Sometimes I have a good idea of what's going to create response from the masses. But I'm usually wrong.
I remember years ago when we covered a Keith Nichol high school game when he was a junior, after he had committed to MSU. Video highlights of high school games was very, very rare on the internet in those days. We did a game story on Nichol's performance against Lansing Sexton and we had video from TWO different cameras, including two different camera angles of the same TD runs.
Back then, we couldn't embed the video into the body copy of a story. The technology didn't exist yet. Back then I predicted that still photos in game stories of the future on the web would come to life as highlight replays when you clicked on them. That has kind of happened, but not quite the way I expected. You get highlights of an entire game embedded in or near game stories on ESPN.com and the link. But not single highlight replays coming to life out of still photos.
Back then for that Keith Nichol game story, we hyperlinked to a highlight within the sentence. We did it a few times in that story. So when we wrote: Nichol's 45-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter gave Lowell a 21-6 lead, the phrase "45-yard touchdown pass," was hyperlinked to a highlight of that play and that play alone.
I thought this was the way every game story would look in the coming years and Maggers saw it here first. Didn't turn out that way.
Now, in stories, we see hyperlink after hyperlink to past stories about things that are mentioned in passing. That's useful as live footnoting. But I still think hyperlinking to a highlight of one play and one play alone would have been cool. But, due to zero response, we stopped doing it. Maybe we should start again.
Anyway, after we did that next-day coverage of Nichol's game in Lansing, I told Paul and Doug Warren, who helped us that night, that our message board was going to blow up with applause the next day thanks to this groundbreaking coverage.
But the next day ... crickets. We didn't get one single compliment for what we thought was an envelope-pushing, ground-breaking style of content. Paul and I still laugh about that when reminding ourselves that we can never completely anticipate what the masses are going to enjoy and what's going to put them to sleep.
As for the uniform "fashion show" video, it's not must-see TV, but I expected some replies, some observations, some laughs, some opinions about the uniforms, and/or the uniqueness of the press conference as a whole. But instead ... crickets.
I'm not angry with anyone. I'm just surprised. And then unsurprised.
I remember years ago when we covered a Keith Nichol high school game when he was a junior, after he had committed to MSU. Video highlights of high school games was very, very rare on the internet in those days. We did a game story on Nichol's performance against Lansing Sexton and we had video from TWO different cameras, including two different camera angles of the same TD runs.
Back then, we couldn't embed the video into the body copy of a story. The technology didn't exist yet. Back then I predicted that still photos in game stories of the future on the web would come to life as highlight replays when you clicked on them. That has kind of happened, but not quite the way I expected. You get highlights of an entire game embedded in or near game stories on ESPN.com and the link. But not single highlight replays coming to life out of still photos.
Back then for that Keith Nichol game story, we hyperlinked to a highlight within the sentence. We did it a few times in that story. So when we wrote: Nichol's 45-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter gave Lowell a 21-6 lead, the phrase "45-yard touchdown pass," was hyperlinked to a highlight of that play and that play alone.
I thought this was the way every game story would look in the coming years and Maggers saw it here first. Didn't turn out that way.
Now, in stories, we see hyperlink after hyperlink to past stories about things that are mentioned in passing. That's useful as live footnoting. But I still think hyperlinking to a highlight of one play and one play alone would have been cool. But, due to zero response, we stopped doing it. Maybe we should start again.
Anyway, after we did that next-day coverage of Nichol's game in Lansing, I told Paul and Doug Warren, who helped us that night, that our message board was going to blow up with applause the next day thanks to this groundbreaking coverage.
But the next day ... crickets. We didn't get one single compliment for what we thought was an envelope-pushing, ground-breaking style of content. Paul and I still laugh about that when reminding ourselves that we can never completely anticipate what the masses are going to enjoy and what's going to put them to sleep.
As for the uniform "fashion show" video, it's not must-see TV, but I expected some replies, some observations, some laughs, some opinions about the uniforms, and/or the uniqueness of the press conference as a whole. But instead ... crickets.
I'm not angry with anyone. I'm just surprised. And then unsurprised.
