New and Improved

On Monday, I gave a presentation to my Reinventing the News class on a website that has hopped on the new media trend and improved itself from a bare bones operation to a comprehensive site for all the latest sports news, scores, commentaries, videos, audio clips, and analysis.

That website is WEEI.com, the official website of Boston's most successful sports talk radio station. WEEI is continuing a trend I've noticed among sports radio stations (and news stations) throughout the country. That trend is supplementing its over the air content with online content. Sports Radio 610 in Houston, the radio station I interned for over the summer, is doing the same thing with its website.

The first thing I noticed about WEEI.com was how they've assembled a talented team of columnists and writers for the site- a few of which were lured from notable newspapers in the area. Writers like Michael Felger and Rob Bradford provide excellent commentaries for the site, in addition to writers like Will Leitch (of deadspin.com fame) and Alex Speier.

There are also a multitude of blogs on the website, each one tailored to a specific topic. For example, the baseball winter meetings are currently being blogged by Bradford and Speier, as they give readers up to date information on this marquee off season event for baseball. The site recently added Curt Schilling to its line up of bloggers.

Readers can subscribe to WEEI's RSS feed to get breaking information on the area's teams.

The new WEEI.com also goes beyond written words. After all, it is a radio station, so archives of interviews, commentaries, and important discussions are available for listeners on the site. From a video perspective, visitors can find videos on things such as Celtics post game reports.

If all that isn't enough for you, WEEI has set up a page for each local sports team that contains that team's headlines, statistics, other pertinent information, and WEEI commentaries. These pages basically eliminate the need for anyone to go to ESPN.com or other outlets for team news.

There are also a few other cool features on the site like being able to sign up to get updates sent to your cell phone and the ability to listen to the station via a stream.

WEEI.com is certainly a great site for anyone looking for Boston sports news. Anything you would possibly need is right there. With a site like this, some may wonder whether or not a site like the Boston Globe's sports section is necessary, but I think other sites will remain relevant because people always like to get different perspectives when it comes to sports. What's being reported or said at the Globe or another outlet isn't necessarily the same thing being reported or said at WEEI.com.