BallHype

BallHype is a sports aggregator which pulls in information from thousands of sports blogs and also allows users to create their own content. Users can then vote for popular content in a very similar way to sites like Digg. The site was created because there are literally thousands of sports blogs out there on the internet and reading them all would be impossible. Following all of the information on various blogs might take longer than you have available. Ball Hype collects all of this information from various sources which makes it easier to read. What’s more users vote for content that they like which will cause it to move higher up the list. This should make it much easier to check the latest sports news in between doing other things. If any other writers are linking to a story then it moves up the list and is considered newsworthy. Its then up to users to vote and if it gets enough votes then the content will appear on the homepage of the site. Users are also free to write their own posts or submit stories that they think should be read. BallHype was founded by Jason and Erin Gurney. The site was acquired by Future US in July 2008. The same company has also produced ShowHype which is a similar idea with entertainment information rather than sports information. BallHype is not really popular, stories already make it to the home page with two votes and there are very few discussions taking place. Unlike sports blogs BallHype gathers information from thousands of different sites which should make staying up to date with the latest news easier than normal. There is also a community where topic can be discussed. You can invite your friends and start new groups. Ball Hype looks pretty much the same as Digg or similar sites. The only difference is that this site is aimed specifically at sports lovers. The beauty of this site is that only popular stories make their way to the homepage which should mean that you are only reading useful content. There are also sports videos and information about games. It’s also possible to comment on various news stories which improves the community. One of the most annoying features is that they limit the number of bad votes that you can give. This is supposedly to limit the effects that one person can have. However it’s not really very fair if you think that lots of news stories should be sent down the list. If you want to vote or submit your own content then you will need to register for an account, however if you just want to read the entries then an account isn’t required. Registering for an account is very easy and entails filling out a fairly normal and standard signup form. When you have registered you will then receive an activation email which you will need to read and follow the instructions to activate your account. Ball Hype is completely free to use and there are no noticeable adverts on the site. BallHype is aimed at anyone that wants to eat, sleep and live sport. You can find out news about sport without spending your whole day reading the thousands of blogs out there. Content is discarded if it’s not considered newsworthy and only popular content makes it onto the home page. However, there are a lot of other applications offering the exact same service. There are not enough active users to make BallHype really useful.