from Amazon
Tuesday, June 01, 2010
“My stats”: Custom Dashboard
Finally. After so many years of waiting for someone to come up with a “my stats” feature, ala My Yahoo customized news and sports settings, Fangraphs has the Custom Dashboard.
I’ll give you four reasons why this is smart:
1. The user gets exactly what he wants
2. You as the website get a list of email addresses of users
3. You as the website now know exactly what stats your readers like
4. I had a 4th one, but it has now slipped my mind. I think faster than I type usually, and sometimes, I type faster than I think. Neither is helpful.
• Sabermetrics
• Data
1. This is important for a number of reasons. For one, people today often expect a level of personal customization online. On top of that, the user-specific format is an incentive for people to visit more often.
2. The added collection of e-mail addresses only applies for new registrants since the Custom Dashboard already requires users to be logged in. Nonetheless, this is potentially valuable.
4. Building off of point #3 — knowing what stats readers use most — this will likely allow FanGraphs to make refinements and enhancements based off of the Pareto Principle, more commonly referred to as the 80/20 rule. I imagine users of the Dashboard are among the most frequent visitors, so it’s worthwhile to make decisions on what enhances the site for the majority of users.
5. As advanced statistics move into the baseball vernacular, the Dashboard should be both an aid to this development and further the awareness of FanGraphs. For example, it would make sense for any beat writer using any of the statistics provided at FanGraphs to have a Dashboard based around the key players of the team the writer follows.
Just the other day, I heard a mainstream writer on the radio reference a pitcher’s uncommonly high LOB% when discussing the success of the pitcher thus far. This is the type of information which comes from FanGraphs. The next day, the same point was made on his blog, and he explicitly referenced this issue while citing the information found at FanGraphs.
6. Often unmentioned about FanGraphs, but I think it’s one of the keys to its success, is the exceptional design and usability of the site’s statistical data. The Dashboard is an extension of that quality. While it incentivizes reader loyalty, it also furthers its leadership position, thus making it harder for any new site to usurp readers’ perceptions of FanGraphs. Put simply, playing catch-up is hard, and this move just made it harder.