EssentiallySports is an organization that has always taken pride in being a digital-first media house utilizing technology to its fullest. We at ES believe in constantly evolving, and keep pace with the changing times of the Internet. In our pursuit to cater to the American audience better, we have brought in various features along the way, that ensures we are satisfying the needs of our readers. 

The year 2023 was truly momentous and saw a lot of fascinating initiatives being brought into the system – which was positively impacted multiple aspects of our website. One such path-breaking feature was our integration of the ‘Editor’s Pick’, something we covered extensively in the previous edition.

This, though, was not the only new feature that was brought into the workflow. Along the way, there were a few more front-end features we introduced in 2023 – and in this edition, we look to do a rundown here in case you missed on it earlier : 

The Advent of ES Fancast

The pandemic was the time when we saw the growth of podcasts and how people slowly started adopting that media format. Even back in 2022, EssentiallySports was contemplating the idea of venturing into audio podcasts, but we wanted to tread a lesser-traveled path. Thus came about a crown jewel that adorns the very top of our homepage, the “ES Fancast”. 

EssentiallySports had previously identified gaps present in traditional podcasts, and started designing the ES Fancast with its own flavor in mind. The product was developed with a video-first approach, and carried an ethos that the audience should be able to interact with the product actively while listening to the podcast. Thus came the features within the ES Fancast, where you can react, make reels, answer fun trivia questions, polls, and so on. 

While addressing how we continue building the product by adding new features to the existing version based on user feedback, our Tech-Product lead Hitesh Gautam said, “The product of this kind needs to constantly evolve as it is a very new media format for EssentiallySports where we enter into the video content. And to run the whole video production in a remote setup is certainly a great achievement. It is a unique product in the market, and we are also proud that we were the first one to think out of the box.” 

Podcast Breakdown Labelling

The year 2023 also marked the phase where EssentiallySports was experimenting with different content categories. To diversify the portfolio, we came up with a lot of unique approaches to covering content and packing it in a consumable manner for our audience. One such new content type that EssentiallySports experimented with was the “Podcast Breakdown” articles. 

We understood that there was a pain point with podcast content. The younger audience wanted to get to their point of interest within the podcast at the earliest and hence preferred short-form consumable content. Podcast Breakdown articles are the answer to that very pain point. The idea behind this is to break the favorite podcasts into easy, consumable chapters and deliver them to our audience.  

Hitesh shared his thoughts about Podcast Breakdown articles, saying, “It is EssentiallySports’ way of converting a podcast into our well-known written format. This new content type is not that different from a user perspective, but the technical aspects of this article required some work and we could push the relevant feature in a very short time. This content type paves the way for us to better use our in-house research skills and deliver great content to our audience.” 

‘Trending’ Articles Section

There is certainly an unsaid gospel of truth that the world of news revolves around the concept of trends. So it makes all the sense in the world then that the general and hardcore fans alike want to stay on top of things, by keeping themselves up to date about their favorite team or player. In a brainstorm session, EssentiallySports hence came up with a way to ensure that fellow fans know what America is reading RIGHT NOW! This very reader-first nature of the organization led to the genesis of the ‘Trending’ section. 

The general idea behind placing the trending section within the article is to recommend content that is preferred by the United States audience. It is an automated system wherein it uses proprietary in-house analytical tools to understand user behavior, and recommend the overall best articles of EssentiallySports. 

“It is more of a data-centric approach that we use here rather than a product-centric approach. This idea was born out of my conversations with Suryansh and I reassured him that our tech is well-developed enough to roll this out. It took us a week to launch this feature, and we have seen a lot of repeat clicks from this feature,” said Hitesh, as he expressed his thoughts on the ideation of the trending section in the article. 

So if you were ever worried about missing out on any major trends in your favourite sport, fret no more!  

Quick Hits

To say that Quick Hits (QHs) created all the buzz at ES in 2023, would be an understatement. Quick Hits is our humble take of the very popular ‘breaking news’ format, with an emphasis on being among the first media houses to cover a key moment, update or development. This asset is placed right below the ES Fancast and can easily be found on the website homepage. 

The QHs section also has an interesting feature, in that it shows ‘how recently’ an article was published. It lets the reader know the freshness of the content, and encourages them to interact with those articles. The writing team at ES has been continually among the best in terms of articles’ turnaround time, and this Quick Hits culture puts the best use of our contributors’ talents. 

Whilst taking a highly unconventional approach in terms of content packaging, Quick Hits now attempts to continually be the “first source of news” for its millions of loyal readers. 

Author Profiles’ Layout

EssentiallySports always takes pride in its versatile and hard-working workforce, and cherishing every opportunity to celebrate our people. While we believe in creating content to cater to our audience, it is also about recognizing the people who work ever so tirelessly behind the scenes. One such move to put our authors in the spotlight, was the revamp of the author byline layout. 

‘Going the extra mile’ is a motto that our authors very well personify, and so it was no different when our Tech-Product team went about this grand effort. After all, in a world where generative AI content is taking over, EssentiallySports takes honor in commemorating the efforts of its authors. 

In its current version, the author profile gives a brief description, which lets the readers relate to the author and their content. It also contains their social media handle links and a preview of all the articles that have been published under their name. With over multiple authors having written thousands of articles for EssentiallySports, this feature also stands as a testament to show the comradery between the writers and editors, as the editor’s name is also highlighted in the article. 

While addressing how the writing team has embraced this feature, Hitesh said, “After the release of this feature, a lot of authors have posted on LinkedIn and they take pride in working in EssentiallySports. I think we have explicitly given that identity to the authors and made them feel at home. It also helps that the fans can recognize and connect with the people who bring about quality content for them to read.” 

While EssentiallySports launched numerous features and digital assets in 2023, these were a few of the highlights that stood out. At the end of the day, any digital feature has to be very dynamic and should reflect the needs and wants of the reader. As we look forward to yet another glorious year in 2024, EssentiallySports will perpetually innovate with the support of its robust Tech-Product team — and bring about features to serve the best content to our readers.