Who We Are: Andrew Joynt, Team Stream Programmer
A few of the many TVs in the Bleacher Report office.
“NBA: Heat’s LeBron James Wins 4th NBA MVP in Last 5 Seasons—Details in Team Stream”
Seems simple enough. Certainly LeBron James winning the MVP award is not a surprise to anyone. But how sure are you that it is in fact his fourth in the last five seasons?
My name is Andrew Joynt and I work as a Team Stream programmer at Bleacher Report. My job is to make your experience with our Team Stream app a great one. Once you have that beautiful orange and gray B/R app on your smartphone, I want you to feel like you can’t wait to open it up again and again. An important part of accomplishing that goal is making sure our sports knowledge and journalism senses are working in harmony.
We monitor the nonstop sports cycle for breaking news, using every possible resource at our disposal and TVs galore here in the San Francisco newsroom. If something happens in the world of sports, we know about it—and the clock is ticking for us to get that information out to sports fans. Our team works on the Anti-”Tortoise and the Hare” philosophy. We see it, we check it, we send it. All of your B/R push notifications come from us.
A push notification has to be written in a way that is both informative and intriguing—and that’s where the creativity comes in. While our team does have some specific style guides, it’s usually up to us to create a custom notification that Team Stream users will value.
It all depends on how the story is unfolding. A historic stat may be included in one alert. Another may have a controversial quote. As the programmers, we need to decide quickly how to best present important factual information in a way that catches your attention.
Whether it’s LeBron winning another MVP, Tim Tebow signing with the Patriots or UCLA signing a four-star linebacker, we want the information out fast and in a way the user will remember.
Additionally, Team Stream programmers act as your personal sports information curators, collecting relevant stories from the internal B/R team and externally from the rest of the sports world.
B/R has assembled an incredibly talented group of editors and writers who provide unique insights, opinions and commentary on every team in every sport. We also scour the internet in search of additional quality content from local newspaper websites, national newspaper websites, team specific sites, blogs and much more. It takes an editorial eye to know what type of content should be selected and presented in the Team Stream app.
LeBron James did in fact win four MVPs in five seasons. I know because I checked it and double-checked it. When you are sending a push notification to almost a million people, you had better be sure it’s right.
Who We Are is an occasional feature of the B/R Blog in which Bleacher Report employees discuss what they do.
Newsroom photo by Travis Hunter.