I don’t really like Matt Berry, but then again I hate the columns he (doesn’t actually) write. The information is decent though. Worth a watch. I may add a permanent video spot for the SportsCenter Minute on FM’s front page.

I guess it’s OK if I say this now, but I used to HATE ESPN.com’s home page. For at least the last 3 years, most of the time I was there, it had turned into a big, bloated, ugly, messy mishmosh of too much text, too much advertising, and too little organization. I would literally look at the Top Story area, and the headlines and then leave, immediately, to the safe, more pleasant confines of the various sport index pages inside the site. The only time I loved it was when it was converted into the “war” mode for major event coverage.

Late last week, however, ESPN launched a new version of the home page. I have to say, they basically fixed all of the problems and addressed a lot of the things I personally would argue for in meetings. Here’s a screen shot:

Think about what you’re seeing… there are only 2 ads above the fold. 2. Scores are front and center, and it’s clean and easy to read most of the content on the page. I’m still not a fan of the subdivided boxes in the second column (page 2, the Mag for example), because it’s easier to read when the widths are consistent all the way down. Overall, though, this thing is awesome.

My biggest, biggest super happy, Thank God you finally did it item is the fact that the page stops scrolling after one page down on my monitor. I don’t know if you remember, but the page used to scroll on for-freaking-ever. At least 3-4 page downs on my monitor, and on a 1024×768 or 1280×1024, that would be even worse. This one, I see the bottom pieces of content after hitting page down once. Love it, love it, love it. I personally would argue for this in meetings, but I couldn’t get edit to listen. I guess someone else made the more persuasive case. Whoever you are, you rock.

Now, any chance of bringing the photo gallery back to the front page? I miss it. The photography and photo editing at ESPN is one of it’s strengths. Wish we would see more than just the front page photo.

Rights issues in sports are a major concern for companies like ESPN and also the leagues like the NFL and NCAA. You only have to look at the rights fees companies pay to cover sports live or at the money leagues like the NFL make signing away something as simple as mobile data rights. The latest example, and an interesting one at that, involves a Louisville newspaper that tried to have a “live blog” of the NCAA Baseball tournament.

From the article:

A reporter was ejected from an NCAA baseball tournament game for submitting live Internet updates during play.

Brian Bennett, a writer for The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal, was approached Sunday by an NCAA representative in the bottom of the fifth inning and told that blogging from an NCAA championship event is against NCAA policies.

…

The newspaper said the university circulated a memo on the issue from Jeramy Michiaels, the NCAA’s manager of broadcasting, before the first super regional game Friday. It said blogs are considered a “live representation of the game” and blogs containing action photos or game reports are prohibited until the game is over.

If you think this is a relatively esoteric issue, consider the fact that mobile phones and even regular cameras are getting the capability to transmit digital images directly to sites like Flickr or Photobucket. Fans will be in a position to taunt their friends (”Wish ya were here!”) or instantly share accounts of the game as they happen.

This ought to be a fair use of admission. Fans are simply sharing their experiences, after all, and this doesn’t diminish the value of consistent, live data feeds like those provided by ESPN or the NCAA. This isn’t the case, however, as big money is involved.

Let me give you another example. The NFL is by far the worst offender when it comes to rights enforcement bordering on the stupid. They restrict any site, including partners like ESPN, from offering live play-by-play that offers any detail. They want to have a monopoly on that data on the Internet, and they want to control their partners on other digital platforms (Hello, Nextel).

So, every fall, we used to sit on our hands just waiting for the latest ridiculous demand from the NFL. Two NFL seasons ago, we literally had to rewrite parts of the site to pull any play description beyond “Rush, 12 yards” from the site because the NFL didn’t want us showing as much data as NFL.com. We also couldn’t show a drive chart that showed the results of each play (too much information!) and instead had to focus on a continuous line for each drive. It was stupid, and it wasn’t like it really increased the value of the NFL.com pages with the same data. We also had to pull the play-by-play summary for each quarter until it was completely over. It was ridiculous.

Ultimately, though, since online data rights are measured in the thousands and TV rights are measured in the millions per year, the online rights suffer to maintain the more lucrative TV rights. So, leagues like the NFL and the NCAA feel OK to beat up on small papers and web sites, even when they’re owned by places like ESPN.

I strongly recommend that fans punish such behavior by avoiding the league sites directly. They’re just trying to bilk you for even more money. I do have to point out that ESPN was probably indirectly the reason that this newspaper got shoved out of the NCAA baseball tourney, though. We had a big push to secure online rights to that tournament before I left, and I know ESPN is the TV partner for that event. So… boycott that if you must, but then again… it’s college baseball. I’m sure most of you are boycotting it without even knowing.

Seriously, though, these sorts of policies will leave only the leagues and big, big companies like ESPN or Fox Sports as your source for coverage of your favorite teams. Those of you that deal with MSG, YES, and NESN already have a taste of what this will be like, and an idea of why your cable bill is so ridiculous.

This makes me proud of my team and the teams I work with at ESPN.com:

Considering the asynchronous nature of the Internet, to have two computers within about a half-second using the TCP-based protocol (we’re not doing what video games do) we use is pretty amazing. This is pretty cool.

Even better (though unfair in this test), is the fact that we’re ahead of TV. We’re probably actually closely in sync with TV, as I’m watching on my Slingbox which adds a few seconds of latency.

This is great stuff:

Love working here… smart people everywhere. Whoever got him to make this announcement here was brilliant.

I was working on some tweaks to a small research project here and made this handy little chart of blog posts that link to content at ESPN.com. It’s not a perfect tool, as it only captures links to stories on our major properties, but it gives a rough idea of the size of the sports blog universe as captured by Technorati. The data was captured using their developer API.

As you can see, there was a gap in data processing recently (hence the fact that I’m looking at this). I’m planning on exposing some of this data on the site. I think it’s a curiosity, more than anything else, but I’ve found some good blogs this way.

Did you know Bill Buckner was wearing a Cubs batting glove under his mitt? Apparently, neither did anyone else. Nice find, Sean.

(Note: I’m writing here on my own, not on behalf of ESPN or Disney Internet. I did work on this project, so I’m just excited and want to share that with my friends.)

I’m happy to say that MyESPN.com beta is finally available to the general public. It should be an excellent new application for sports fans to set up all of the teams, sports, and news they want in one place site. Instead of visiting a small handful of sites, you can now add the different parts of ESPN.com along with headlines and news from sites around the Internet to your MyESPN page. One stop and you’ve got all your sports and news from more sites in less time. Hopefully, MyESPN will make it easier for you to keep up with your favorite team, win at fantasy, and keep up with the other sites you love.

Savvy users who have used other similar products will hopefully find MyESPN easy to adapt to. I think that MyESPN brings the best sports content and breaks it out into very consumables pieces. You can see a screenshot of my page below sporting the Eagles theme. Click the image to see it full size.

Here’s a quick explanation of what you see. Each little box is called a module or capsule. You can drag them around, rearrange them, get rid of stuff you don’t like, or minimize sports that are out of season.

The great thing about MyESPN is that the modules are richer than many other sites. The top story module, for example, contains the image and all of the links that appear in the Top Story position on ESPN.com. After all, the photography on ESPN.com is one of our strengths. With MyESPN, you can personalize everything and still get the ESPN experience.

The rest of this post will be about using the site. Continue reading if you’re interested in some tips and hints.

New feature coming at ESPN.com that you will probably want to check out, especially if you’re a sports fan. Be sure to mouse over the red caption bubbles to see detailed explanations of the features of the app.