A screen shot of the B/R home page with the Team Stream feature on the left side.
Actually live since sometime last week, the Team Stream feature for B/R’s home page allows visitors to customize what stories they see in the strip that runs prominently down the left hand side of the page. And just like the Team Stream app, the Team Stream homepage feature will provide links to not just Bleacher Report content, but to content from sports sites across the web.
According to David Finocchio, co-founder and vice president of content and product at Bleacher Report, the not-written-here attitude is somewhat unique among major sports sites. “The idea is to provide fans with the most relevant information about their teams in one place,” said Finocchio in a phone interview this week. Though many leading sports sites are almost as bad as Bobby Knight and the word “Kentucky” when it comes to linking to competitors, Finocchio said that Bleacher Report’s web-era heritage makes prominent linking a no-brainer.
“We’ll link out to anyone providing the best content,” Finocchio said. “The challenge is creating an experience that people want to come back to.” So instead of worrying about keeping people trapped on a page, Finocchio said, “It’s about getting them to come back tomorrow.”
The basic premise behind Team Stream is that B/R’s team of web-watching editors will sift through everything that is out there and prepare a bundle of content centered around the teams or sports. Fans can then select which “streams” they want to follow, and a selection of items will appear in the stream on the home page, just like they do in the mobile app.
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