In 2011, Herff Jones engage with Roundarch to help them build “Stitch” – a social media platform that enables students to tell the story of their high school life. Stitch is a multi-channel, multi-tentant application that runs in desktop browsers, tablets and mobile devices. In Stitch users can share their photos in an engaging UI, read and publish “Storylines” about their school, and interact with the system and users to gain achievements (similar to Four Square).

Adam served as an architect and the technical director for this project. He defined the foundational architecture for the Flex Browser Application and worked with lead Flex developers to define the system architecture for the mobile and tablet efforts. The team also integrated several features with the organization’s enterprise CMS.

Stitch was built using: Adobe Flex, Blaze DS, AngularJS, Phone Gap, Adobe CQ, and Java.

Related:

• Herff Jones Stitch – Android Apps on Google Play 
• Herff Jones Stitch for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad in the iTunes App Store 
• Herff Jones Goes Digital to Invigorate Yearbook Sales | 2012-05-19 | Indianapolis Business Journal | IBJ.com

Herff Jones hired Carmel-based MediaSauce two years ago to help design, develop and market Stitch, a platform for schools to create an online version of their yearbook.

Stitch allows students to personalize an online yearbook throughout the school year, while giving the yearbook staff and faculty advisers the ability to enrich and control the content.

Kim Green, Columbus North High School’s journalism adviser, and one of the few nationally to have tested Stitch, calls it “a living, breathing tapestry during the school year that turns into a time capsule after each school year ends.”

“This is a huge leap forward for yearbooks, and there’s nothing else out there like it,” said Green, who’s been a high school yearbook adviser for 25 years. “It’s revolutionary. It’s everything I would have wanted if I would have invented it myself.”

In late February, Herff Jones began testing Stitch with 54 North American schools, including Columbus North, Greenwood and McCutcheon high schools in Indiana.

Herff Jones Senior Vice President Tom Tanton said initial feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive,” prompting Herff Jones and MediaSauce to prepare for a national rollout to thousands of schools in July.

“We think this platform is ground-breaking,” said MediaSauce CEO Bryan Gray. “We wanted to help create something that could be customized for each school, that is digital, yet has permanence.”

Yearbook savior?

Officials for Herff Jones, which was founded in 1920 and started selling yearbooks in the 1960s, are promoting Stitch as one of the biggest advancements ever in its yearbook business.

Many in the yearbook industry said the business needs a boost.

Yearbooks have basically been the same for decades, coming out once a year in a 100- to 200-page hardbound format. In recent years, some schools have offered a companion DVD.

But the economic downturn and the rise of the web have cut into sales of yearbooks, which typically cost students $50 to $60. Nationally, yearbook sales have been flat to slightly down the last five years, industry sources said.

With the evolution of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr and the proliferation of camera-equipped cell phones, which make texting photos easy, students no longer want to wait until the end of the school year to see photos and stories of school events, high school yearbook advisers said.

“There have been some worries about the future of yearbooks,” said Diana Hadley, executive director of the Indiana High School Press Association. “I think it’s significant that Herff Jones is first to market with something like this. If yearbooks are going to remain relevant, they’re going to have to have these types of bells and whistles.”

Herff Jones officials began seeking ways to “add value” to its traditional yearbook product in 2009, Tanton said. “We knew we needed to adjust given the changing dynamics of the marketplace.”

Herff Jones had worked with MediaSauce on previous projects and was impressed by the communications firm’s other work and client endorsements.

Facebook-plus 

Stitch has more functionality than a standard website. While it mirrors social networks, such as Facebook, it offers some significant differences.

It will handle significantly more photos than most social networks, allowing schools to upload far more than 10,000 photos per year. The MyStitch function allows students to create their own photo archives and collages.

The photo capabilities are just one of many features Stitch has. It also allows students to create “badges” identifying them by grade, the clubs they’re in, the sports they play, and other activities or interests. Each time the student uploads a photo or is in a photo, other students can pull up the student’s badge to learn more about them.

Photos and other information can be grouped by class, club, sport or other categories. Stitch also includes gaming, polling and other interactive features.

“You can engage entire groups, such as class officers or members of a class or club,” MediaSauce’s Gray said. “You can organize a senior class trip with Stitch.”

Access is restricted to the students and faculty of a particular school. And posts to the site go live only after sign-off by faculty or yearbook staff.

At the end of the school year, the site, hosted by Herff Jones, will be viewable by students who purchased a hard copy of the yearbook. But the site will be closed to further manipulation, thereby preserving it as a historical record of the year.

Selling more than yearbooks

Herff Jones isn’t going to charge for Stitch, but the company is counting on it to drive sales of a broad array of products.

Instead of charging schools to use the platform, it will give it away to schools that buy its yearbooks. Most schools in turn will let all their students use Stitch. But students who buy a hard copy of the annual yearbook may get to use more features and will be able to view all the images and stories and their own archived information after the school year has ended.

“Stitch is not a replacement for the yearbook. It’s a supplement—something that will be stitched together with the traditional yearbook to tell a more complete story of that year,” Tanton said. “We hope by making students’ high school experience richer and increasing their affinity for their school, that will in turn help sell more yearbooks.”

Herff Jones hopes to use Stitch to win the business of some of the more than 15,000 North American high schools not already buying its yearbooks.

There are six primary sellers of yearbooks in the United States and Canada. Herff Jones is one of the biggest suppliers, with more than a quarter of the market, according to industry sources.

The yearbook revenue stream represents one of the company’s largest—about 20 percent of its total business, behind only its cheerleader division, which sells uniforms and hosts competitions and camps.

Stitch could also serve to bolster some of Herff Jones’ other revenue streams. If the company gets its foot in the door with its new online yearbook, it can pitch its other products, which include high school class rings; sports awards; and graduation caps, gowns and announcements.

Simply increasing students’ affinity for their school, Tanton said, could boost the sale of products such as class rings and graduation accessories.

“This is the right thing to do, and it’s also good business,” Tanton said.

Stitch is a “high-six-figure project” for MediaSauce, Gray said, and represents the company’s second largest since its founding in 2002.

“We think this project will reach millions of students,” said Mike Rendel, co-creative director for MediaSauce. “This type of ground-breaking work is why we’re in the business.”•

Source: Herff Jones Goes Digital to Invigorate Yearbook Sales | 2012-05-19 | Indianapolis Business Journal | IBJ.com.

Bloomberg Sports today formally launched its third season of “Front Office”; the latest, most comprehensive and easy to use fantasy baseball analytic tools on the market.  The updated offerings are part of the continued enhancement and customer support that has helped grow “Front Office” into the top paid fantasy baseball tool available in the marketplace.

The updated suite of tools in “Front Office 2012” for the regular season will include opportunities for users to obtain instant updates via text and email on players on their roster through the new ALERTS! feature, and an additional feature designed to support leagues that are specific to the American and National League. Fans will also be able to obtain a free customized analysis of their fantasy team, showing how they compare to other teams on each scored stat, as well as receiving customized recommendations to improve their team. The product will retain all previously added features, including the ability to sync with the major hosting sites from Yahoo!, ESPN.com, and CBSSports.com as well as others, in order to easily tailor all recommendations to all fantasy team and player specifications.

“The latest additions to ‘Front Office’ were a direct result of the feedback we have received from our subscribers, and we are very excited to add these pieces to what is already the most comprehensive and robust product available in the marketplace,” said Bill Squadron, head of Bloomberg Sports. “Our tools are uniquely customized for each fantasy player’s actual roster and settings, providing the best projections and recommendations each day, from the draft through the entire season.”

The launch of the new tools will give fans ample time to review and make the best possible choices for their fantasy drafts, most of which will take place in March. In addition to the ability to sync with almost any league provider, “Front Office” offers a customized B-Rank that provides up-to-date lists for roster changes, free agent pickups and other decisions, as well as a customized dashboard which gives players all critical information about their team or teams in one easy to follow location.

All of Bloomberg’s fantasy tools are now available in PC, MAC or for most mobile devices, giving fans the ability to access the tools from wherever they are.  Bloomberg’s Fantasy Draft product was the leading seller among paid sports apps in the iTunes store for most of the 2011 season, further proof that the Bloomberg sports analytic tools are quickly becoming the fantasy tool of choice amongst both avid and casual players.

Strategic partners for Front Office 2012 include:  Yahoo Sports, CBSSports.com, USA Today, and SiriusXM as well as the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR).

Source: Bloomberg Sports Unveils Latest Additions To “Front Office 2012” Fantasy Baseball Tools | Going 9 Baseball.

… Could have been the title of this post 3 months ago. Given the recent layoffs and announcements in the past few weeks, it may seem short sighted to be overly excited faced with this news today. This was, however, a part of the announcements recently by Adobe regarding Flex. They are committed to contributing Flex (and several complimentary projects) to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). I personally witnessed the commitment and plan for this at their San Francisco office. Many leaders of the Flex community gathered at Adobe SF by request of group product managers Deepa Subramaniam and Andrew Shorten this week. We heard from senior management on their new strategic vision for Adobe around digital marketing and digital media. We heard apologies for the accelerated and miscommunicated nature of the messaging of the past few weeks. And, we, most importantly, heard about the future of Flex as it may likely live in the ASF.

There has been a lot of focus lately on the poor messaging to the community around the announcements of late. I don’t disagree about how destructive and misguided this messaging was, but I do think it’s important to see it as the past and move on. Many in the community may criticize this idea. It would be easy to say this is one of many moves towards under valuing the community. Again, I wouldn’t totally disagree, but I do think this particular moment in history is different than in the past. Here’s a bit of an explanation…

The ASF model for development is much different than how a product is developed by a corporate software vendor. On an Apache project there are no project managers, product managers, senior vice presidents, presidents, CEOs, CTOs, development managers, senior engineers, or any other title of a role that you can think of; other than “commitor”. A commitor has the right to commit code to and vote on a project. You can read a lot more about the ASF process on their site. So, what’s the big deal? Why is this different than a time in the past that Adobe (or any company) did wrong by it’s community, said “we’re sorry”, and kept moving right along? – This time they’re actually handing over the reigns of the project to us; to the community.

Adobe will not have contributors on the Apache Flex project. Neither will Spoon, Roundarch or any other corporation or group. This is (technically) true because contributors are individuals. So, there will be some individuals who are contributors on Apache Flex that will also be Adobe employees, but they will not have any higher status or privilege than any other contributors on the project. This is by design. The design of the ASF. The process of Adobe contributing Flex to Apache is in the form of a proposal. That proposal states the intention of all initial commitors to create an Apache Flex project, among other details. Up until Apache Flex is realized as a full project there will be a phase of incubation. During this time Apache will work with the proposal submitters to help arrive at a proposal that fits the Apache model. This is to ensure the best possible arrangement for a successful Apache Flex. That’s why this moment is different than similar times in the past. By this model, Adobe gives up the sole control and direction of Flex and enters into a partnership with the community to drive the future of the framework, with the guidance of Apache. Without that partnership Apache will not accept this contribution. So, for those claiming Adobe is “giving Flex to Apache to die” or “dumping off Flex with Apache”, this is simply not true. It also shows a severe lack of understanding and respect for what the ASF does and has done.

We have not heard this before. This is a new approach with a high potential for excellent collaboration of all the individuals and entities that depend on Flex for critical business needs. These individuals and enterprises need a path to a future that enables their teams and businesses to deliver the high quality solutions they (and their customers) are accustomed to. For many enterprises developing highly complex applications with millions of lines of code, large development teams, and high expectations for success, Flex was and still is an extremely valid technology, for others it is a requirement. There are enterprises that are so vested in using Flex to build (or maintain) a platform for their businesses that a short term migration is simply not possible. This is not an understatement. Individuals from enterprises like what I’m describing were present and vocal at this recent Flex Summit.

So, what else did we hear as it’s relevant to Flex?

A paraphrased quotation, as I can’t remember the exact wording:

Adobe will not continue to develop Flex as a “stand alone” business.

It was also stated that Adobe does not currently have plans to develop any product targeted at enterprise scale user interface development. That’s not to say they aren’t developing tools for HTML5 development, just not a platform like Flex based on HTML5. They are committed to their runtimes for what seems like a minimum of 3-5 years. All of the current runtimes (less Flash Player for mobile browsers): Flash Player for desktop browsers, AIR for mobile (iOS, Android), and AIR for desktop (Windows, Mac OS).  However, it does seem clear that this runtime development will be focused in line with their new strategy of digital marketing and digital media. For Flash that means game development and video. There are certainly concerns around this regarding Flex. Game development is very different from enterprise class development. They have also stated that they will commit to backwards compatibility to meet all the dependencies that exist today in Flex 4.6.

My thoughts on the future of Apache Flex…

Apache is the the future for enterprise class Flex. For those highly skeptical and critical of Adobe, my message to you is this: The move to Apache is a big one and categorically different from anything we’ve seen in the past. Is Apache perfect? I doubt it. What it’s not is proprietary or corporate. It also answers in no way to a group of public share holders. It is not driven by senior management who are making business decisions to please those public share holders. It has no “layoffs”. It is not driven by the sales of an IDE. Further more, it has no goals of making profit – at all.  It was founded and is governed by folks that really understand open source development. It is one of the most respected software foundations in the world. What Apache Flex can be is a powerful force for the community to drive the future development of Flex and deliver in a way that holds true with the most important needs of the community – governed and guided by the Apache model for open source development.

I also believe that development is just one factor in the future success of Flex. Now that Adobe is stepping back from Flex there will be gaps in the future in the areas of: education, community (user groups, conferences, etc), quality assurance, support, tooling and potentially others. The Spoon Project may likely provide an appropriate group to support in these areas. There are already of mass of talented folks rallied around problems similar to these gaps in Spoon.

So, down to brass tacks:

What’s the reality of HTML5 as it relates to Flex at this moment in time?

HTML5 and open standards for the web will play a dominant role in the future of technology. What I believe is that this future is farther off and a bit more uncertain than many that make this statement. Let’s consider some recent figures by IDC. IDC predicts that 90% of smartphones and tablets will have HTML5-ready browsers by 2013. This means that 90% of consumers will be able to access your HTML5 application on their smartphone or tablet by end of 2013 (still 12 months away). However, the Gartner prediction of 81% smartphone penetration/adoption for 2012 was off by 50%. That stat is actually 44%. Even looking at the past month, smart phone purchases are only at 56%, well below that 81% prediction. The staggering number is 2015. 90% browser adoption of HTML5 is estimated for 2015. The Flash Player has historically had 90-99% adoption in desktop browsers. Additionally, there is no complete HTML5 specification. Notice: “Draft”.

In that respect an even more staggering number is 0. 0 is, technically, the current browsers that support an open standards based implementation of HTML5. Without a complete open standard it’s impossible to have compliance around that standard.

As Google, Microsoft, Apple, now Adobe and others seem to have consensus around the support for HTML5 in the future, none of these companies seem to do a great job at messaging when, exactly, this future is. Along with that I think many analysts are also doing a poor job of analyzing and messaging the capabilities of current web technologies. Part of that problem is the term HTML5 is now being used for anything related to HTML. Current support for HTML, JavaScript and CSS is a lot better than it was years ago, but comparatively (both to what HTML5 will be and what Flex and the like are now) it has many drawbacks. There is still a considerable amount of browser fragmentation to deal with, there are considerable challenges with styling for some experiences, there is a severe limit to the amount of performance of any browser’s JavaScript “runtime”, and there is still a lacking of support for mature approaches to software engineering when it comes to JavaScript. That doesn’t mean I hate JavaScript or think it isn’t a great tool for solving a lot of problems. It is my opinion on the comparison of the available choices for developing software on the web today – not the how that may or may not look in the future.

In the future that is next week and next year, Flex still has a place.. and that future is considerably more relevant than speculation on what is 3 years away… but back to the topic at hand: Apache doesn’t hedge on those futures. It supports a thriving community interested in building software. This is another huge reason that I see so much potential for Apache Flex. So, you won’t be hearing me making blanket statements like HTML5 is the future and you shouldn’t be building Flex apps. Or, Flex will be around for decades and HTML5 is completely overrated. Anyone who makes makes these kinds of huge generalizations is in one (or all) of these categories:

• A person who is trying to sell you something
• A company man (or woman)
• A technology zealot

If you’re an engineer or part of management driving the technological future of your organization, it’s probably not a good idea to listen to these kinds of people as your only source of information (or maybe at all). The sales person is driven by profits. The company man is driven by a career towing the company line. The technology zealot holds to their particular technology views without necessarily analyzing the reality of the tech landscape. These are all risky people to put your faith in. The technologist that can analyze trade offs, discuss options, strategize to meet business goals effectively; that is a person who I trust. That is a person who I want on my team, working with my customers, and solving critical technology problems with me.

More to come on Apache Flex as it develops…

Google+ comments.

The Good.

Flex came to us at a time where there was a shift in the way we were using technology to build software for the web. AJAX was just a baby, even though many (including myself) had been doing AJAX like HTML development on the web, long before the term was coined. AJAX and HTML were a decent solution for many problems, but browser fragmentation was worse than ever, and the languages of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript were supported by browsers and tools in an arcane way. It didn’t add up to tools that made sense from a software engineering perspective. So, a lot of us turned to ActionScript. A language that was part of a platform better suited for engineering with almost none of the fragmentation problems that plagued HTML/CSS/JS. These fragmentation issues were, of course, solved by a runtime called the Flash Player.

When I first came into Flash I didn’t have a high opinion of it. I thought it was that timeline tool that designers used to make fancy ads that annoyed me. When I really dug into the language and the platform though, I saw potential. So, at the time just before Flex, like many others in the community, I was building Flex-like apps based on purely ActionScript and the Flash Player. As a young developer who had worked in more classical desktop user interface frameworks like Swing, Visual Basic, etc, ActionScript and the Flash Player gave amazing freedom from the limitations of the way browsers were constructed to deliver markup content via HTML. Markup is not a particularly desirable framework for engineering user interfaces – Flash was better.

Then came Flex. Macromedia saw a trend in the market: building applications on the web. They also saw that a lot of folks were using their runtime to do this. Possibly in a way Macromedia had never intended. Flex came as a solution to this problem. The main benefits of Flex in it’s prime:

• A standard user interface component set
• Remoting (the ability to interface with web services via transferring typed objects)
• A better skinning and styling workflow (than HTML/CSS at the time)
• Efficient vector graphics for data visualization (charts, graphs, etc)

These add up to an excellent offerring for organizations developing custom, business critical software to run their enterprises. Previously we had seen tools like Visual Basic and Java’s Swing and SWT frameworks occupy this space. Among others, a main downfall with these options was the requirement of IT professionals to support pushing out new builds of desktop applications across enterprises. Flex came as enterprise IT organizations grew tired solving this problem. At the same time the web was maturing to a point where these kinds of applications could actually be served from a browser. It allowed a single web deployment of an application that could be updated and serve many users to solve the business critical problems so crucial to the success of the operations.

This is what I loved about Flex, and still love about it. It was a tool that could be used to solve these problems for enterprises in a manner that was so much more effective and engaging than what I had previously seen in tech. It also opened the door to engage with user experience practitioners in a way like we hadn’t really seen before. When I started working with colleagues in user experience roles it changed the way I thought about software. We weren’t building something to fulfill a boring requirements document, we were engaging users to create an experience that was different than what they were used to getting from software. The goal wasn’t just to make a better widget, it was to redefine what a widget was. We’re still doing that today and it’s still exciting.

Flex is still one of the greatest UI toolkits I’ve used to build rich UIs. I am proud to have been part of community that shared this opinion and pushed the technology so much of the last few years. I have met so many brilliant engineers, user experience practitioners, and visual designers; all folks who embraced and defined what we know now as rich internet applications. I’ve learned a lot from all of you, and it’s been a great ride. To those of you at Adobe that contributed to the progress of the product; thank you. No product is perfect and your contributions to the field of user interface engineering are commendable.

The Bad.

Over the past few years it has been clear that the product development of Flex has shifted from an user interface engineering tool as pioneered by Macromedia to a tool more inline with Adobe’s offerings for designers. From a user interface engineering perspective, this was bad. There are clear examples of platforms, both present and past, that are designed for software engineers to solve complex problems. Tools for; testing (unit, integration, functional), profiling, continuos integration builds, code coverage, etc have been largely left behind in Adobe’s product development concerning Flex. I say this is bad, but I also understand that from a company who’s made most of their stake on PDF, Fonts, and Photoshop sales, it’s understandable. From a business perspective I’m sure Adobe was interested in having repeatable success with Flex as they had with Photoshop and their other creative tools. The problem is, Flex is not Photoshop and the theory that it could be has been clearly disproven.

Obviously, these are my opinions on choices made over the last several years as they apply to Flex as an user interface engineering tool. It’s also my opinion, that Adobe hasn’t really been set on the path to make Flex the best tool for this as they seemed to be up until around 2008-2009. That’s not to say Flex isn’t still a great tool for these problems, it’s just that it hasn’t made the progress it could have in terms of an engineering tool. This “bad” really adds up to lost potential to be the de facto tool for enterprises building web based applications. What’s really disappointing is that, before last week, Flex still had the opportunity to be this tool, with little competition. I personally know folks who have created proofs of concept around patching the Flex compiler to compile a Flex application to run in a JavaScript environment – and it works. Not to say this is a trivial effort, but it is something that can be accomplished. So, instead of Adobe evolving their own platform and tools around the trending towards HTML5 they’ve, more or less, decided to start over.

Starting over is actually not that bad of an idea, but the side effect of dropping commitment to the Flex platform is estranging a development community that has been passionately committed to the platform over the years. These developers are reasonably disappointed and angry to have been left out in the cold. I think it will extremely difficult to earn back that commitment in the future.

The Future.

So, Flex Developers, what’s next? Flex filled a need. A need we all were looking for and many helped shape, but it was a reaction to what the industry needed and how technology was trending at the time. It was not a proactive stab to solve a problem that was known. We all worked through this together to get to a place where we had something pretty great to solve the problems in our industries. So, the point is, we did that, and we’ll continue to do it again. The industry is trending again in another direction, and it will trend again and again and likely never settle. This is another thing I love about technology – it is constantly in a state of reformation.

Does that mean Flex is dead? Not necessarily. To quote Jesse Warden from a thread we had on Google+, “Sun fubarred Java, and it’s still straight pimpin’”. The community now has the opportunity to redefine Flex once again. Maybe a plan of compiling Flex to JavaScript isn’t far fetched for the community. Anything is possible. At the same time, this moment provides a good opportunity to sit back and look at the land scape in technology. A proper engineering mindset should arrive at decisions pragmatically, not emotionally. We have a new era in front of us that continues to show the importance of user experience but also clearly points to the importance of apps.

Forrester coined this new wave as the “App Internet”. We’ve seen the revolution of desktop applications converging on the web. In this next wave we will see mobile as a defining factor in the internet technology of tomorrow.

What we’ve all learned by using Flex is greater than Flex itself. We’ve learned and evolved the way we solve problems in technology more efficiently and serve our users more effectively. Adobe cannot layoff these skills and we can use them to continue to evolve software and the way we build it.

I am fortunate to be surrounded with technologists, user experience practitioners, visual designers, and strategists at Roundarch who combined represent expertise in almost all things relevant to modern software development. It’s a lucky spot to be in and I’m confident in our proficiency to adapt both reactively and proactively to trends like this in the industry.

So, learn JavaScript / HTML5, contribute to Spoon.as, or write the next new amazing UI framework. Just don’t stop writing great software because of the change in direction of one tech company.

The New York Jets command center core was built using Adobe AIR, Adobe Flex and Java Spring.

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The conference, held at the 3LD (3-Legged Dog) Art & Technology Center, will feature tracks for Technology and Inspiration, along with the City track for exploring local landmarks. The Technology track will focus on coding and wiring for application architecture while the Inspiration track will center on design and user experience. The venue, which is a gallery for new media and experimental artwork, is meant to mirror the tone of the conference in the way it joins art and technology.

As part of the Inspiration track, I’ll be giving my talk entitled “Building RIAs with Style,” which I premiered at Flash Camp Chicago in February and have continued to refine since then. The talk starts with an introduction of lower level concepts about web graphics for developers, continues with exploring how some popular RIA frameworks handle styling, and wraps up by comparing two important workflow tools—Adobe Flash Catalyst and Microsoft Expression Blend—to demonstrate how the different platforms operate.

My goal with this talk is to provide rookies with a basis for understanding graphic assets, how to apply styles in RIA development, and the importance of styling as well as provide more advanced tricks of the trade for senior developers.

Check back to hear how it went, but first, watch my interview with Elad Elrom, Flash and the City conference organizer. Elad is a technical writer and senior Flash engineer, and he will also be leading a session entitled “Flex Data Binding Pitfalls: 10 Common Misuse Mistakes.”

Flash and the City is May 14-16 in New York, New York.

Bloomberg Sports partnered with Roundarch in 2009 to build a next gen tool for baseball analytical data. The application was designed for avid fans and fantasy players to keep track of all the statistics on their favorite players.

As the Flex Technical Architect, Adam led the effort of designing the original front-end architecture and framework that the application was built on. The Bloomberg Sports Front Office application was built using Adobe Flex, Java and many other technologies.

First things first, I am not a fantasy sports guy per se. I love stats and hoops is really my thing, but I am always looking for intriguing new ideas, and how they can apply to either what I am doing or how they may apply to sports as a business overall. Having been at Columbia and as a solid citizen of New York, I am also well versed in what the Bloomberg brand has done in building a multibillion dollar company based on analysis of stocks, and know that the Mayor and those who now run his company usually don’t get involved in businesses that won’t work out or have an end goal.

So when I heard a few months ago that Bloomberg (the company, not Bloomberg The Mayor) was launching a sports product, I wanted to find out more; not for me really, but for anyone who wants to follow a team or specific players during the season that starts in a few weeks. And for what this could mean for any sports-related business where stats are involved.

I gave the product a test spin: It looks great, has the ability to gather news from thousands of sources, and offers real time statistical updates and customer service. Still, I wanted to find out more.

The result is the following Q+A with Bill Squadron, who is running the day to day operations forBloomberg Sports. Bill has an interesting background, one that any sports fan these days is very familiar with. He was one of the founders of SportVision, the company that created the yellow first down line for football, brought amazing technology to enhance NASCAR and created the K Zone for baseball, all products that are essential to watching any sporting event today (he said there was also a product I would have loved, measuring the vertical leap of an NBA player, but much to my chagrin, it never panned out). In any event here is a look at BloombergSports today. For a look at the product, check out BloombergSports.com

Bill Squadron: The essence of Bloomberg’s business success is in technology innovation and statistical analysis, especially providing tools for extracting data to come to sound business conclusions. That extraction and refinement works, whether you are talking about finance or sports. The only difference really is that sports can be much more fun.

As far as why now, this decision was not made in a vacuum. For a considerable amount of time we have been looking at other applications which allow us to leverage our strengths as a company, which includes any sector that involves detailed statistical analysis. One logical connection is the sports industry, both for professionals and for the fantasy business, which is growing at a tremendous rate. We think this product, over time, will add great value for the fan just like our terminals have redefined business in the finance world.

PRC: What comprises Bloomberg’s products?

Bill Squadron: We have designed, in partnership with Major League Baseball Advanced Media, a detailed statistical analysis system that will provide great value and insights for sports professionals and fans – not to mention being a lot of fun for fans to use. There are two products, one for the consumer and one for the professional team. The product for the consumer has a draft kit and season service. It gives the fantasy player the ability to manage his or her own data like never before and we think will bring more people into playing fantasy baseball, which will in turn help all in the industry. The pro product will be invaluable in helping teams determine any type of player matchup or transaction in the most efficient, detailed manner.

PRC: What distinguishes the team product from the consumer product?

Bill Squadron: While both reflect Bloomberg’s core strengths of data aggregation and analysis, they are very different products. The team product is highly detailed to what the teams need and request to help them make personnel decisions. The consumer product is very interactive and will service both the casual and diehard fan with insights, whether he likes detailed breakdowns of all his favorite teams or if he is a dyed in the wool fantasy player. In short it will have anything and everything a fantasy player could ever wish for and will give the casual fan easy to follow and interesting content.

PRC: What makes this different from the thousands of statistical analysis sites that are now out there?

Bill Squadron: It allows fantasy players to make the smarter draft pick, select the right replacement when a player is injured, keep track of up-to-the-second news about their roster, evaluate trades – all in one tool, at lightning speed, with a couple of clicks. More than anything, this streamlines all the pieces of information that exist today, and takes the strength of the Bloomberg business…in-depth statistical analysis…and presents the product in a fashion and in real time like never before. It will have unparalleled speed, data aggregation, ease of navigation and outstanding customer support, all elements which don’t exist in most fantasy applications today.

Bill Squadron: There has been interest from almost all sports, both on the professional and the consumer side. Our focus right now is in introducing the baseball product, but at the same time we are having many conversations about what could be next for us. Professionals in almost every field are familiar with Bloomberg’s quarter century of success in the business community, and the adaptation to any field where there is data that can be harvested and then presented back virtually in real time will make any sport more enjoyable for fans, and give those who are on the business side the freedom to concentrate on the big picture.

PRC: How long has it been in development and who developed it?

Bill Squadron: The product has been in development more than a year, and we have gotten extensive input from our partners at MLB and the teams to this point. It was developed by our core of engineers who work on the Bloomberg product for the financial world. They are always looking for opportunities to adapt our core business and find ways to assist the business needs of our customers. Many of our staff are also sports fans and play fantasy sports. They saw the ability to adapt existing data collection and analytical analysis that we do for finance to sports, and started to build the product.

PRC: Did the teams ask for such a product? Isn’t there already too much analysis of baseball as is?

Information has great value, and our mission as a company is to give people the information they need to make their work and lives better and easier to navigate. We create the tools for people to use as it best serves their needs.

The teams did not ask originally. However we have met with almost all the teams to design a system that essentially fills holes that they have been seen in statistical analysis over the years, whether that is in scouting, game situations, or talent evaluation, and created essentially a one stop shop for any possible scenario that could arise in player evaluation. It takes into account not just statistics, but any possible trend in hitting, pitching or fielding that involves a player.

We do not feel there is too much analysis and we are not creating more formulas. What we have seen in sport, much like in the financial markets, is that there is a great deal of wasted time spent coming up with potential business scenarios, and by streamlining this process using a variation of the technology we have already created, the analysis becomes, more simple, time saving and concise. In short, it takes the guess work out of analysis and frees the professionals up to do what they do best, run the business of baseball with the best possible information at hand.

PRC: How many teams have signed up and what is the price point for them?

Bill Squadron: We are providing the teams a free trial of the service, after which we will commercialize the product and offer it for sale. Virtually every team is trying it now and giving us feedback from spring training through a good part of the season. We will be able to tailor the program to the needs of the end user for the teams, and are excited to be able to work with each one to make this the best product possible for them. We’re not going to comment on pricing at this stage.

Bill Squadron: Not at all. Baseball fans love statistical analysis and the insights and depth that come from it. It’s one of the things that make the game fun for millions of people.

PRC: Do you think competing fantasy sites will actually endorse your product? Have you had talks with ESPN, Turner and FOX for example, on using the product as part of their fantasy offerings?

Bill Squadron: Our product is complementary to and supportive of all games out there for 2010, and will enhance the fantasy players experience no matter what platform they are on. We are willing and able to work with every media-branded game to promote the product, as we know that this successful launch will not only drive more interest in fantasy overall, but it will make it easier and more fun for people to play and play well, which in turn will bring more players for all.

PRC: How much money is there to be made in fantasy sports?

Bill Squadron: It’s a big industry today and getting bigger, both domestically and globally. We think this product is a game changer that will drive more players to fantasy, and that increases the opportunities for all. It is said fantasy is a multibillion dollar business, and we don’t think that is too far off, but we also think the business is just starting to grow globally, and baseball is a great opportunity as a starting point.

PRC: What are the next immediate steps that fans can look for?

Bill Squadron: Well the first is to try the product, which is available at BloombergSports.com. There is a draft kit and a season tool, which fans can purchase a la carte or in combination for a discount. We also have a great blog, led by Jonah Keri, where we are providing daily analysis using the tool, and we think that can also give fans a feel for what we are doing. That is our focus now.

Most importantly, we want fantasy players to understand that our tools will allow them to make better decisions, save them time and have fun doing it. We also want feedback from people on what we are doing and what we can do to best service our customers. At the end of the day people have many choices to spend their discretionary dollar, even in the fantasy landscape, and we want them to see this product as the best value bar none to enhance their following of a sport. It’s a great challenge, but we think one that we will be able to meet with what we have built now, and will continue to build into the future.

Source: Peter Robert Casey: An In-Depth Discussion About Bloomberg Sports With Bill Squadron.

Vector Graphics – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics
Raster Graphics – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raster_graphics

F*CSS

Site – http://fcss.flashartofwar.com
Source – http://github.com/theflashbum/fcss
Quick start – http://fcss.flashartofwar.com/quick-start-guide

Jesse Freeman – @theflashbum
http://flashartofwar.com/

FlexFormatter

http://sourceforge.net/projects/flexformatter/
http://flexformatter.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/FlexFormatter/FlexPrettyPrintCommandUpdateSite/ (Eclipse software update URL)

Thanks to Flash Camp Chicago for having me present and to Roundarch for sponsoring my talk… it continues to be a exceptionally well-run conference and one of the highlights in my presenting year.