Update: After saying on Friday morning that Get Your Own Fantasy was just on hiatus while it was being retooled, it looks like Jeff Thomas has reactivated the site, and GYOF is now live again…for now.
At least that is what it looks like. If you attempt to visit GetYourOwnFantasy.com (GYOF) now, you are redirected to Sports Buff. Both sites are owned by Jeff Thomas’ World Fantasy Games which explains the redirect. In addition, the World Fantasy Games footer that is present on its sites is now missing GYOF in it.
The concept behind GYOF was pretty simple: anyone can sign-up and through the miracle of automation, syndication, and the internet, have his very own fantasy site. The site was a repackaging of the fantasy games and content found on Sports Buff, but was a decent start to get a foot in the fantasy industry. For Sports Buff, it was provided an additional opportunity to distribute its content, get new sign-ups for its games, and make additional money in advertising.
Unfortunately, most people looking to get into the fantasy industry want to share their own thoughts or software concepts and are not concerned with distributing someone else’s content. In fact, it is often a frustration with the existing options that leads someone to start their own fantasy sports site. While GYOF provided a platform for aspiring fantasy experts, common content platforms like WordPress are simpler and much more wide-spread.
What do you think? Do you think GYOF died an early death?
3 Comments, Comment or Ping
Jeff Thomas
Hey Derrick – how are you? Great to see you back writing again.
GYOF was a pet project of mine. It’s on a temporary hiatus. GYOF worked with our old Sportsbuff.com template and we need to prioritize and roll it out for our newer template.
The main reason it’s not updated yet is that most of our new development budget and effort has focused on the launch of RapidDraft.com, the first single-user draft style fantasy game in the industry. Hopefully, you’ve played the full season or the weekly game. If not, try promo code = go4it and do a draft this week. USA TODAY and 55 other marketing partners are promoting RapidDraft and user feedback has been excellent.
Happy Holidays, JT
Dec 4th, 2009
Derrick Eckardt
Hey Jeff,
Thanks for clearing up the mystery as to why Get Your Own Fantasy is down, and thanks for providing the promo code.
For those of you keeping score at home, the previous comment was from Jeff Thomas of Sports Buff.
- Derrick
Dec 4th, 2009
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