• After a few weeks of waiting, I received my invite this weekend to test out the new MySpace. I had never been much of a MySpace enthusiast before, but after seeing this sneak-preview video this fall my curiosity was piqued. The clip made the new network look absolutely gorgeous, and my hopes were raised that perhaps the oldest guard of networking would bring something in their relaunch that was desperately missing today; a more beautiful social space.

    From playing with it just this weekend, they certainly have succeeded in their re-vamp. MySpace is absolutely gorgeous. Scrolling through the pages makes you feel that this is what the web is supposed to be like. Large photos, seamless horizontal scrolling, a fluid and reasonably useful toolbar resting on the bottom of all pages, and incredibly quick loading. It's a lot of fun.

    On the functionality side, it's clear that MySpace is still very focused on becoming the social network for music. The entire service is built around discovering, listening to, and sharing music in a beautiful way. Classic Rock fan like me? Build a playlist with Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and Allman Brothers tracks. Want to find what's new and interesting? Swipe through thousands of music videos and tracks, listen to a Pandora like streaming radio, or even check out MySpace's personalized recommended music.

    I took a bunch of screen shots, check them out below. If you'd like to request an invite, check out new.Myspace.com.













  • When Marissa Mayer, a former Google exec, was appointed as the CEO of Yahoo! in July, many anticipated that she would quickly charge her team to strip down Yahoo's homepage, one of the most famous in the world, to the absolute bare bones. Mayer had championed the minimalist look at Google, which you still see today when you visit Google.com.

    On can argue that Yahoo! and Google serve very different functions, and therefor, the simplicity that Google provides, forcing users to focus on one thing (search) isn't appropriate for everyone. Yahoo! has developed themselves into one of the leading content creators/curators on the web, and their home page has become the internet's leading portals for content.

    Regardless of where you stand on the thought process behind stripping down Yahoo's homepage, it's happening. And quickly. Take a look at the screen shots below. One is from today, others were taken from internet archive sites through the past two years.

    Today:


    May, 2012:


    Back even further...

    August 2011:


    July 2009 (Official Homepage Re-Launch):


    2006:






  • I decided to make a modest donation to Wikipedia yesterday. This was the second time I've done so in the past six months, and to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if I made another donation early next year. 

    While I always appreciated the service that Wikipedia provides, both as a way to consume and produce content, I never really appreciated how unbelievably expensive it is to run until I began running (and monitoring the budget for) advanced web apps of my own over the past several years. Simply put, running a site like Wikipedia that has many moving parts, and billions of visitors, is incredibly costly. 

    According to founder Jimmy Wales, the site costs upward of $10.5 million annually to keep afloat. As you can imagine, just a small portion of that money goes to the group's comically small staff. 

    I think a lot of people look at Wikipedia and see that the content is crowd-sourced, and therefor the costs of running the service must be low. But users should really look at Wikipedia more as a 21st century library as opposed to an encyclopedia which you buy and then own. While books at the library are free to check out, the library also needs public funding to keep the building maintained, the doors open, and to run programming for local patrons. 

    If you have the time and a few dollars to spare. I encourage you to help support Wikipedia too.
  • Created, and ran for seven months in 2012. Generated over 27 million views with four writers in that span. Used Twackle publisher dashboard to generate stories based on advanced social data. Can still be visited at tracking.si.com. 
  • Served as the captain of the Ohio Wesleyan Firedogs, one of the proudest experiences of my life. Ultimate taught me more lessons than I ever learned in the classroom, and I made the strongest friendships of my life.

    Below I've embedded some videos of my playing days...when I was much faster and much more in shape:



    Firedogs at NoWisconsiquences from Yard Yoder on Vimeo.

    ONU Indoor 2009 from Will Yoder on Vimeo.

    Chicago Invite from Yard Yoder on Vimeo.

    Firedogs Alumni Game from Yard Yoder on Vimeo.
  • Created in 2008, The Nats Blog has generated hundreds of thousands of page views, and is currently one of the largest independent Washington Nationals Blogs. In 2011 we earned season-long press credentials with the team, and in 2012 we became one of the first fan blogs to ever be credentialed for the post season.

  • I am a professional explorer of the digital sports space. I work with athletes, brands, and publishers to help discover the best way to monetize established offline entities on the internet. I currently work for Octagon, one of the world's largest sports marketing entities, where I help develop and implement strategies for some of the world's most popular athletes.

    I've set up this site to serve as my home base for all of my digital projects and thoughts. If I see great work on social about a platform, athlete, or team, I'll try to share it here.

    All thoughts and opinions here are my own.
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