Flo redesign

[y2jriden]

Has anyone used flo much since the redesign a few days ago. It’s much harder to search for videos now. I can’t even find a videos tab like it used to have. I usually watch tournaments live but then fall behind but catch back up by finding the matches in the videos section. It doesn’t appear to have a way to do that. Anyone have a way to search for completed match videos of current events?

I found that you can search for old events and then find matches from those events but I can’t find a way to do it for current events.

 

[Law-Deezie]

Agree, I don’t like it either. It’ll definitely take some getting used to...

 

[y2jriden]

I found floarena finally. You can see matches videos on the brackets as you could before but that also shows the result

 

[ItalianLion]

Not so sure that I am a fan of the update yet either... and I cannot get it to work anymore on "classic" IE...

Also, I wish the whole match was archived for replay like BTN2Go, but I am sure the server space that would take up would be cost inefficient when they prefer to separate matches for easier recall for individual bouts.

All that said, I'll be patient and see how it goes... as I am eternally grateful to these companies who are trying to fill a niche for those of us who love wrestling.

(Sadly, I remember all too well the dark, pre-internet days when those of us outside of central PA were doomed to ignorance..)

 

[smalls103]

which full match are you looking for ?

 

[Gray52]

Every time they update... it’s like “hey, let’s make it harder to navigate.”

 

[rmg78]

which full match are you looking for ?

I am still trying to find the Wyoming/Nebraska match.

 

[ItalianLion]

which full match are you looking for ?

Hi Willie, I was looking for the SDSU v Minn match last night, but could only find the individual matches under the video recap. I was still able to watch, just bout by bout. Thanks for all you and the Flo team do!

 

[a_mshaffer]

Hey Willie - flo arena misspelled Clearfield in the Clearfield fall brawl...(forgot the 'r')

 

[dbldoofus]

Every time they update... it’s like “hey, let’s make it harder to navigate.”

Almost all redesigns are like this. It’s as if these companies have no idea how people use their sites and the redesign was spearheaded by a programmer, not a UI expert.

 

[pish69]

It’s horrible on iPhone

 

[Needanap]

It’s horrible on iPhone

Horrible may be generous.

 

[PapaBearSLIM]

which full match are you looking for ?

The matches from Nebraska/Wyoming yesterday.

 

[jammenz]

which full match are you looking for ?

MN-SDS, and NE-WY. I understand that listing just individual matches produces 10 clicks per visitor which is better for advertising rates, but could the videos at least continue on to the next match. Mine kept switching back to "Bono showing leg riding defense".

 

[PapaBearSLIM]

Every time they update... it’s like “hey, let’s make it harder to navigate.”

Like most things when you master it the level of difficulty should be turned up. Challenge yourself man.

 

[johnstownsteel]

It’s horrible on iPhone

I’ll agree...unless it’s me and technology is just simply kicking my ass. I backed out of the site entirely, googled FloArena to find what I was looking for. It think it was my final option..

 

[Used2BEerie]

I’ll agree...unless it’s me and technology is just simply kicking my ass. I backed out of the site entirely, googled FloArena to find what I was looking for. It think it was my final option..

Not just you. I finally found arena by randomly hitting buttons. Hint: it’s under the chevron in the upper right.

 

[pish69]

which full match are you looking for ?

Could you PLEASE explain how to navigate your new site? I cannot find any videos or old matches. If I wanted to watch Penn State vs Army, where do I go?

There is no video tab on main screen. As others have mentioned above they are looking for older matches. I can't even find the individual matches from those duals.

I don't understand why you would make such a design change and not have some simple navigation FAQ listed somewhere

 

[ItalianLion]

Could you PLEASE explain how to navigate your new site? I cannot find any videos or old matches. If I wanted to watch Penn State vs Army, where do I go?

There is no video tab on main screen. As others have mentioned above they are looking for older matches. I can't even find the individual matches from those duals.

I don't understand why you would make such a design change and not have some simple navigation FAQ listed somewhere

Pish, The key nomenclature to keep in mind is “Events”... all matches/competitions are called “Events” and are accessible from the homepage via the menu bar, or the left hand column.

Once in Events, you immediately see the “Events for today”... if you continue scrolling down, you’ll see a tab for “Completed Events”... clicking this gets you to the treasure trove of Flo’s content: articles & videos for that match.

It’s actually pretty easy to navigate once you understand the key nomenclature of “Events”... not sure it’s the way I would have designed, but that is probably a good thing given how twisted my mind works at times!

Happy Surfing!

 

[pish69]

Pish, The key nomenclature to keep in mind is “Events”... all matches/competitions are called “Events” and are accessible from the homepage via the menu bar, or the left hand column.

Once in Events, you immediately see the “Events for today”... if you continue scrolling down, you’ll see a tab for “Completed Events”... clicking this gets you to the treasure trove of Flo’s content: articles & videos for that match.

It’s actually pretty easy to navigate once you understand the key nomenclature of “Events”... not sure it’s the way I would have designed, but that is probably a good thing given how twisted my mind works at times!

Happy Surfing!

Thank You! BY the way..I had to google "nomenclature." I never heard that word.. Google definition is "the devising or choosing of names for things especially in science or other discipline"

Learn something new everyday!

 

[Gray52]

For the love of God... somebody please explain how to find FLO ARENA!!!! Unbelievable. Charge more to get less!

 

[johnstownsteel]

For the love of God... somebody please explain how to find FLO ARENA!!!! Unbelievable. Charge more to get less!

http://arena.flowrestling.org/

 

[smalls103]

Yes - what Italian Lion said.

Events --> Completed
here is Army v PSU

for all the Arena questions - Is "Arena" not in the nav bar (at the very top of the page) for some of you? it should be.

 

[ItalianLion]

Yes - what Italian Lion said.

Events --> Completed
here is Army v PSU

for all the Arena questions - Is "Arena" not in the nav bar (at the very top of the page) for some of you? it should be.

Willie, “Arena” is in the nav bar for desktop and iPad, but it does not appear in iPhone.

 

[tikk10]

Here's Flo Arena since about 10:05 am EST:

Upcoming and results are available, but present matches nowhere to be found.

 

[pish69]

Willie, “Arena” is in the nav bar for desktop and iPad, but it does not appear in iPhone.

On iPhone you have to hit the little down arrow next to results. You can then pull up arena from there.

Like tikk said. There are no matches there but you can see upcoming bouts

 

[johnstownsteel]

Yes - what Italian Lion said.

Events --> Completed
here is Army v PSU

for all the Arena questions - Is "Arena" not in the nav bar (at the very top of the page) for some of you? it should be.

It isn’t for me. I’m on an IPhone and using safari. Not great with technology so not sure if that matters or not.

 

[johnstownsteel]

Willie, “Arena” is in the nav bar for desktop and iPad, but it does not appear in iPhone.

Ahhh...I got it now! For me there was no arrow next to the results tab but then I tilted the phone to view sideways and it was there with the expanded screen. Appreciate everyone’s help!

 

[CropDuster507]

While I didn't know a redesign was coming and it caught me off-guard, it really isn't that difficult to navigate.

Like 90% of websites all function the same, nowadays, anyway.

 

[Gray52]

Here's Flo Arena since about 10:05 am EST:

Upcoming and results are available, but present matches nowhere to be found.

Ok... so typical Flo malfunction rather than my inability to find I️t. Thanks.

 

[Afw6006]

Seems Flo is again investing in the wrong areas. Flo Arena didn't' work for the Keystone Classic, they didn't get the scoreboard going until the 3rd match of the finals, seeing on twitter that their stream for the OKST vs MN match isn't working. Maybe spend less time on making your website look better/more navigable and invest in making sure you can produce your product.

 

[dicemen99]

Seems Flo is again investing in the wrong areas. Flo Arena didn't' work for the Keystone Classic, they didn't get the scoreboard going until the 3rd match of the finals, seeing on twitter that their stream for the OKST vs MN match isn't working. Maybe spend less time on making your website look better/more navigable and invest in making sure you can produce your product.

These posts seriously rankle me.

No clue why Arena was not up for Keystone, but could have been totally on the tournament rather than Flo. The fact that they didn't get the scoreboard working until the 3rd match of the finals, suggests to me that FLO was adding it's own scoreboard to their video rather than integrating it with the tournament software, which could also explain why the Arena wasn't used, which would be on the tournament then. But unsure unless I was there working behind the scenes.

FLO's streams are friggin' great now. I have not had an issue with a single FLO stream since the PSU-OSU fiasco, which was caused by an unexpected overwhelming demand, so hopefully that is in the past. Compare this to a few years ago and we are night and day. Get a friggin ROKU for $39 to make everything easy as pie and stop blaming the glitches that show up when your internet slows down on FLO!

Also compare this to what Track is putting out in regards to streams which is where FLO was a year or two ago. Yesterday, I was unable to head up to Ithaca to watch the NYS Invitational, so I purchase it through Track. My guy is first up on mat 4. Most of the streams are working, but guess which mat is down. Mat 4. Miss the first match. 2nd match is fine. 3rd match is the match of the tourney for him, he's got Tucker from Cornell on mat 1. Guess which mat stream is down now. Yup, mat 1. Miss the match.

On both occasions, I emailed track to let them know the problem, nicely state that I'm not getting what I paid for and ask for a refund. I could care less about the $13 but it is the principal. Both times I get a reply from the Track tech support (which is great) acknowledging the problem but then telling me when they got it fixed and telling me I can view the archived footage which is up. Which is not what I paid for, I wanted to watch it live, I can get what happened in the match from him and he can send me HIS video of it if I really want to watch. I told them that I understand it is out of their control because I run a tournament that is streamed, but I just want a refund. As of now no refund.

Now, I am not really meaning to blast Track here either. Because I know what goes into making these events live, and the problem 100% was on the tournament operators. I know this because Track does not send any production people out, everything is on the tournament to operate. And these guys screw up. Track DOES have great technical support and training though. FLO operates differently and sends a production team out. So I would expect there will be less glitches.

I know Justin of Track through email and some phone conversations, so I'm fairly sure I'm going to get my $13 refunded, but just using this as an example of what can go wrong and, again, I'm 100% sure that it wasn't on Track's end.

We are not dealing with NBC or ESPN in terms of resources yet. FLO has more resources and their product is better right now IMO because of it, but we are still going to see flaws from time to time, mostly because they depend on the tournaments to provide a piece of the production in terms of manpower. Track even more so because they are entirely relying on the tournament to provide the manpower for production. Every year we are getting better service from them and the fact that their are two entities competing now will only bring it to us even quicker.

My main issue here is that people complain about this when they really don't have any idea what they are complaining about. A hypothetical (purely, I have no clue what happened yesterday) - the Arena went out yesterday because the tournament workers were having trouble at the tables with it (weren't trained properly) and the TD pulled the plug and said screw this, we are just going to enter results at the head table and let our guys worry about running the clocks and keeping score like they use to. Not a clue that this happened, but it is entirely in the realm of possibility and really is probably a responsible action on the TD's part if he sees that perhaps the tournament bit off more than they can chew this year. Now would you still be complaining about FLO and their poor service if you were aware that this is what happened? Again, just a hypothetical, but a very realistic one given my experience with wrestling tournaments.

 

[dicemen99]

I will add another thing to my above rant.

Because the two services we have servicing the wrestling community are what I call "content driven" at this time we are going to experience production problems. What I mean by this is that they are interested in covering as much content as possible, even if the production set-up is less than ideal. Good for us in that we get more content than if a large media outlet was making the decisions, but bad for us in terms of production glitches.

To get rid of these glitches, the coverage will become more "production driven" (again, my term, and I don't work in media so I don't know if they have a better way to explain it). That is, the event won't be covered unless they have the ability to produce it to whatever production standards they have set internally. I can tell you that this is already happening at FLO and likely because of the outside money that they have brought in. Escape the Rock was an unfortunate victim of this last year, due to some internal changes that happened and some equipment issues, FLO was unwilling to stream the event last year. I don't want to make FLO out to be the bad guys in this case, it was an unfortunate turn of events of which their wrestling team had no control over and it has been rectified this year. But this is what will happen. You will get better production but you will be able to see less events. So be careful what you wish for. Right now the amount of events being streamed is incredible. A real treasure for the wrestling fan. With it, you have to expect some glitches.

I don't work in media so it is entirely possible that some of the above may not be 100% accurate, but I do have more than your average layman's knowledge on what makes these things happen. And this is my decidedly average layman's plus take on this. Perhaps Willie @smalls103 can weigh in and provide some more insight.

 

[Greco Gilligan]

Great post Dicemen99.

 

[y2jriden]

I have not had an issue with a single FLO stream since the PSU-OSU fiasco, which was caused by an unexpected overwhelming demand, so hopefully that is in the past.

We are not dealing with NBC or ESPN in terms of resources yet.

It's a matter of perspective. It depends what you are comparing Flo to.

1. Flo compared to being able to see nothing
2. Flo compared to comparable wrestling streaming sites
3. Flo compared other streaming websites.
4. Flo compared to NBC or ESPN (as you said)

For #1, obviously it's better than nothing. But then again, we are paying them 30 a month or 150 a year so they aren't without responsibility when it comes to problems.

#2. I agree, they are the best wrestling stream site.

#3. Do they compare to Netflix or Amazon, no. Fair comparison? I don't know, but I'm paying more for Flo than I do with either Netflix or Amazon and Netflix and Amazon can handle far higher loads than the audience size of PSU/OSU.

#4. This is an unfair comparison but they put themselves in this position by not allowing NBCSN to air PSU/OSU. You can't claim exclusive rights and then not delivery a comparable product. In this case, no product. You say that it was unexpected but they had a massive ad campaign to get people to sign up to see the Dual of the Year. Had NBCSN shown it, does anyone think that technical issues would have been issue. Obviously not. They bit off more than they could chew there and you can't ignore it and just fall back to my #1. "Oh, well I missed OSU/PSU but I wouldn't have seen it before anyway". That's both ludicrous and false(NBCSN was going to air it).

Now, all of that being said, I have had Flo this year for the first time (not counting the dual which led me to cancelling). I've been nothing but happy with it. I watched Super 32, thought it was great. I love the way they archive things quickly so if you missed something you can watch it and then catch back up. Watched Keystone all day yesterday, live at times, archives at times, no problems all day. However, right when I was about to come here and post about that, the finals weren't archived last night. So I watched Cutch wrestle for 3rd thinking I'd just watch Bo, Cassar and Nick in the archives and I still haven't seen Bo, Cassar and Nick. I should have just made the decision to skip only Bo and watch the others live but I thought they'd get them up fast enough that I could watch them in order.

 

[dicemen99]

It's a matter of perspective. It depends what you are comparing Flo to.

1. Flo compared to being able to see nothing
2. Flo compared to comparable wrestling streaming sites
3. Flo compared other streaming websites.
4. Flo compared to NBC or ESPN (as you said)

For #1, obviously it's better than nothing. But then again, we are paying them 30 a month or 150 a year so they aren't without responsibility when it comes to problems.

#2. I agree, they are the best wrestling stream site.

#3. Do they compare to Netflix or Amazon, no. Fair comparison? I don't know, but I'm paying more for Flo than I do with either Netflix or Amazon and Netflix and Amazon can handle far higher loads than the audience size of PSU/OSU.

#4. This is an unfair comparison but they put themselves in this position by not allowing NBCSN to air PSU/OSU. You can't claim exclusive rights and then not delivery a comparable product. In this case, no product. You say that it was unexpected but they had a massive ad campaign to get people to sign up to see the Dual of the Year. Had NBCSN shown it, does anyone think that technical issues would have been issue. Obviously not. They bit off more than they could chew there and you can't ignore it and just fall back to my #1. "Oh, well I missed OSU/PSU but I wouldn't have seen it before anyway". That's both ludicrous and false(NBCSN was going to air it).

Now, all of that being said, I have had Flo this year for the first time (not counting the dual which led me to cancelling). I've been nothing but happy with it. I watched Super 32, thought it was great. I love the way they archive things quickly so if you missed something you can watch it and then catch back up. Watched Keystone all day yesterday, live at times, archives at times, no problems all day. However, right when I was about to come here and post about that, the finals weren't archived last night. So I watched Cutch wrestle for 3rd thinking I'd just watch Bo, Cassar and Nick in the archives and I still haven't seen Bo, Cassar and Nick. I should have just made the decision to skip only Bo and watch the others live but I thought they'd get them up fast enough that I could watch them in order.

#3 - not comparable. Netflix and Amazon are not streaming live events. They are streaming content produced and packaged and then made available. Comparable to the FLO documentaries, technique clips, etc. I have yet to hear a complaint about them. You may say Amazon is now streaming a live event in Thursday Night Football, but they are taking the NFL network production and streaming it. If the NFL network f's up then Amazon will be f'd up that night. Just like if the BTN network f's up their wrestling coverage this year, FLO will have f'd up coverage of those events.

#4 If you are going to base your criticism on the PSU-OSU dual only I agree. They f'd up badly. I noted that and also noted they have not had an issue since. I did not get on people complaining about the PSU-OSU fiasco. If you purchased FLO for PSU-OSU as a one off you should be angry. You did not get what you paid for. My post is directed to people constantly complaining about the live streams of events currently. What you basically have can be a myriad of issues, most of which have nothing to do with the FLO production, but people put them in a big bag labelled "FLO F'S UP AGAIN."

 

[y2jriden]

#3 - not comparable. Netflix and Amazon are not streaming live events. They are streaming content produced and packaged and then made available. Comparable to the FLO documentaries, technique clips, etc. I have yet to hear a complaint about them. You may say Amazon is now streaming a live event in Thursday Night Football, but they are taking the NFL network production and streaming it. If the NFL network f's up then Amazon will be f'd up that night. Just like if the BTN network f's up their wrestling coverage this year, FLO will have f'd up coverage of those events.

#4 If you are going to base your criticism on the PSU-OSU dual only I agree. They f'd up badly. I noted that and also noted they have not had an issue since. I did not get on people complaining about the PSU-OSU fiasco. If you purchased FLO for PSU-OSU as a one off you should be angry. You did not get what you paid for. My post is directed to people constantly complaining about the live streams of events currently. What you basically have can be a myriad of issues, most of which have nothing to do with the FLO production, but people put them in a big bag labelled "FLO F'S UP AGAIN."

I was going to respond with more but I don't want to haggle over details, if you separate the "FIASCO" out from the day-to-day normal FLO activity, then I pretty much agree with what you're saying.

I love the idea of FLO and I think they are getting light years better. They still have issues but is it worst 150 a year to me, no doubt.

 

[dicemen99]

I was going to respond with more but I don't want to haggle over details, if you separate the "FIASCO" out from the day-to-day normal FLO activity, then I pretty much agree with what you're saying.

I love the idea of FLO and I think they are getting light years better. They still have issues but is it worst 150 a year to me, no doubt.

Agree. And that is what I'm doing separating the FIASCO from everything else. The FIASCO was a big f up that will hopefully not be repeated. If it is, I'll rethink my position.

 

[dunkej01]

Flo would be on better footing on the message boards if so many people werent b!tching all the time about the back office/billing issues.

The holiday parties between the talent/content people and the worker bees has got to be interesting.

 

[PSU22]

While I am by and large a big fan of Flo they have some serious blindspots to issues that don't go away. The billing/subscribing/cancelling issue is one. Another one, one that is so very simple I'm surprised it doesn't come up more, is the user experience of their rankings.

Let's say you want to browse D1 college rankings:

Intermat: http://intermatwrestle.com/rankings/college
FloWrestling: https://www.flowrestling.org/rankings

Which is easier to use? Intermat makes their ranking content a priority. Flo's rankings feel like an afterthought, seemingly using a generic blog article template as a landing page that sorts by most recently updated? Problem is their NCAA rankings were updated last week but the page was created over the summer and the CMS only recognizes the creation date so it doesn't even show up on the first page of rankings "results". Cmon Willie/CP if you want your HS rankings to be used you need to make it easy for us to use them!