Baseball Digest Daily :: Miscellaneous

You guys are really too much. You won't let me take it easy, will you?? I feel like a yo-yo bouncing back and forth! :)

Thanks to all those who responded to my email about the future of Baseball Digest Daily. It certainly stirred things up among the staff here!

After tossing ideas and thoughts around a bit, I want to provide a quick update on where BDD stands.

Several people have offered up some funding to help pay for the site. The offers, along with member donations (which I'll solicit later), will essentially pay for the stats and the site's blog upgrade. Blog Harbor is in a bit of a mess (but I'll talk about that later). The radio show is taking off big time, and our exposure is growing very rapidly. Over the past days, I've outlined some points and reviewed some suggestions from key members of the team. It became apparent that we should be able to continue most of BDD's activities. Here's the general plan.

1) The site will maintain all its current features (including the Tracker), but I will eliminate the top 10 and top 100 minor league lists because, frankly, they're too time consuming to update regularly. The home page will also undergo a facelift.
2) Regular news alerts will continue and general emails will be sent out, but there will be NO daily newsletter. The newsletter just sucks up too much time.
3) The Blog Talk Radio show will go on, and we'll try to rotate in some new hosts while continuing to add entertaining guests.
4) The current Blog Harbor platform will be upgraded. Hopefully everyone will participate with regular comments on the blog going forward!
5) I have chosen to downsize our team of writers so that we can better control our output and stick to a regular weekly schedule of articles. From time to time we will publish work from guest writers, but for the most part, there will be a steady stream of content from the people you've come to know.

Bottom line is this...we have a good thing going here. If we can just break even on the costs, or at least come close, things will be much easier, especially with this new format I've outlined above.

I want to simplify this process while still putting out a quality product. With the right people I still think we can do that.

Thanks!

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Thursday, September 6

Diamond Mind Baseball and MLB Team Up

by Joe Hamrahi on Thu 06 Sep 2007 11:37 PM EDT

I received this very interesting newsletter/press release from Imagine Sports, the owners of Diamond Mind Baseball who purchased a stake in the company from Tom Tippett. I guess this is good for the Diamond Mind player, but MLBAM just gets bigger and bigger by the minute.

IMAGINE SPORTS® SCORES DEAL WITH MLB ADVANCED MEDIA
Leading Online Baseball Simulation Game Secures License to MLB Content and Promotion on MLB.com

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – September 6, 2007 – Imagine Sports® Inc., a leading online multiplayer sports gaming company, today announced a deal with MLB Advanced Media, L.P. (MLBAM), the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, to bring officially-licensed content to its award-winning, online baseball simulation game, Diamond Mind Online®. The agreement grants Imagine Sports the rights to include Major League Baseball league and team logos, data, player names, and images in its innovative online baseball game, making Diamond Mind Online the most authentic baseball multi-player simulation game available. As part of the deal, MLBAM will also promote Diamond Mind Online® on the homepage of MLB.com’s popular fantasy section.

“Our mission has always been to bring our customers the most authentic, realistic, and fun baseball experience possible,” said Dayne Myers, founder and CEO of Imagine Sports. “With this relationship with MLBAM, we’re adding even more realism and features to the game for our growing fan base of baseball and online gaming enthusiasts.”

“Imagine Sports shares our passion and deep understanding of the game of baseball,” said Kenny Gersh, SVP of Business Development of MLB Advanced Media. “Baseball simulation game-players demand statistical accuracy, and Imagine Sports’ unparalleled technology and commitment to authenticity made it a natural fit for expanding our brand into the online multi-player simulation market.”

The deal adds significantly to the large list of features in Diamond Mind Online®, which allows game-players to compete like a real baseball general manager, including drafting players, setting lineups and making trades. With this relationship with MLBAM, game-players will be able to utilize all of these features with over 3,500 current and historical MLB players. Utilizing a game engine developed and refined over the course of 20 years by renowned baseball statistics expert Tom Tippett, today Diamond Mind Online® is widely regarded as the most sophisticated and accurate baseball simulation game available.

In celebration of the partnership, Imagine Sports will be offering all fans free trials of Diamond Mind Online® on their website at: www.imaginesports.com. In the free trial, fans will be able to choose from 24 historical teams like the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, as well as current teams from baseball’s modern era.

About Imagine Sports
Based in California’s Silicon Valley, Imagine Sports is a leading developer of multiplayer online sports simulation games. Diamond Mind Online was developed using the Diamond Mind game engine – which has been refined over the last 20 years. The Diamond Mind engine is now widely regarded as the most sophisticated and realistic baseball simulation software. For more information about Imagine Sports, please visit: www.imaginesports.com.

About MLBAM
Established in June 2000 following a unanimous vote by the 30 Major League Baseball club owners to centralize all of Baseball's Internet operations, MLB Advanced Media LP (MLBAM) is the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball. MLBAM manages the official league site, www.MLB.com, and each of the 30 individual Club sites to create the most comprehensive Major League Baseball resource on the Internet. MLB.com offers fans the most complete baseball information on the web, including up-to-date statistics, game summaries, extensive historical information, and exclusive features about Major League Baseball events and programs, including on-line ticket sales, baseball merchandise, authenticated memorabilia and collectibles, fantasy games, live and archived radio broadcasts of every game, live and archived video webcasts of entire games, pitch-by-pitch enactment of games, and hosted post-game video highlight shows. MLB.com offers more live events on the Internet than any other website in the world.

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Sunday, September 2

Odd and Ends

by Joe Hamrahi on Sun 02 Sep 2007 01:12 PM EDT

If you missed our interview with Kansas City Royals GM Dayton Moore this morning, do yourself a favor and check it out! It’s really good stuff. Head on over to Blog Talk Radio and listen online or download the podcast…I hope all you guys out there realize now that there’s no such thing as a jinx…especially in Boston!!! Lighten up you guys J…I was surfing around the web yesterday and checking out a few player sites when I came across the Yankees’ Phil Hughes and Detroit’s Cameron Maybin. On Hughes’ site, there’s a link to our top 100 prospects from last year in which Phil came in at #2. And on Cameron’s site, not only is our article mentioned in his news section (“The Next Great Detroit Centerfielder?”), we’re also listed as one of his “Related Sites” along with Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball, Yahoo, and Wikipedia! Great stuff!

Many people have asked why we are downsizing BDD so I figured I’d address the topic briefly. There are 3 main reasons…1) Lack of time, 2) Cost, and 3) Not enough regular article contributions. I realize the newsletter is a great resource for many people, but it takes an enormous amount of time that I just don’t have anymore. The player tracker is very popular, but the cost of our stats feed (and programming) is approximately $2,500 per season. I just can’t pay that bill anymore. If someone wants to sponsor our site or generate a fund raiser to bring in the necessary dollars, I’ll be happy to continue the player tracker. And finally, while we’ve had a number of top notch article contributions, we have not had enough regular stand-alone contributions that don’t require editing. And again, either time or money comes into play when we talk about editing articles. So there you have it.

Thanks and have a great holiday weekend everyone!

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