Fancred, the social networking app for sports fans, released an update today that enables fans to set up detailed profile pages with an album for each team they support. Fancred will even pull related team material fans have posted on community and team pages into appropriate team albums automatically.
Fancred aspires to be the LinkedIn of sports, but instead of tracking professional credentials, it lets users share information about their lives as sports fans. Up until now, users could create a basic profile with their name, avatar and a website, while participating in communities and team feeds, but there was no way to see all of the content they shared in one place. The new version provides a central place for all of the photos, videos, conversations, articles and check-ins each fan has shared, organized by each team they support.
Just as you would expect on a social network, your friends can give your content a thumbs up or thumbs down and you can follow other fans or be followed –and all of this information is tracked in the app.
For example, if you were from Boston, you might have albums for the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins. If you went to college at Kentucky, you might have an album for Kentucky basketball.
These albums act as containers for your thoughts, memories and special fan moments. If you go to a game, you could have pictures of your ticket stub, a selfie of you and your friends at the game and other pictures you took during the event. Or you could include a video of your fellow fans at a sports bar watching your alma mater. Fancred lets you save all of these memories in a single place and share them with like-minded people.
You also can share your thoughts with kindred spirits during the games on your community and team pages and not drive your friends who aren’t interested in sports crazy on Facebook or Twitter.
Fancred CEO Kash Razzaghi says these personalized profiles are meant to enhance the fan experience using the app and add to the communities Fancred users have been contributing to all along. Razzaghi says this is the first step in capturing their entire lives as fans in Fancred.
“If you’re a passionate fan, you’re reading articles and watching videos and we can build this digital scrap album for you, he explained.
Razzaghi said the company is still in the process of building audience, but they are looking ahead at ways to monetize the product and he thinks they can do it in a way that doesn’t abuse their relationship with community members. He sees providing users services such as offering deals on apparel, tickets and memorabilia, things that they care about as fans. He said the company is also looking into partnerships with different teams and leagues to bring exclusive content to the site.