Hey everybody, a couple of questions for you web designers/internet gurus out there.

I have been working with some people on a fantasy football startup for the last couple of months in just the beginning stages. Its a take on fantasy football that adds some really cool elements that I think is a really great idea.

However, those involved have hit a wall in finding a reasonably priced stat aggregating service that would push the stats to the website live as the games are going on.

The only company we have spoken with is STATS, inc., (http://www.stats.com/), but they are waaay too expensive for the fledgling startup I am working with. They are the guys that provide the stats for all the big boys fantasy games (yahoo, espn, cbs, etc.)

Its a shot in the dark, but are any of you guys aware of a company that provides services similiar to STATS? And yes, Ive googled the hell out of it. I mostly run into fantasy baseball stat history sites/ fantasy advice blogs.

STATS, Inc definitely dominates the industry, and most of the companies in this area don't really advertise; so its been rough trying to figure out who the STATS competitors are.

There are already mockups of a web design, but we can not really go forward and find a web designer without knowing if there is even stats service out there that is reasonable affordable. This is kind of a side project for those investing in the site, so no one is looking for this investment to get outrageously expensive.

Everybody is a State alum, so any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Edited on January 18, 2012 at 2:18 PM. Reason : .]

1/18/2012 2:17:16 PM

If you can't afford the data, it sounds like your startup doesn't have a very good business model.

Aggregation services (sports or otherwise) are the biggest cost for damn near everyone. Get funding, pay for the service and move on with the venture.

1/18/2012 2:26:45 PM

We have actually raised quite a bit of capital, just hoping to find a cheaper service than STATS.

1/18/2012 3:35:38 PM

Quote :

"If you can't afford the data, it sounds like your startup doesn't have a very good business model."

Hey look noen knows everything and has to talk down to everyone!

If you can't afford the biggest name in the business, you're fucked, buddy! Burn down your office! Kill your partners! You have no chance!

--

Check out these guys. Much cheaper.

http://www.xmlteam.com]

1/18/2012 4:37:09 PM

When I looked into something like this years ago, I found there was actually a reasonably affordable sports stats data point in the Windows Azure Marketplace (or whatever it's called).

1/18/2012 4:59:47 PM

I appreciate the help guys, I'm going to look over those tonight.

1/18/2012 6:46:08 PM

^^^ Not talking down at all, just a reality check. How many people have posted their "hay guise im starting a bizness" threads here over the years?

Glad to see someone legit for once, and nice to know he's got some alternatives

1/19/2012 12:01:36 AM

Quote :

"Hey look noen knows everything and has to talk down to everyone! "

But...he drives a lotus.

1/19/2012 6:14:04 AM

I just love that noen is trying to dump on some guy for looking for advice and maybe not having his shit 100% air-tight

Noen, the guy who came to TWW looking for a date to his high school reunion so he could show up the guys who took his lunch money

NOEN

1/19/2012 9:24:45 AM

I don't know much about fantasy football - but are realtime stats that important? Can't you just grab them at midnight from somewhere that has compiled them (which I assume would be cheaper.)

1/19/2012 9:30:11 AM

That would be like E-trade just updating people's positions at the end of the day. It has to be real-time.

1/19/2012 10:02:53 AM

I don't think it needs to be real time. 5-15min batch updates could work, though the amount of data is large enough that trickling it in might be more useful, unless someone has a delta style update API. you could also do a PoC with scraping data from other sources like yahoo.

1/19/2012 12:30:00 PM

Fantasy needs to be real time. Folks spend their entire sundays tracking the games and their teams, and if Arian Foster rips off a 50 yard touchdown, and it doesn't update their team within 30 seconds, people will lose interest and find greener pastures.

1/19/2012 12:51:25 PM

Thanks for the tip on XML Ernie, one of the guys is talking to an XML rep today. No doubt Fantasy games 100% need to be updated realtime. I know I wouldn't play a game that wasn't. It especially needs real time updates for what we are trying to accomplish.

I have basically just been helping out with this project, offering my input, (and cash); one thing I was wondering about was the viability of having this be developed as a facebook app as opposed to developing a full blown site.

I dont have a lot of experience in web development, actually zero, so I am sure I sound like a complete fool to you guys; Humanities major here.

But it would seem to me that with the built in community of users, you would have an easier time getting people to sign up, to advertise, and maybe less overhead than maintaining and developing an independent site. Does anybody have experience developing complicated apps for facebook and would have input on this? The app would essentially be full blown fantasy football league play, with a few other elements added in.

[Edited on January 19, 2012 at 2:40 PM. Reason : .]

1/19/2012 2:39:16 PM

robster is probly the guy you want to talk to. using facebook auth and having a facebook app would be a decent idea but you'll want a way to access the data outside facebook like when your real estate is limited (on a phone). you could write a mobile app, but at that point you may as well just have your own page and interface to the data that has a good mobile layout

1/19/2012 2:44:14 PM

you can have your own site and still use facebook/twitter/google/yahoo/whatever authentication for logging in and signing up

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/web/
https://dev.twitter.com/docs/sign-twitter-resources
http://code.google.com/apis/accounts/docs/OpenID.html
http://openid.yahoo.com/

and so on

1/19/2012 3:10:27 PM

^if you're using social network login's you should look at janrain

1/19/2012 3:53:08 PM

Creating a Facebook app doesn't really make the job any easier in terms of that versus a standalone web presence.

You can always create a facebook app, as well as fit for purpose device apps (Android/iOS) and a standalone web site.

OpenID and ACS are both great options for handling authentication through trusted services (Facebook, Google, LiveID, Yahoo, etc).

You can contract out the facebook app, and mobile apps easily and cheaply once you've got your plans down. Check out elance.com, freelancer.com, vworker.com to find contractors. As long as your apps don't require anything super complex (just regular data forms, html, ajax etc) you should be able to get a client app developed for <$2000.

1/19/2012 4:00:39 PM