Cricinfo has been doing a great job in providing statistics, articles, blogs on the sport for quite some time now. They have established themselves as the leader in
cricket web-sites all over the world. There is enormous amount of information available that can be used for various purposes. What next for the site now? What are the various initiatives that can be introduced? Quite a few:
- Unlock the data - The data that is available within Cricinfo can be made available as xml, xls, csv formats so that bloggers, writers can do further analysis and publish information. Of course, it is available even now but one has to do a lot of data-massaging to get into a spreadsheet or program that can be used for analytics.
- Video highlights - Since ESPN owns Cricinfo and they have tie-ups for various tournaments that happen within the cricketing world, it makes sense to have pages with video highlights. In fact, just like the wicket commentary is displayed on the score-card, the dismissal video can be shown in a similar way. With the success of Youtube in the recent IPL, video highlights (and especially dismissal highlights) will be a big hit if that is shown on the site as well.
- More Social Networking features - The site has interfaced Facebook on its site but it still has a lot way to go. There can be other features like trends, (virtual) gifts/currencies, etc that can be added.
- Yahoo has started a feature by name Yorker (thanks to Prem Panicker, Akash Chopra & other friends) which allows cricket supporters chat on areas of interest. This can be refined further to make it more interesting.
- Monetization - With the number of visitors on the site, it is high time the site made it to their use. Ads are not just enough. There needs to be other features that increase the revene - this is where they can innovate further.
- Fantasy Cricket - Considering the fact that Fantasy Leagues are all over the web-world, the one prevalent in Cricinfo can be further enhanced for increased adoption.
Of course, these are but a few of the features that can be enhanced. A lot more can be done once more inputs from the viewers are considered. What do you think?
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