I was originally going to do a full run-down of NextGame, and some of the cool new stuff I’ve included in the latest update, in a single post… but it started getting lengthy, so I’ve decided to split it into several small parts focusing on specific sections of the site.

Right now NextGame has schedules for more than 700 teams, covering a variety of sports all around the world. The teams index (screenshot below) is organised by ‘league’ so you can hopefully find the team you’re looking for nice and fast. And if by chance the team you’re looking for isn’t listed let us know and we’ll look into what we can do to get it added.

From these listings you can get to the individual team pages (screenshot below) with full schedules for completed and forthcoming games, and in some cases stats. The stats/scores a bit of a bonus feature, I’m not maintaining them for all leagues, and they do occasionally get a little out of date because of the time it takes to keep them up-to-date, but they also aren’t site’s focus (well, not at the moment) NextGame is all about what is happening next, be it tonight, tomorrow or next week.

Each team has their own ‘pretty’ URL so you don’t need to worry about remembering some weird randomly generated id, eg:

• http://nextga.me/team/boston-celtics
• http://nextga.me/team/new-england-patriots
• http://nextga.me/team/sydney-swans

When you sign up (which you should, because it’s quick, easy and FREE) you can also pick you’re favourite teams to ‘follow’. It’s as easy as clicking the ‘Follow’ buttons which you’ll see next to team names on the team index and individual team page pages. Then whenever you login you’ll see all the games your teams are playing right up-front without needing to go digging around numerous pages, or searching through a long list. Super easy. You can also manage the teams you follow from the ‘My Teams’ page (screenshot below). Also be sure to check out the quick video I put together demonstrating the neat way in which you can follow teams directly from this page (or even better, sign-up and try it for yourself).

My Teams Demonstration video.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deanjrobinson/5355980086/

I’ve just rolled out the newest addition to nextgame, located under the “Today” menu item (for the moment anyway – might yet change my mind) you’ll find the “Near Me” page (nearme me page is currently under redevelopment – Jan 21st 2011). What’s it do I hear you ask, well it does two things.

1. It shows all the currently select day’s games on a map, so you can see what’s on and where. Click on the map markers to show what game corresponds to what marker. League logos are used on the markers to give you a quick indication of whats on. When you click on a marker you’ll see something like this.
2. Secondly, if you’re using a compatible browser such as the latest versions of Firefox, Safari or Chrome then the map will also show you’re current location (if you allow it to) so you can quickly see what’s on around you – it doesn’t work so well down here in Australia, but for those of you in Europe or North America the map should light up like a Christmas tree.

As part of this update I’ve gone through and add geo-location (latitude/longitude) data to almost all of the 570+ venues in nextgame – it took a while, but it was worth it.

Updated Teams Index

I only revised this a month ago, but like I said back then it was just a step towards the “better” update. The teams index is now ajaxified – in simple terms you don’t have to wait for the full list of 670+ teams to load, just select the league you’re interested form the menu on the left hand side and you’ll quickly see the related teams. Easy.

Update Leagues Index

Due to the growing number of leagues I’ve got covered on nextgame the league index was getting a bit lengthy, so I’ve revamped the layout. Hopefully its a little clearer (probably still needs a bit more work) with the “current” seasons shown in bold.

Extra optimisation (the boring bits)

I’ve also made a few changes behind the scenes which should help to speed things up a little. Images and other resources are now served from several different sub-domains which allows most browser to load more files at once – more files at once, means quicker loading. Yay. And I’ve moved all the javascripts to the bottom of the page so that they don’t delay the loading. Double yay.

There were probably other bits and pieces that I tinkered with too, but they’re the main ones. Now, back to preparing all those Aussie sports schedules I said I was working on last month.

The new feature that I teased on twitter and dribble in the last couple of weeks is also live. Matchups let you pick two teams and see all game between those two teams. Really handy for leagues where teams meet multiple time throughout the season, such as Major League Baseball. Check out the following examples to see what the matchup pages are like:

• Baltimore Orioles v New York Yankees
• Chicago Cubs v Chicago White Sox
• Philadelphia Phillies v Boston Red Sox

Protip: If you click on the team names at the top of the matchup page you can select a different team or teams to views. As is also the case across the rest of nextgame, you can also click on any team name or venue name in the listings to see just the games for that team or venue.

New Teams index

Due to the ever growing number of teams that we’ve got listed (678 at the moment), I’ve added a menu to the teams index to let you quickly jump to the group that you’re looking for. This is just the first step in making the teams index much more user friendly.

Updated Leagues index

The leagues index is now split into two sections, “active” leagues and “completed” leagues. Its only a small change, but it should avoid any confusion over multiple leagues with the same name, ie. with NBA 2009/2010 and NBA 2010/2011, you’re most likely looking for the 2010/2011 schedule, so you’d look in the active list which is at the top of the page.

New Logo / revised header

Also previewed to dribbble users last week, is the new nextgame shield which you’ll spot in the header on every page. I’ve also simplified the clock, I’ve removed the date and the seconds counter – still undecided if I’ll bring the date back or not, will have to wait and see.

Up next

I’ve got a bunch of Australian sports to start preparing including the new WNBL (Basketball) and ANZ Championship (Netball) seasons, plus the new Super Rugby season (formerly Super 14) and the new Australian Baseball League – so that should keep me busy for a while.

EDIT: Also “fixed” the page titles on all the pages so that they aren’t all just “nextga.me” hopefully that helps a few more people find the site via Google etc. kind of angry with myself that I left the pages titles like that for so long.