A bunch of fixes and improvements . . .

iPad/iPhone users

• We released our brand new official Redskins Feedr iPad application, with all of the best Redskins news and information, served up directly to your iPad. You can get the official Redskins Feedr application here.
• If you have experienced authentication problems with FanFeedr since upgrading to version 1.6.3, we traced the error down to a server side API error on our end and it has been promptly fixed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Facebook Pick’Em game

• First, do you know that we have a killer Facebook Pick’Em game? You can predict the outcome of English Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga and Serie A games, directly on Facebook, with your friends.
• We are using Facebook Credits directly, and you don’t have to go hunting for currency to play the game
• We added live scores to the game, so you can check your scores as the games take place

First-time user experience

• We deleted the welcome pop-up screen, because many of you complained about it. She’sa gone.

There were other bug fixes. We hope that you are enjoying your Summer, and remember, if you like the website, you can also get FanFeedr for your iPhone, iPad, and Android.
Thanks, FanFeedr

Folks,

We have been working on this for most of the summer, so we are quite excited about the opportunity around being able to play Pick’Em directly on Facebook. We are launching with European soccer, so that you can predict the outcomes of games against your friends or everyone on Facebook, all for the opportunity to be the commissioner for the Premiership, La Liga, Serie A or the Bundesliga.

We simplified the interface, and we use Facebook Credits directly to make it easier for you to continue playing the game if your luck leaves you for a short bit.

We hope you enjoy playing and look forward to your feedback about the game, as we will roll out improvements every week.

Please share it with your friends as well.

Remember, you can pick your favorite Premiership, La Liga, Bundesliga, and Serie A teams right here, and you can compete against your friends on Facebook.

Thanks, FanFeedr

1. We offer a personalized service, so viewing it on a personal device should increase the time spent per session
2. Using Facebook and Twitter, which we require for login, is easier on an iPad than on a work computer (our peak usage is around 3p ET (GMT -5).) Some workplaces restrict access to the social networks
3. The iPad application is an easier way to consume information than our web application

That explains part of the 10-fold increase in time per session, but it doesn’t seem like enough.

Perhaps it was timing?

1. We launched the FanFeedr iPad application on April 3rd, the day that the device launched.
2. We were a featured application for the first week in the iTunes app store
3. The 2010 World Cup began two months later, right after the 3G version of the device debuted in the United States.

That still doesn’t seem to full account for the difference.

The single answer that makes the most sense is that the iPad interface can’t multitask, and that single-threaded application behavior forces users to focus solely on our application.

Which sort of underscores that multitasking doesn’t make you smarter, and greatly impedes time spent on web sites, to boot.

We have a lot in this week’s release.

World Cup Soccer

• The main World Cup page is here
• Follow all of the teams on FanFeedr, Facebook and Twitter.
• The USA team can be followed via FanFeedr, Facebook and Twitter

We also have a pretty sweet World Cup Challenge game on Facebook. Pick your favorite teams and compete with your friends in the Tournament.

Getty Images

• We have a partnership to Getty Images for their amazing sports photos, which are now live on the site.
• Here is a great example of Pau Gasol
• We are also adding some functionality if you would like to show Getty Images on your site. We will let you know when that is available.

Thanks, as always, FanFeedr

We heard your request, especially from Knicks’ followers: we want to be able to track all of the free-agent/football transfer news on a per-team basis. Problem solved.
We have a new filter on each team and player page that gives you just that: all team changes, all the time. Some examples . . .

NBA free-agent news

• New York Knicks’ free agents
• Miami Heat free agents

Premier League Football transfer news

• Chelsea transfers
• Man U transfers
• Arsenal transfers

La Liga Football transfer news

• Barca transfers
• Real Madrid transfers

One last new feature: we have added the ability to customize your feed on the team pages so that you can see just the information that is important to you. When you go to a team or player page, you can turn on some, all or none of the Filters in the left column.

Additionally, some bug fixes:

• Twitter suppression on the home page is permanent. If you select it, it will stick even if you leave and come back.
• Added a link to “Hot Pick’Em games” in the right column of the home page to all of the Pick’Em games.
• Improved the frequency and type of stories that we publish to our popular Facebook team pages, like the LA Angels or New York Yankees.

Another great week of work by our talented engineering team.

Thanks, FanFeedr

This is a pretty straightforward release: Pick’Em has been added to the FanFeedr home page so that you don’t have to search for it.

You can pick games directly on the front of FanFeedr.com so that you don’t have to go to the Pick’Em homepage.

Also, we added a new World Cup news section on Facebook.

Let us know if we can provide you with other features right here.

Thanks, as always, FanFeedr

Release 62 is all about giving you more control over what publishes to Facebook and Twitter from FanFeedr, and how frequently.

• With that in mind, we have a new pop-up panel that controls what gets pushed out to both sites. We also made it so that you can get notified whenever you have a new follower. We won’t ever send you mails without your ability to control them. The controls can be accessed via your profile page account settings, and it looks like this:

• Tweet limiting: on the homepage, you can hide tweets from your FanFeed (on the right of the column) if you don’t want to see them:
  
• We updated our press section with the latest articles about FanFeedr
• Our scoreboards now show the teams that you have picked:
  
• We fixed a bug for Safari users on our sports application for the Apple iPad that allowed for our share bar to float. You can now browse FanFeedr on your iPad without any display oddities.
• Additionally, if you are not logged into the site, you can see the FanFeedr Public Timeline without having to login.

As always, thanks for your support, and let us know if we missed anything right here.

Feedr of the Fans

• Pick ’Em opportunities on team pages. Now you can make your game picks directly from your favorite teams’s pages.
• Game publishing settings. Speaking of Pick ’Em, now you can also change what game activity updates we publish to your social networks.
• Improved feed quality. Tuning, tuning, always tuning.
• UX touches:
  • Icons for tweets. For improved visual appeal, we’ve added Twitter avatars to the tweets we list in our content feeds.
  • Team colors. Likewise, we noticed that some of the team colors for scoreboards seemed a little off (no red for the Reds, for example), so we kicked that into shape as well.

Please join us again next week for another episode of What’s In This Week’s FanFeedr Release, starring the usual suspects.

Until then, we remain

Your friends at FanFeedr

On to this week’s deets:

• Better layouts for photos and team pages. You’ll find it easier to comment on photo pages, and get more accurate scoring information on team pages.
• Greater accuracy for local teams. We’ve rejiggered the GPS thingy again to get you the most relevant local sports news.
• Performance tweaks. Pages with lots of profile pictures should now feel snappier™.

That’s it for now — check back next week for the next installment. We’ll let you know if we found enough desks for everyone. And as always, we thank you for your support.

Until then, we remain,

Your friends at FanFeedr.

• Cleaner left-hand navigation and layout gets you to the content you want faster.
  • Sorting controls are simpler: you can sort by recency (the default), just like before, or by hotness, which encapsulates the stats for views, comments and ratings.
  • Filter controls for content sources are now available by default.
  • Drop down menus take you right to the content pages for leagues, conferences and teams.
  • Other small layout changes: a wider center column, and a cleaner design for information to the right.

In addition, we’ve added a couple of other improvements:

• A filter for “Your picks” in your FanFeed. Now you can see all of your Pick ’Em activity at one go, right from the home page.
• Team records and improved standings for baseball (now that the season is underway, natch).

Of course, we always enjoy your feedback, but we’d like it this week in particular to see how our design changes are working out for you. Just hit us up using the Feedback button and let us know what you think. And we thank you for your support.

Until next time,

Your friends at FanFeedr