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Prep database services

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by BrianGriffin, Jan 19, 2011.

  1. Central-KY-Kid

    Central-KY-Kid Well-Known Member

    You could link it, but it would open in a different tab. You couldn't keep the StatsDepot page with a Podunk Press banner, I don't think.

    We were able to copy the stat leaders into notepad and reset tabs with very little editing. But like I said, we only had seven schools.

    I haven't tried logging in in a while.
     
  2. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    For what it's worth, I emailed them and got a message that the email address no longer existed. Also, the sample page they have set up no longer works. I'll chalk that up to "you get what you pay for" and move on to the next company...
     
  3. Blake1288

    Blake1288 New Member

    Yes, HHSN isn't bad, I prefer actually to just do it all in InCopy.
     
  4. Hank_Scorpio

    Hank_Scorpio Active Member


    Yes it is.
     
  5. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    Anybody use VarVee? It looks promising.
     
  6. gjsportsed

    gjsportsed New Member

    VarVee can't reverse publish unless they've made upgrades in the past year. I was really interested at first, but the lack of reverse publishing and a hefty ad revenue split and print ads required killed the deal.
    VarVee does have a program for every sport, and hooked up with Colorado HS Activities Association as the "official" online reporting site last school year. CHSAA told coaches they had to submit their stats on VarVee or risk not being eligible for postseason play. Good idea in theory, but many coaches don't input their stats until Sunday, the next week or sometimes wait until the end of the season. CHSAA didn't tell the coaches when stats needed to be entered. We got dozens of boxscores over the Christmas break.
    The program generates an email list to whoever the coach wants to include and sends a pdf boxscore. That part is great; we get several boxes every night at no cost to us. Our clerks have to type them into our DT system, but it's one less box they have to take over the phone.
    I got an email this week that VV is expanding to include game recaps; they have assembled "a staff of experienced high school sports writers and editors." No idea who those people are or what areas of the state they'll be handling.
    The recaps, formatted for web, are $10 each. The email said VV was offering reverse-publishing of the articles to print, but said nothing about reverse pub of boxes.
    VarVee's partners have a widget on their site and stats go up instantly. Again, unless VV has figured out reverse publishing, they would have to type in boxscores,
    The Aurora Sentinel in Colorado has VarVee on its site, and two TV stations in Denver, but not many papers have opted in.
     
  7. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    I think Varvee told me they can reverse publish data, but they are doing it through a third party, some outfit out of Jersey. I admit that maybe I misunderstood and it's just the recaps they can reverse publish. If they can't reverse publish data, then it's no dice for me.
     
  8. Statsman

    Statsman New Member

    We use varvee here in Indiana as well and drive the traffic to our online environment. Clearly better info than we ever had before, and much more engaging. They have reverse-pub with dorfmedia in new jersey a partner. Best solution we have ever seen, and saves us mucho time, both for game reporting and for analysis of standings and league leaders.
     
  9. gdorfmedia

    gdorfmedia New Member

    Dorf Media can reverse publish stats, box scores, standings, schedules, scoreboard, recaps, free articles, etc., for print and web. We've been covering preps in NJ for more than 70 year, and have partnered with VarVee to expand nationally.
     
  10. Matt Stephens

    Matt Stephens Well-Known Member

    At All-Star week this summer, we're going to train coaches how to use this new database we have called VarVee to help keep things up to date. We can still go in and change things ourselves, but this will help as a statewide effort, especially for the smaller schools.

    http://prepstats.arpreps.com/football/index.php?pg=standings&sid=18&year=2011&cid=58
     
  11. Mark McGwire

    Mark McGwire Member

    What. The. Fuck.
     
  12. Statsman

    Statsman New Member

    I have spent the better part of the past three years looking at the local media industry and trying to figure out how to work with it. What strikes me is that there are lots of great ideas out there for growing the business, and the leading newspapers are starting to give them serious attention. First, invest in the new technologies. I recently read that it took 40 years for the number of phones to reach 10 million people, 20 years for fax machines to do it, 5 years for the PC to do it, and one year for 10 million people to get email addresses. Of course, between twitter, smart phones, iPad apps and now the rest of the tablet offerings...all of which get adoption at the 10m level in one Christmas season, never mind a year, there is incredible adoption for communications tools going on out there, and it is all changing the way we communicate. Second, pick your battles. I just read an article from Mark Cuban, the Dallas mavericks' owner, describing how espn.com has a twitter problem, because if people can get their instant updates from somewhere else, they won't spend as much time clicking around espn.com, which is where the ad revenue comes from. In the local world, however, there are new technologies making it easier and easier to collect information and to engage with your community members, assuming you are listening to what is important. In the high school sports space, there are at least 4 different companies that help athletic directors manage and distribute schedules, at least a hundred others that provide video services of one kind or another, more blogs about high school sports than you can imagine, and literally thousands of articles that get written by newspapers that keep edging closer to the iceberg of bankruptcy, fiddling away. (How’s that for a mixed metaphor?). More and more national services are edging into the area, and yet everyone recognizes that the key advantage rests with local reporters who can cover local events with a depth, breadth and quality that national services will never be able to compete with. The challenge is - where can they get the resources to keep up with the rapidly changing technology landscape? Our view is that they should be partnering with those companies that are developing the technology and services, incorporating them into their thinking, and working from strength, creating more and more great content that capitalizes on their unique perspectives in the communities they serve. Am I just crazy, or isn’t that inevitably what local media will be doing?
     
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