Sounders FC unveil new Web site with social networking features |
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Sounders FC unveil new Web site with social networking features
I had other posts to write this evening. But when I got a press release from the Seattle Sounders FC touting their new Web site -- well let's just say I got distracted. I've now spent the past 90 minutes tinkering with the site of Seattle's newest sports team, commenting in the forum, uploading a profile picture, watching video highlights and importing the Sounders schedule to my calendar. Yep, I am a big time fan.
You can see where the Sounders are headed with these bells and whistles. After all, they're shooting to become one of the most high-tech sports franchises in the country. And what better place to do that than Seattle.
The Sounders are well on their way, with Microsoft's Xbox 360 as a sponsor and Seattle tech investor Adrian Hanauer as part of the ownership group. The site was built by San Diego's Digitaria, with assistance from Seattle's Cypress Consulting. The calendar functionality is powered by Seattle's Trumba, while Austin, Texas-based Pluck provides the social networking tools that allow fans to interact with each other.
The Sounders are also inviting fans to submit photos, videos and blog posts to the site in what marketing director Bill Chapin said in the release is the team's theme of "Democracy in Sports."
Users in the forums for the most part have been pleased with the beta launch of the site, which comes about a month before the team's first game on March 19. "This is one of the best soccer websites on the web period," wrote one fan. (It would be interesting to get the feedback of the TechFlash crowd as well.)
More on the Sounders big Web push from Greg Lamm's November story.
It will be interesting to see whether a targeted social network -- in this case soccer fans -- can succeed. Obviously, people already have plenty of outlets in which to express themselves -- from Twitter to Facebook to blogs.
But the Sounders have a few things working in their favor, including a season ticket base that has already topped 19,000.
Furthermore, soccer until recently was largely ignored by the mainstream media which tended to focus on the Mariners, Seahawks and -- until they took off for Oklahoma -- the Sonics. That sort of slight tends to bring communities -- either online or in real life -- closer together.
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