Here's one that's good for back-to-school season. The Web has made it possible for media niches that normally would get squeezed out of newspaper margins or TV time slots to find a way to be heard, and high school sports are no exception. We've already seen Takkle (earlier coverage here) fall into this sector, and now media giant Hearst-Argyle Television has launched a competitor--High School Playbook, which aims to go for a cross-platform strategy of TV, Internet, and mobile content. Sponsored by Canon, the site has launched in beta for a select number of sports-obsessed metro areas.
It looks like High School Playbook is going to be content-heavy, to say the least, with a laundry list of features: "comprehensive school information, game schedules, statistics, individual athlete profiles, interscholastic comparisons, and "game day" weather reports...personal profile pages, team pages, school pages, cheerleader pages, fitness and nutrition pages, SMS voting and other messaging that enables byplay among rival schools and fans." And then there's the video. High-definition content will be gathered from a variety of sources: professional videographers, trained "student journalists," and ordinary users. Since High School Playbook has the backing of Hearst-Argyle Television, which operates many a local news station, the infrastructure's largely already in place.
As we noted about Takkle, there's cause to be a little bit cautious about a site that's going to be providing so much in-depth information about individual high schoolers. Let's hope they have a good plan for that.
(Credit:
Takkle)
The once-seemingly-vast gulf between the sociable jock and the computer geek (think Revenge of the Nerds) seems to be shrinking faster by the day. Last night at the New York Web 2.0 Social Networking Tech Meetup (wow, that's a mouthful), I met a few of the guys responsible for Takkle.com. In short, it's a social networking and media site geared toward those involved in high school sports: players, coaches, and fans. Takkle's been getting a fair amount of positive buzz since its Monday launch, thanks in particular to a partnership with Sports Illustrated's "Faces in the Crowd" feature, which showcases amateur athletes.
On the surface, it reminds me a bit of the AOL-owned extreme sports site Lat34.com, but with the focus more on social networking and less on video content. A closer look, however, shows that Takkle is actually a pretty versatile site. High school students can use it for MySpace-style social networking, coaches can use it to organize team logistics, and college recruiters can use it to seek out talent. That last one could prove controversial: I was an athlete in college, and I can say that the NCAA's recruiting regulations are quite stringent.
Additionally, for a service that's geared toward high schoolers, Takkle does not appear to have much in the way of safety features other than a reminder that users should think twice before posting personal information. If the site gains popularity, I can see concern emerging among parent organizations before too long. But the site's still in beta--if Takkle manages to address that issue, and add a few cool new features, this New York-based start-up could really go places.
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