College Basketball: Digital Pac-10 Preview, #4 California

Welcome back to our journey through the Pac-10, from a digital point of view.

This is where it heats up. The Final 4 (of the Pac-10) in the battle for best digital program.

o far our journey through the conference has shown us #10 USC , #9 Arizona State, and #8 Arizona, #7 Oregon State, #6 Washington State, and #5 UCLA. Let's keep moving...

#4 California

The Digital Scouting Report

Strengths: Good pieces in place - a recruits tab, basketball blog, and athletics department photo gallery and twitter feed.

Weaknesses: Limited depth and excitement once you hit the basketball page. (Which many people might do quickly!). Not much photography or video content.

Full Scouting Report:
I was pretty pumped to look at Cal. I remember feeling excited about that program when Jason Kidd was leading them to the dance. (What a fun team that was!) So with that vision in my mind, I clicked into the Cal athletics site, here. I was quickly hit with some pretty bold navigation. Naturally the two on the far right draw my attention quickly. I click on Multimedia first...



And have to say this isn't what I was hoping for. You can see below - never a good thing when you are hit with a request to buy something you weren't expecting to buy. While live broadcasts of games might be cool, that's not what I was after. I backed out.

The For Recruits section isn't really anything amazing in and of itself either. It is informative, it does tell you a bit about the school, and it does imply the importance of academics at Cal. But it does not give you any personal feeling that an aspiring student-athlete should get. In fact, it really isn't much different than what I'd expect to see on the Cal Academics site.


But things turn around quickly. Hitting back to the athletics home page and scrolling down a bit delivers this image. (Cue harp music!)



I clicked in. NICE! You see a little handy guide to where you can go and follow the program. This is an extra step but it feels... nice.


First, here's the Cal Athletics Facebook page. As you can tell, they do a nice job of breaking news and updates in this space.


Next, YouTube. Here's the link to check it for yourself. It is worth it. But if you just like looking at pretty pictures, stay with me.


I clicked into the Playlists. As you'll see below, there are playlists by sport (and for the band), that allow you to really dive in where you want to.


Naturally, I clicked into the basketball playlist (image below). This is great content, and it allows you to subscribe to receive new Hoops videos when they break. Nicely done!



OK, and finally on to Twitter. Here's a link to the Cal Athletics Twitter page, with a bit north of 900 followers. They are updating this fairly regularly, and are covering all sports.



While I was disappointed to see no coaches were up on Twitter, I was pretty pumped to notice (by looking at the boxes of following in the Cal Athletics Twitter page) there is a Cal Video Twitter site (image below and link here). Why am I excited about a Twitter site with (at type time) only 80 followers? It's about potential. And I fully expect to see the Cal Video team leverage this in season to deliver videos for the Hoops Squad. I'm a follower now.



So I turned my attention at last to the Basketball section. (Image below). I liked seeing the Cal Highlights auto play in that video player on the right hand side of the page.


Beyond this though, there really wasn't a lot of great information on the program. Clicking on Cal players in the Pros was pretty disappointing. It's nice that the info is here, but to link out to a search on ESPN's NBA page left me very underwhelmed. I feel they miss the opportunity to tell a story. And for that story to reinforce who the Cal Bears are as a program...


Which is where I'll end this. The athletics department as a whole has set up a really nice experience, but what's missing is that explanation of what it means to be a Cal Bear. And a way to stay in touch or connect with the current program, via a blog or submit a question or Twitter site.

Tune in tomorrow and we'll move to #3 in the Pac-10!

Andy