#pickup games

[ohthesass]

If you live in Atlanta come play at Five Points tonight 👌👌

[npr]

In 1982, when I washed up on NPR's doorstep looking for a job, I started a pickup basketball game. It endures to this day. That's right, we are in our 33rd season, which makes me too old to still be playing ... and yet, somehow, I still am.

Every Wednesday night over the decades, a group of guys — including an array of NPR staffers — has come together to run full court in a rented gym. We've had journalists, carpenters, doctors, locksmiths, IT guys, military guys, lawyers, and at least one top White House staffer ... this is D.C. after all. Often, we know little about each other's personal lives and would never recognize each other with long pants on.

One of the almost-originals is Bernard Ohanian, who characterizes the game this way:

"When it's really clicking, it's like a jazz symphony," he says. "And most of the time, it's like a bad garage band."

Friendships And Fractures: 30 Years Of Pickup Basketball

Photos: Niki Walker/NPR

[playwithapp]

Think Outside The Gym For Fitness: Pick-up Sports

Many of us think of the gym when we think of fitness. We imagine ourselves running on a treadmill or hitting the weight machines. There are many different ways to get fit at the gym, but the common result is that after a short period of time we get bored and stop going. This is a waste of time and money and doesn’t improve your fitness.

The simple fact is, the more that fitness is integrated into our lives, the more fit we will be. Fitness should be something we do off and on throughout the day instead of something we force ourselves to do in one big block of time in the gym. Studies have shown that the more time we spend sitting, the worse our fitness, even if we exercise hard after work.

Fitness should be fun. There are many ways to get fit and stay fit. Studies have also shown that people who genuinely enjoy their fitness activities stay with it longer and get more fit than people who are forcing themselves to do the workouts. This is one reason why pickup games are a great choice for fitness.

As children, it is pretty common to spontaneously start a game. Many of us have memories of playground games of kickball or baseball, or neighborhood games of soccer. Go to a playground or field on the weekend and you’re likely to find a group of kids running around playing a pickup game of some sort or another.

Sometimes as adults, starting a game seems a bit harder. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are many adults that like to play games and would enjoy participating in pickup games. The best thing you can do is ask. Alternatively, you can post messages on community message boards seeking players for regular pickup games of the sport you enjoy most.

Pickup games offer a way to get your activity up without it feeling like work. When you play a pickup game, the focus is on playing well and winning instead of meeting your target heart rate or counting the minutes that you are exercising. When you don’t feel like you’re working, you work out longer and harder.

By making your goal to improve your game, you will find that your fitness level improves as well. For example, if you commit to a regular pickup game of basketball, you might find yourself doing running exercises to improve your cardiovascular fitness and endurance or shooting drills to improve your skills overall.

Pickup games offer an alternative to traditional gym based workouts. When you start playing pickup games, you will find that you’re enjoying yourself more than you did in the gym and your fitness will improve.

[supafuh]

Tous ces clichés sur les joueurs de playground m'ont rappelé des souvenirs ! Cependant, pour être tout à fait exact, en France il faut remplacer le Footballeur américain par un Handballeur !

[idowhatidosodoyou]

Rugby. Please. 

[pug-io]

I tightened up the pug proposal and reply forms to be more predictive (and expected) on in-game names. I turned off free-text in-game name on repeated replies to prevent someone from having conversations with self under different names. I touched up the text in the pug activity reply.

I still want free-text in-game names to support privacy and flexibility. It's non-trivial. pug.io separates in-game names from real names, and that's an important feature.

[pug-io]

Colin suggested open graph meta tags, to support clean facebook preview. Deployed.

[pug-io]

pug.io plan

Brand:

very short URLs viewable by anyone with link

progressive signup and profile creation

interaction before visuals before friction i.e. minimal friction and launch features before pixel-perfect

forever free. ads are okay.

Regarding progressive signup and profile creation:

fast oauth to existing service

learn games and in-game names (ign) on-the-fly

learn gaming network based on pug views / RSVPs

Marketing plan:

share PUG links with my friends and see what happens

top priorities: in-app invitation features and notifications, several more iterations to reduce friction, and before too long (if there's any usage) internationalization/localization

focus on word-of-mouth among people who find it useful

make pug.io work well as a status message when away in-game

(written April 16, revised for formatting and "top priorities")