Cricinfo
Encyclopedia
ESPNcricinfo is believed to be the largest cricket
-related website on the World Wide Web. Content includes news,articles, live scorecards,live text commentary and a comprehensive and searchable database
called 'StatsGuru', of historical matches and players from the 18th century to the present. On 11 June 2007, ESPN
announced that it had bought Cricinfo from Wisden
group.
with help from students and researchers at universities around the world. It initially operated as a volunteer-based collective, and started life as a simple IRC bot
. It was soon made available via Gopher as well, and with the advent of the Mosaic web browser
in April 1993 became one of the earliest content web sites on the Internet
.
While a company, CricInfo Ltd, was formed in 1996, CricInfo remained essentially a volunteer run operation until late 1999 and was not fully staffed until late 2000. The site was entirely reliant on contributions from avid fans around the world who spent many hours compiling electronic scorecards and contributing them to CricInfo's comprehensive archive, as well as keying in live scores from games around the world using CricInfo's scoring software, "dougie". In 2006, Cricinfo's estimated worth was $150 million.
shares in exchange for a 25 per cent stake in the company (a valuation of around £100 million). It used around $22m worth of the paper to pay off initial investors but only raised about £6 million by selling the remaining stock. While the site continued to attract more and more users and operated on a very low cost base, its income was not enough to support a peak staff of 130 in nine countries, forcing redundancies
.
By late 2002 the company was making a monthly operating profit and was one of very few independent sports sites to avoid collapse (such as Sports.com and Sportal
). However, the business was still servicing a large loan. A merger with the better capitalised The John Wisden Group
(then owned by Sir Paul Getty
) took place, and the company was renamed Wisden Cricinfo. Soon after, the existing wisden.com website was closed and gradually the Wisden brand was also removed from the site. In ten years Cricinfo had effectively established primacy (at least in the electronic sphere) over Wisden, one of the oldest brands in sports publishing.
In June 2007, ESPN Networks announced that they had acquired Cricinfo from Wisden Group, though the brand name and identity would still remain in use. Now known as ESPNcricinfo, the site claims to reach over 20 million users every month.
address or download the ESPNcricinfo toolbar, which allows the user to view the ESPNcricinfo homepage, search the site, go to a country's ESPNcricinfo page, follow live scores, view current and future fixtures, view current and breaking news, view stats, go to ESPNcricinfo games, go to audio pages, view blogs and finally toolbar options. At the start of 2009, the site revamped its RSS: now, there are feeds for all players and officials (55,000+), series (past, present, future), countries, teams, tournaments and more. Examples have been given in mixing and matching common feeds using Yahoo! Pipes
too.
Recently, ESPNcricinfo and Moblica launched a mobile ESPNcricinfo application on the Snaptu application network: here
On 24 February 2010 the ESPNcricinfo website crashed at the moment Sachin Tendulkar
broke the world record for the highest individual score in an ODI, 200*. This might be result from the huge fan base Sachin Tendulkar
has, and the ever rising popularity of ESPNcricinfo as the main website for latest cricket news.
was established, targeted mainly at cricket fans in India. However, the magazine struggled to gain sufficient readership and ceased publication in 2008.
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
-related website on the World Wide Web. Content includes news,articles, live scorecards,live text commentary and a comprehensive and searchable database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
called 'StatsGuru', of historical matches and players from the 18th century to the present. On 11 June 2007, ESPN
ESPN
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....
announced that it had bought Cricinfo from Wisden
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
group.
Conception
ESPNcricinfo (originally CricInfo) was launched in 1993 by Dr. Simon King, a British researcher at the University of MinnesotaUniversity of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
with help from students and researchers at universities around the world. It initially operated as a volunteer-based collective, and started life as a simple IRC bot
IRC bot
thumb|409px|right|An IRC bot performing a simple task.An IRC bot is a set of scripts or an independent program that connects to Internet Relay Chat as a client, and so appears to other IRC users as another user...
. It was soon made available via Gopher as well, and with the advent of the Mosaic web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
in April 1993 became one of the earliest content web sites on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
.
While a company, CricInfo Ltd, was formed in 1996, CricInfo remained essentially a volunteer run operation until late 1999 and was not fully staffed until late 2000. The site was entirely reliant on contributions from avid fans around the world who spent many hours compiling electronic scorecards and contributing them to CricInfo's comprehensive archive, as well as keying in live scores from games around the world using CricInfo's scoring software, "dougie". In 2006, Cricinfo's estimated worth was $150 million.
Growth and success
Cricinfo's significant growth in the 1990s made it an attractive site for investors during the peak of the dotcom boom, and in 2000 it received $37 million worth of Satyam Infoway Ltd.Sify
Sify Technologies Limited is an Internet service provider established in 1998, based in Chennai, India.-Company profile:...
shares in exchange for a 25 per cent stake in the company (a valuation of around £100 million). It used around $22m worth of the paper to pay off initial investors but only raised about £6 million by selling the remaining stock. While the site continued to attract more and more users and operated on a very low cost base, its income was not enough to support a peak staff of 130 in nine countries, forcing redundancies
Layoff
Layoff , also called redundancy in the UK, is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or a group of employees for business reasons, such as when certain positions are no longer necessary or when a business slow-down occurs...
.
By late 2002 the company was making a monthly operating profit and was one of very few independent sports sites to avoid collapse (such as Sports.com and Sportal
Sportal
Sportal was one of the leading companies in the dotcom boom at the end of the 1990s. Founded by Rob Hersov, and backed by BSkyB and Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest among others, the company, originally called Pangolin, voraciously acquired rights to host a plethora of official websites of Europe’s...
). However, the business was still servicing a large loan. A merger with the better capitalised The John Wisden Group
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom...
(then owned by Sir Paul Getty
Paul Getty
Sir John Paul Getty KBE , born Eugene Paul Getty, was a wealthy American-born British philanthropist and book collector. He was the elder son of Jean Paul Getty, Sr...
) took place, and the company was renamed Wisden Cricinfo. Soon after, the existing wisden.com website was closed and gradually the Wisden brand was also removed from the site. In ten years Cricinfo had effectively established primacy (at least in the electronic sphere) over Wisden, one of the oldest brands in sports publishing.
In June 2007, ESPN Networks announced that they had acquired Cricinfo from Wisden Group, though the brand name and identity would still remain in use. Now known as ESPNcricinfo, the site claims to reach over 20 million users every month.
Live scorecards
Arguably the website's most endearing attraction, ESPNcricinfo offers ball-by-ball coverage of all major cricket matches. This coverage is reported from their office in India and it is simply based on live TV coverage available on a sport channel. This is accompanied by a bevy of scorecard options, allowing readers to track such aspects of the game as wagon wheels and partnership breakdowns. For each major cricket match, the live scores are accompanied by a Bulletin, which details the turning points of the match and some of the off-field events. The website is also experimenting with Cricinfo 3D, which creates animations to simulate live matches.News
ESPNcricinfo editors regularly provide news updates, detailing the fitness of players, changing room gossip, etc. News articles are usually accompanied by editorials by the website staff.Blogs
In the ESPNcricinfo blogs section, cricket writers unaffiliated with the website discuss issues within a certain scope. Notable blogs include:Daily features
ESPNcricinfo maintains two daily features. These are:- All Today's Yesterdays- readers can find out about cricketing events that took place on that date in history
- Quote Unquote- ESPNcricinfo editors compile humorous and controversial quotes from cricketers and cricket administrators
Statsguru and records
The Statsguru system, created by Travis Basevi, allows readers to quickly and easily access all manner of cricketing statistics. This has allowed Cricinfo to maintain their extremely extensive Records section, a popular attraction among readers. In addition to the Records section, ESPNcricinfo offers web pages for individual players, officials, and grounds that track their achievements and provide short summaries of their careers. Web pages are also created for every tour and country.Games
ESPNcricinfo maintains a few cricket games, notably Slogout, ESPNcricinfo Fantasy Cricket, and the ESPNcricinfo Quiz.Downloads and feeds
In 2008, ESPNcricinfo installed two new options for readers to receive cricketing news. One can subscribe to the newsletter via an emailEmail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
address or download the ESPNcricinfo toolbar, which allows the user to view the ESPNcricinfo homepage, search the site, go to a country's ESPNcricinfo page, follow live scores, view current and future fixtures, view current and breaking news, view stats, go to ESPNcricinfo games, go to audio pages, view blogs and finally toolbar options. At the start of 2009, the site revamped its RSS: now, there are feeds for all players and officials (55,000+), series (past, present, future), countries, teams, tournaments and more. Examples have been given in mixing and matching common feeds using Yahoo! Pipes
Yahoo! Pipes
Yahoo! Pipes is a web application from Yahoo! that provides a graphical user interface for building data mashups that aggregate web feeds, web pages, and other services, creating Web-based apps from various sources, and publishing those apps...
too.
Recently, ESPNcricinfo and Moblica launched a mobile ESPNcricinfo application on the Snaptu application network: here
On 24 February 2010 the ESPNcricinfo website crashed at the moment Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an Indian cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century maker in Test and one-day international cricket. He is the only male player to score a double century in the history of ODI cricket...
broke the world record for the highest individual score in an ODI, 200*. This might be result from the huge fan base Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Tendulkar
Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar is an Indian cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century maker in Test and one-day international cricket. He is the only male player to score a double century in the history of ODI cricket...
has, and the ever rising popularity of ESPNcricinfo as the main website for latest cricket news.
ESPNcricinfo magazine
In 2006, the Cricinfo MagazineCricinfo Magazine
Cricinfo Magazine was a monthly cricket magazine from January 2006–July 2007. It was published by Cricinfo which is the world's largest cricket website and is owned by ESPN. Its predecessor was Wisden Asia Cricket. While the new magazine has no geographical designation in its name, it was aimed...
was established, targeted mainly at cricket fans in India. However, the magazine struggled to gain sufficient readership and ceased publication in 2008.
External links
- Cricinfo
- Wisden Group
- Cricinfo ups tempo on turning clicks into cash (The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, 16 February 2006) - History of Cricinfo