sounds awesome, looking forward to checking it out!

 

[daves]

Mad props. Excellent tool. Thank you!

Thanks! Update should be out sometime tomorrow. Adds drag-and-drop support for desktop and the ability to expand the # of feeds to 18.

 

[daves]

Hey, the update's up. Added two frequently requested features (ability to expand lineup size to 18 and drag & drop reordering). I think I'll work on saving separate lineups next.

 

[Organized Chaos]

Awesome idea and implementation. This is minor, but since it already came up for you (missing some players), I would like to point you to two API's you can use to populate the player info.

FantasyFootballNerd.com - He has a few of his JSON or XML feeds available for free and the Players are part of that package.

MyFantasyLeague.com - They also have a player feed that is JSON or XML and free FYI.

It would be easy to integrate either of these and you can keep your player DB up to date and may be more reliable than the current method you are using. Just wanted to throw it out there since I have use both for different applications over the years.

 

[MIMN]

First of all, let me echo what everyone else is saying about how great a tool this is. You've identified a key need for fantasy users and created a solution.

As for career advice, I'm going to differ from the people recommending you try to patent this idea, yank the thread, etc. The idea is great, but it's probably not all that defensible. If one of the Big Boys decides they want to do something like this, I'm sure they could throw it together in-house. Besides, based on the (very limited) information you've presented about yourself here, you don't sound like you have a burning desire to become an entrepreneur, and without that, it'll be tough to succeed as one.

What I would recommend, especially given that you're an unemployed recent grad, is that instead of selling your idea, you use it to sell yourself. If you want to work for one of the fantasy businesses, try to make some contacts at companies you'd like to work for and say, "I'd love to break into the business. Here's this cool tool I built. Curious to hear your thoughts." That will separate you out from the typical networking contacts they get, and they will hopefully recognize that you're a smart guy who has some initiative, which is exactly what most people are looking for when they hire entry-level roles.

When Sylvester Stallone first wrote the script for "Rocky", the studios all wanted to give him a lot of money for it. But he held out -- and ultimately took less money -- until they agreed to cast him as the lead. Looking back over his career as an actor vs. that as a screenwriter, I'd say that was a smart decision on his part.

You're your best asset. Sell yourself.

If only we knew if some sort of web based fantasy site that could use someone with initiative and the ability to execute on a fantasy football related idea...

Edit: I just logged in. Amazing in its simplicity. Great idea to allow dragging to change the order. Visually appealing. If I could change the font size to get more on one row it would be nice. Does this all run from my computer or would there be a bottleneck Sunday morning when all teh FBGs are using it?

 

[biju]

 

[daves]

First of all, let me echo what everyone else is saying about how great a tool this is. You've identified a key need for fantasy users and created a solution.

As for career advice, I'm going to differ from the people recommending you try to patent this idea, yank the thread, etc. The idea is great, but it's probably not all that defensible. If one of the Big Boys decides they want to do something like this, I'm sure they could throw it together in-house. Besides, based on the (very limited) information you've presented about yourself here, you don't sound like you have a burning desire to become an entrepreneur, and without that, it'll be tough to succeed as one.

What I would recommend, especially given that you're an unemployed recent grad, is that instead of selling your idea, you use it to sell yourself. If you want to work for one of the fantasy businesses, try to make some contacts at companies you'd like to work for and say, "I'd love to break into the business. Here's this cool tool I built. Curious to hear your thoughts." That will separate you out from the typical networking contacts they get, and they will hopefully recognize that you're a smart guy who has some initiative, which is exactly what most people are looking for when they hire entry-level roles.

When Sylvester Stallone first wrote the script for "Rocky", the studios all wanted to give him a lot of money for it. But he held out -- and ultimately took less money -- until they agreed to cast him as the lead. Looking back over his career as an actor vs. that as a screenwriter, I'd say that was a smart decision on his part.

You're your best asset. Sell yourself.

If only we knew if some sort of web based fantasy site that could use someone with initiative and the ability to execute on a fantasy football related idea...

Edit: I just logged in. Amazing in its simplicity. Great idea to allow dragging to change the order. Visually appealing. If I could change the font size to get more on one row it would be nice. Does this all run from my computer or would there be a bottleneck Sunday morning when all teh FBGs are using it?

Thanks! I appreciate it. Could you elaborate a bit more on the one row suggestion? And I haven't detected any bottlenecking issues thus far, so it should be good today.

 

[daves]

Hey, has anyone else had issues adding players recently? I got a message about it today and I can't seem to recreate the bug.

 

[daves]

Excited to try it out this week, but looks good.

Couple suggestions that may be good or bad, but could think about.

- WHen searching players, is 5 the maximum it will show in your drop down box? For example I wanted to find Calvin, so I typed in JOHNSON but he didn't show up in the drop down box. Not a huge deal as we are all capable of typing Calvin in, but if this gets bigger, there may be people searching for players by last name and them not showing up because its capped to a 5 drop down box.

- Do you ahve general sources too? Let's say you didn't have Schefter, but I wanted to add him (just an example), would I have to add him to any of the teams' sources or if I add him to just any of them, will all his tweets still come up for info on the other teams' players too?

- How far back can you scroll? It obviously won't show all tweets for a year ago on the player, is there a cut off date that you start at?

Cool ap though!

Hey, I took a look at your general sources idea and just added a way to add a source across all teams. Thanks!

 

[Deamon]

Anyone still use this? I still use this once in a while but I see that none of the rookies this year are in it and it's been a while since he updated it. Creator hasn't posted in here much so maybe he gave up on the project. Too bad because this was an awesome tool.

 

[Deamon]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to share a project I've been working on for the last 2 months or so. I came up with the idea as a result of 2 observations:

• News breaks on Twitter before it hits any other site
• It's a hassle to find worthwhile, current information on a player via Twitter. It's a lot of noise with very little signal. Try searching 'Peyton Manning' during a Broncos game.

So, here's Gametime Decision. I tried my best to distill the strength of the Twitter platform. I hope you guys enjoy it. Please let me know if you have any feedback/suggestions. I hope it doesn't violate any shark pool rules - there are no ads or anything.

I tried to make it as simple to use as possible, so don't worry if you have 0 Twitter experience. I did the legwork and researched hundreds of NFL journalists & bloggers for it. Just type in the players name and click add. Also, it works on mobile and tablets.

Here's a screenshot of it in action.

Thanks!

Edit: The title was cut off mid sentence. Just edited it to be shorter and less terrible.

-Dave

Dave you still around?

 

[Rock Lonemilk]

Awesome job, daves. Super cool.

J

I agree with Joe.