My Favorite Social Networking Site

Fandemonium

What is the most popular organized team sport on the globe? Here's a hint: it's not baseball. To us 'proud' Americans, this sport is known as soccer. To the rest of the world, it is known as football, aka "footy." And if you're an avid (American) fan like I am, you have to look farther than ESPN.

When the season started this year (most leagues begin toward the end of the summer) I got really excited and went searching for a site that would quench my thirst for goals. There are plenty of sites that list results or review matches, but it is very difficult to find up-to-date video clips from the games. They are not allowed on YouTube, and are pulled immediately.

So I found the the football equivalent (or successor) to YouTube: FootyTube. It is absolute paradise for footy fans like myself. Footy's mission is to create the world's greatest online football community, and if I may say so myself, they've done so with flying colors. Who would've thought that a website based around videos of professional soccer matches could be even more interactive, gratifying and satisfying than facebook? These guys, that's who.

Putting the 'i' in 'Team'

You begin by creating a profile like with any typical website nowadays. After filling out all the usual information, you get to select one club team and one national team that you want to represent you. For instance, I live in the United States, so naturally I chose the US national team. For my favorite club team I chose FC Barcelona, arguably the best football club in the world. (Yes, better than Manchester United) The clubs you choose are the first thing that show up in your profile, preceding even your name! This is important because it will help you determine friend and foe as you gain your 'footing.'

After you've made a profile, you can then customize it by adding a list of all your favorite and least favorite football clubs. They show up as little icons on the left side of your profile, which allow you to go directly to each team's videos with just the click of a button. On the right side of your profile are your stats, or ratings. There are your fan traits, fan valuation, and dream footy. Your dream footy is the British version of fantasy (American) football. Here's how it works:

You are the manager of a football club. You are given a budget to buy players for your team. Players are priced according to their talent, success, and popularity. You will probably only have enough money for a couple really good players, and the rest will all be mediocre. Once you run out of money, you run out of players, so you have to manage your finances.

Your players get points based on their performances in real life. If a player gets hurt in real life and stops playing, he's not going to score any points for you. That would be a good time to substitute him. However, there are only certain points during the season when you are allowed to add and drop players. If you want to upgrade to a better player, you have to make more money. You do this by raising your fan valuation by way of your fan traits. And this is where it gets good.

In order to obtain a good fan valuation, you have to be very social; you have to get noticed. People will judge you not only by the teams you represent, but also the comments you write for the videos, and any messages you post in the forums. Based on these writings, your peers will judge you as being either funny, clever, cool, serious, silly, moody, angry or rude. Whichever trait is chosen the most is what you are labeled. I am currently known for being rude (I may have made some sexist and slightly racist comments in one of the matches for a women's international team). I have 3 rude votes, 2 funny, silly and cool votes, and 1 clever vote. The site then takes your fan traits into account and couples them with all your other activity on the site, and through some incomprehensible mathematical equation comparable only to a credit default swap derivative, decides how much money to give you for your dream team. I currently have $1.2m. That may sound like a lot, but its not. In the high finance world of professional soccer, its much closer to one dollar than one million.

Thank You for Watching. Don't Forget to Write Home.

Any time you watch a video, you can vote on who you thought was the 'man of the match,' and how you felt each team performed. You can then comment on the game and see what other people had to say. If you liked it, you can add that person as a friend. If you didn't like it, you can make them a rival. Just as exciting as watching the games is sharing your passion for the game itself with people all over the world.

FootyTube has a staff of about 12 people. In addition to many other things, they post blogs and new discussions within the forums. This is where the majority of writing takes place on the site. While the writing isn't scholarly, it's certainly better than the drivel on American social networks. Footy may not be a very complicated game, but it is certainly an intellectual one.