Link: http://www.fanstate.com

Its a digg like website for football (soccer) news that I launched yesterday. It allows you to gain points (like Digg/Reddit) and then wager those points on matches being played.

Built using Ruby on Rails. Thoughts?

Wow... I had the exact same idea (even the terms you used for some of it) and was gonna start implementing as soon as I'm done with my current project.

I guess you saved me some work :-)

I wish you a lot of success. I would love to see the site grow and become a great place for soccer fans to get their news. You can count me in as a member. I'll join soon.

Thanks, and I'm glad to have you on board. If you have any ideas, drop me a line.

First observation, I'm logging in from a laptop with a small screen (15") and I have to scroll left-right. It would have been nice if it fits into the page (like news.yc).

Huh really? I'm logged in from a macbook (13 in) and it fits fine. Its also a fluid layout so it should resize automatically. I'll take a look and see what's causing it. Anyone else having this problem?

Edit: alrite... I've deployed a fix to the CSS. It should fit the screen now. Can you try it out and get back to me?

It's looking good now but i'm using Firefox on Ubuntu.. Earlier I was looking at it in Firefox on a PC running Windows...

I'll look at it again tomorrow from my windows machine at work and get back to you.

You probably don't need to. I think it was an error on my part in the CSS file. In either case, let me know if it recurs or there's another bug. Thanks for the input :)

"...allows you to gain points (like Digg/Reddit) and then wager those points on matches being played."

That's a really nice idea! Good luck with it.

You need a tagline like, "Show Some Balls"

I added some tags when I submitted an article. But they sort of disappeared which was confusing. Will they eventually be displayed elsewhere along with the article? Will I be able to search by tag?

http://www.fanstate.com/tag/MLS maybe?

How do I make a bet?

I also think you shouldn't track 'karma' and 'points'. It is too confusing for a 'harmless bit of fun' website. Let the people bet their real karma. Why not? If they lose it they will be driven to participate more. You could display subtotals of how much karma was gained/lost due to site activity and how much was gained via skillful betting. That way someone with a lot of activity but a bad betting record could have a total like [r7000 (8 488 -480)] maybe colour-coded or something. I think if you want to make a distinction a single total with subtotals makes more sense. If people aren't betting their actual karma I don't think they'll take the bets seriously.

Just some ideas.

I'll take the karma/points thing into consideration. I actually thought it would be clearer this way since I had only karma at first.

The tags do disappear (like Digg I believe), but they are used for the search function. So when you do search (upper right corner) you search by tags. Also, the tags come into play when finding the 3 similar articles for each link.

But the tags themselves are hidden away to reduce the clutter.

To make a bet, there needs to be a live match going on. There are no live matches right now so there's nothing to bet. Come September when the seasons start up there will be matches. Basically you follow the "Fixtures" link the navigation and you'll see a list of matches. Then you can go view a fixtures details and there will be a simple form you can use to submit your bets.

Edit: http://www.fanstate.com/main/search?query=YOURQUERY is the search function Better to just use the form.

You may want to consider adding the rest of the MLS season.

1) it is during the downtime of the EPL and other European leagues so it gives you year-round content so users don't drift away.

2) you can have some fixtures to test your site with right now while you are trying to get some activity going and iron out the usability and the bugs

anyway, good luck

Ah yea! I'll definitely do that. Thanks.

Okay... today's MLS match between KC and Columbus has been added. Feel free to sign up/login and place your wagers :).

Edit: Too late lol. The game's started already. Check tomorrow when there's another match.

I would take a look at BallHype.com. It seems like it's well-designed and well-executed, but hasn't taken off just yet. It would be good to understand what happened - whether they were too broad in focus, or whether there is something about the digg model that doesn't quite resonate for sports fans. As a side note, I would not require registration to vote, and I would not require a valid email address. It don't feel like I should have to send you my email address to say that an article is good or bad.

Fair enough Ben. The register to vote is so that people just can't vote up an article (their own) over and over again.

The email address isn't checked to be valid. I just ask for one so that if it is ever needed (email lost info, close accounts etc) I can use it.

Is there a reason you are not displaying the logged in user's login name? I think people tend to expect that.

You mean at the very top?

Edit: I see. I'll change it so that instead of "Logged In" it displays the username

preferably at the top where it says 'Logged In!'

It looks like something that could be fun. Most soccer/football news sites suck pretty bad. The use your 'karma' to 'bet' on fixtures is pretty clever. But to be fun it will need a community.

Yea I know. I'm going to try and slowly ramp up the website. Thanks for your input and participation. Great find on the St. Paul video. Hope you keep coming back.

I heard a story about some guy who started a sports website six months ago, and then sold it for thirty million dollars three months ago. Not sure of the details, but it seems like there's money to be made.

It is probably not the one you are thinking of, but ArmchairGM has a similar story - created in early 2006, sold for $2 (to Wikia, Jimbo Wales' wiki startup) in December of that year.

veritas, You might want to take a look at ArmcharGM(.com), they are probably one of your bigger competitors.

Thanks for the insight paul. Will take a look.

quick impression: font letter spacing is a bit too much.

Okay.. I'll fiddle with it :) Thanks

change the font

Any reason why? Its set to "Lucida Grande" which I believe is an okay choice. If someone doesn't have that it defaults to Times New Roman which is safe.

What font would you suggest?

It felt getting me tired reading...