Hey guys,

Those of you eager to have media files accompany your sports analysis need to read Bleacher Creature Saraswathi Sirginia’s tutorial on inserting images, audio files, and videos into Bleacher Report articles ASAP.

Sara did extensive research on the subject and was nice enough to compile everything she learned for the benefit of her fellow B/R addicts.  To say that we appreciate her efforts in putting this together is an understatement…

To say thanks to Sara, or to ask questions, leave a note on her B/R Bulletin Board.

Help us understand more about Bleacher Report’s readers!  Please take this short survey here.

To date, we’ve had great success with several contests in a variety of sporting communities.  But we’ve never done anything like this.

Welcome to the b/rCS—our latest, and most ambitious writing competition yet.

Unlike the BCS, our formula couldn’t be simpler.  And rest assured, the most deserving writer will end up in South Florida.

Every day from now until December 9th, Bleacher Report is keeping score.  The writer who finishes the season with the most cumulative “My Picks” votes will be sent to Miami to report from the BCS National Championship on January 8, 2009.  We’ll also be awarding some cool second and third place prizes.

Remember: only registered B/R members have access to the “My Picks” function.  So encourage your fellow college football addicts to sign up and start writing.

To enter the contest, click here.  And as always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the b/rCS, I’m available at trey@bleacherreport.com.

Good luck, and here’s to yet another reason why Bleacher Report is your home for college football coverage.

PC Magazine has just released its list of “Top 100 Undiscovered Websites,” and Bleacher Report has earned recognition.

According to the published criteria, Bleacher Report scored well when the judges rated the “content, update frequency, design, innovation, and usefulness or entertainment value (or both)”

This serves as a pat on the back for all of our talented writers, without whom we would not have the content worthy of such praise. This is yet more external verification that Bleacher Report’s writers can compete with the big names found on other networks.

The breadth of coverage was also highlighted, as PC Magazine was in disbelief at the site’s active Cricket community. But make no mistake about it: the diversity of coverage, and the number of writers that Bleacher Report has for each sport (even ones that aren’t popular in America) is just one more strength that sets us apart.

Hey everyone,

I am very sorry to announce that Bleacher Report member David Owen tragically died last night.

A close friend of Bleacher Creature and World Football Community Leader Andrew McNair, David was known as “Mr. Liverpool” at the bar and coached field hockey and cricket.  He just joined Bleacher Report just a few weeks ago, writing five articles in his short lived tenure.

We don’t have all the details, but Andrew reports that David was feeling ill and went to the hospital, where he collapsed and died shortly afterwards.

I ask all of you to keep David’s memory in your thoughts and prayers.  Make sure to read Andrew’s tribute to his fallen friend as well.

R.I.P. David Owen.

UPDATE:

Thanks to B/R rock star developer Axel Molina, writer rankings are back up and running correctly.

Remember, these are the newly calculated rankings that put a lot more weight on qualitative factors as opposed to just the quantity of articles you’ve written. That said, we feel they are a lot more accurate and hope you’ll agree. We’ll keep working to improve them, so if you have any feedback please let us know.

Thanks,

The B/R Team

Bleacher Report writers, if you’ve ever doubted the premise of this site, namely that you—the educated, passionate fan—can produce better content than the average journalist, look no further than this recent article on ESPN.com.

I am not familiar with the author, Graham Watson, and my intention is not to disparage her work. In fact, I would much prefer to recognize a positive example than criticize someone’s shortcoming.

However, after reading her recent piece “Notre Dame looking to turn the corner after disappointing 2007 campaign,” I was so disappointed, I felt like turning the corner… and marching back to Bleacher Report.

Her article is well-researched and factually accurate—but sorely lacking analysis or opinion. I already read the Blue Ribbon preview on Notre Dame. I don’t need another recap of last year’s statistics, this year’s schedule, and interviews given at last Friday’s media day, all of which have been available for free at und.com for more than a week.

Unfortunately, there was quite literally nothing in the piece that led me to believe her press credential had provided any insight into Notre Dame Football. In fact, several B/R writers have written more compelling articles about the Irish in recent weeks—without access to Charlie Weis and his players.

What does all this mean for you—the Bleacher Report writer?

First, there are readers who are hungry for content about their favorite team—in my case, Notre Dame. Second, primary sources like an athletic department website provide all the data, reports and interviews you need to stay informed. Definitely use those resources to form the foundation of your article. But understand that information is just as readily available to us as readers.

What we want is for you to interpret, analyze and offer your opinion—Bleacher Report gives you that platform. Please take full advantage… unless you’re a USC fan.

Today we have freshened up the look of articles on Bleacher Report.

Every month, millions of people flock to the site to read sports articles, and we wanted to give them an even better experience. Most notably, we want our readers to be exposed to more articles they might enjoy; our community features so many fantastic writers, and allowing them to more prominently showcase their talents is sure to increase the number of visitors sticking around to join the debate.

Pick of the Day has also experienced an improvement and received a small facelift.

The Community has been taking advantage of this feature increasingly more frequently, and many of you have expressed a desire to give greater recognition to articles they read and enjoy. Effective today, members of the Community can award a personal pick to any article they like—the article receiving the most MyPicks votes at the end of each day will still receive Pick of the Day placement on the front page.

In addition, we will soon be announcing our first contest related to the new MyPicks feature. More details on this front will emerge in the coming weeks.

As always, we welcome any feedback on either (or both) of these new developments—feel free to leave comments below.

Remember: you may have to reload your browser once or twice before the new page shows up properly!

Sorry to get this up so late in the week, but my week’s been almost as busy as Michael Phelps’ cell phone. OK, that can’t possibly be true.

Anyhow, onto the Best-Kept Bleacher Secrets from August 4th-10th:

Brett Favre taking his big arm to Broadway and the Summer Olympic opening ceremony masterpiece in Beijing were the major stories from last week, but I want to fill you in on a few that came through Bleacher Report and flew well below the radar.

With NFL training camp in full swing, solid articles have been coming quicker through our NFL section than an undrafted rookie’s pink slip.

A couple that I really enjoyed came from Rich Tandler and Jeff Little. Tandler gave an inside-analysis from the Washington Redskins camp about the impact Jim Zorn has had on team practice, and even went as far as holding ESPN reporter Matt Mosley accountable. Little did a nice job paying homage to the great Eric Dickerson’s standing record of rushing yards in a season, while bringing the present into play by asking the question whether LaDainian Tomlinson or Adrian Peterson have what it takes to break it in 2008.

On the boxing front, newcomer Eric Fleury made his presence in the B/R community felt immediately with a tremendous first article analyzing the upcoming light heavyweight matchup between Kelly Pavlik (fighting at a higher weight than normal) and former boxing great Bernard Hopkins.

In the satire department, Corby Anderson did a nice job comparing Mike Hampton to the Titanic.

Finally, columnist Chris Pennant’s installment of his weekly wonderings, “What’s Good” painted Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen in a light nearly everyone can relate to, as the friend you’ve come to love despite the fact he or she pushes the wrong buttons by saying the wrong things to nearly everybody you hang out with.

That’s all folks, have a good weekend.

Hey guys,

So as I’m sure you’ve already noticed, we’ve made some adjustments to the way that Writer Rankings are calculated.

Before I begin responding to all of your individual inquiries, I thought I would address the Bleacher Report Community at large and explain the nature of the changes that were made and the reasons for these alterations.

We strongly believe that these tweaks have the best interest of the network in mind, and hope you understand that even if you fall a couple spots in the rankings that this is more than made up for by the fact that you will be part of a fairer, more credible community of fan journalists.

Let’s also not forget that the rankings are dynamic!  With a little bit of extra effort in areas where you’re weaker than your peers, you can skyrocket yourself past where you were previously.

Without further ado, the changes:

Change #1: Breaking up the article count monopoly

We’ve been receiving feedback for some time that too much weight is given to the number of articles written in determining the site’s Top Writers.

While we’ve always felt that the number of articles a member writes is quite a telling statistic, there are others that are also highly reflective of the value that a given contributor adds to the network but which before now were underrepresented.

You know the old saying: it’s not quantity, it’s quality.

Well in this case, it’s quantity, quality, and popularity of your contributions that will determine your fate in the Writer Rankings from here on out.

The average star rating that your peers assign your articles now plays a significant role in your ranking, as does the number of fans you accumulate throughout your Bleacher Report tenure.  The number of comments you write has also risen in significance.

Your article total still counts enormously towards your ranking, but it no longer monopolizes it the way it used too.  We’re sharing the wealth, so to speak—allowing the network’s most popular writers and active commenters to have a legitimate chance at the top slots.

Change #2: New restrictions on who is eligible to be displayed as a Top Writer

Bleacher Report has always been a meritocracy—the members that add the most value to the Community earn the site’s top honors.  After taking a cold hard look at the overall site rankings and league/team based rankings, it was clear that all too often highly valued contributors were being knocked down the list in favor of less deserving candidates.

Before now, a blogger who syndicated their feed onto the site but hadn’t logged in or participated directly in the Community for an extended period of time was still eligible for a top slot in the overall site rankings.  Their high article count would then elevate them over members who contribute regularly to the Community.

We’ve thus added some eligibility criteria to being included in the team, league, and overall site rankings.

For league and team pages, members who have not logged into the site or written in over a week will temporarily fall off of the Writer Rankings.  As soon as that member logs in or writes again, he will appear on the list again in his rightful place.

The same goes for the overall site rankings—inactive contributors will no longer be displayed as Top Writers until they are active again.  In addition, members who have written fewer than 10 articles or fewer than 20 comments will be similarly ineligible for ranking until they have passed these milestones.

As always, we encourage you to provide general feedback on the new changes in the comments section below.  If you have questions about your specific situation or believe you have spotted an error, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me directly.

Thanks as always to all of you for making Bleacher Report the groundbreaking sports network that it is today.