On FanHouse and their Fantasy Sports Girl collaboration

July 29th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

Setting aside the fact that John Ness and Miss G both left their FanHouse producer roles within a matter of weeks — and really, this is something that should not be set aside in this discussion, but for brevity’s sake, I’ll leave that be — this whole Fantasy Sports Girl spot on FanHouse is just awful.

I understand that sex sells. I understand more page views equals more money. It’s a business; I get it. I understand you have to do this kind of thing as a corporate entity to generate some revenue. But sweet Jesus: there’s a better way to display tits on your site than this. This is tasteless, it’s banal, it’s embarrassing. It’s target audience seems to be below the lowest common denominator.

Try Ufford’s Attractive Olympian bit. He plays around with it and self-mocks, knowing it’s for the AOL Welcome Screen and its ease of page views. And at least there’s some intelligence to it. This Fantasy Sports Girl bit is just bad. Really, really bad.

FanHouse was built by Jamie Mottram as an intelligent, all-encompassing sports blog. Sure it may be vanilla at times, but that’s because it’s housed by AOL — not a place where you can drop f-bombs at will. I respect Tom Ziller, Will Brinson, Pat Lackey, Matt Watson and all the other bloggers that have built the brand that everyone has come to know there. Hell, me and E were and are a part of that as well.

Everyone’s high-quality work doesn’t deserve to be displayed next to this tripe. Yeesh.

See also: Mr. I | The Sporting Blog

Update: Tom Fornelli is a GOLDEN GOD. Also, because I wrote this in about 10 minutes before lunch, I forgot to mention E is also no stranger to the AOL page view shilling.

Programming alert: MLB FanHouse live chat, 1 p.m.

June 10th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

For all concerned parties, I’m doing a live chat at 1 p.m. at MLB FanHouse with AOL Sports MLB Producer Andrew Johnson. I’m not sure what we’ll talk about it (though Griffey will surely be on the docket), but it should be a nice forum for our lovely commenters to address us in real time. And by address, I mean swear.

Please do stop by.

Screw ESPN, it’s a big day for FanHouse

June 13th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

We hear there’s some sort of big hire over at ESPN.com today, but come on. There are more important matters at hand.

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a mini-revolution going on over at our other home, AOL FanHouse. R and I really, really like working for the FanHouse, an experience that is sure to improve even more by the new design. Things are still being tweaked — and yes, the header slightly resembles With Leather’s — but man, does that thing look purdy.

So if you’re reading here and haven’t been to the FanHouse yet today (seems unlikely, but you never know), go tell everyone how you feel. And, as always, visit the MLB ‘House for more of R and I when we’re not looking for stupid Youtube videos to post in this space.