Posts Tagged ‘Courts of the World’

We’re giving away 23 sleeveless shirts among new members

courtsoftheworld.com is entering its fourth month online and even though that in itself is no reason for celebrating, we decided to do it anyway. We gathered all our savings and robbed an old woman of hers so that we could offer you this: Everyone that becomes a member from now on until the 23rd of October and adds at least one new court will automatically participate in the drawing for one of our official courtsoftheworld.com sleeveless shirts.

We’re giving away 23 shirts in total, which are available in black or white and feature high quality prints on front and back. We will contact the lucky few about their color preferences and shirt sizes. So sign up if you‘re new or tell your friends about us if you‘re already a member!

Thanks for the support!

Update (2009-10-28):
The competition is over, the winners have been drawn and will be notified shortly. Thank you all for your active participation! We will publish the winners in a separate article (with some pictures of themselves wearing a shirt, if they send us some).

Damn that cheap server!

Bunsen Honeydew, Web Scientist at COTW.

On monday, we were included in Henry Abbott’s daily bullets on TrueHoop, which led to way more traffic on courtsoftheworld than we usually experience. More people registered, more people added courts. We also got tons of advice on what still needs to be done better, hints what might be missing. And we got a lot of encouragement and positive feedback.

The two most important lessons we took away from this?

1) There is a real need for what we do. That’s why we’re going to go back to the lab, lock ourselves in and work on all your suggestions to get it right.

2) It’s the ballers putting their homecourts on the map and displaying their skills on video who make this site colorful and informative (which we of course knew all along). Giving you even more opportunities to interact and edit information on courtsoftheworld is the next thing on our to-do-list.

So watch out for some big changes coming up. And keep spreading the word!

Along the Sidelines

We are a streetball website. But that doesn’t mean we don’t also enjoy other stuff. And sometimes, it’s the things that happen next to the court that are much more interesting than a game that’s going on. And sometimes it’s things that have nothing to do with basketball at all.

On the Sidelines, we’re going to draw your attention to those things: Background stories on people that have made a living with streetball. Music that should be coming through your headphones on the way to the court. Sneakers that’ll make your eyes hurt (That’s a good thing!).

This is also the place where we will keep you up-to-date on new features at COTW, so make sure to check back often!

"Play? Now? You know, I'd really love to, but my ankle kinda hurts... Guess I better rest it and just enjoy the view for a while. Maybe later."

A True Story

OK, they didn’t exactly invent it. But they somehow initiated this whole thing:

Back in the summer of 2006, my brother (known around here as CG) found himself somewhere in Shanghai, looking for a court where he could check out the local competition. Being abroad – out of your comfort zone and in a place where people talk in riddles – makes things harder than you might imagine. The Chinese, overly polite by nature, nod understandingly even if they have absolutely no clue what the hell you‘re talking about. Any question will be answered with a „Yes“, which is reassuring in a way, but doesn‘t get you an inch closer to a basketball court.

Passenger: "You're 100% sure this is the Emperor's Palace?" Cab Driver: "Yes, yes."

As you can imagine, my brother spent a lot of time in the streets of Shanghai looking for courts, and very little time playing. Back home, he got thinking: Why wasn‘t there a website that told you where to find Streetball courts anywhere in the world? How good the players were? How to get in touch with them? Read the rest of this entry.