After experimenting with several different pricing plans over the past year we’ve decided to make GridRoom 100% free again for all users.
Users who signed up for paid accounts have not been billed and will be converted to free, unlimited-usage accounts. Other users will be limited to 3 GB of video storage space with additional storage space granted on request and unlimited downloads. Enjoy!
Occasionally when filming sporting events you'll end up with extra, unwanted video footage you don't want to share using GridRoom. This can happen when you accidentally leave the camera running during play stoppages (or perhaps when someone makes a rude comment about the team or players in range of the camera).
One thing to keep in mind is that GridRoom splits your video into clips every 60 seconds even when you leave the camera running for a longer period of time. But when you really do need to edit video before uploading you can use a free tool with basic editing capabilities such as Windows Movie Maker. Microsoft provides versions for both Windows XP and Vista/Windows 7.
Here is a great tutorial on using the basic editing features of Movie Maker. Once you've removed unwanted footage from your game film, simply choose File > Publish Movie in Movie Maker to generate a new file that can be uploaded with GridRoom. This will bring up the Publish Movie dialog:
Select "This computer" and press Next:
Enter a name for the new video file, select an output folder, and press Next:
Select the More settings radio button, choose "DV-AVI (NTSC)", and press Publish.
This will generate a new AVI file you can upload with the GridRoom uploader.
Writer and ESPN columnist Gregg Easterbrook discussed GridRoom today in his Tuesday Morning Quarterback column. Easterbrook was complimentary of our product but seems concerned that serious opponent scouting makes youth football too competitive. Easterbrook says:
This progression of technology has led to GridRoom, a film-exchange site for youth-league teams. GridRoom has great tech, making it simple and convenient for youth coaches, down to the ankle-biter level, to post and study footage. The site probably will be useful, too, to small schools with limited budgets. But do we really want football obsession to get so bad that youth-league coaches are up late at night looking for a weakness in the coverage schemes of a team of fifth-graders? Technology isn't judgmental; it just makes things possible -- and what's now becoming possible is youth-league film study.
We appreciate the fact that Easterbrook mentioned GridRoom. But GridRoom's main benefit is not scouting other youth football teams. Sure, you can use GridRoom for opponent scouting and plenty of youth coaches do scout and exchange game film with their opponents. Indeed, some youth football gurus--such as John T. Reed--believe you can't be a competent football coach at any level without doing this.
Our goal in designing GridRoom was to create a film sharing and review product so easy and affordable that even youth football teams could use it. We hope football teams from youth through high school will also find GridRoom useful, and we expect teams will use GridRoom in different ways and to varying degrees depending on their sport and competition level.
The first benefit in using GridRoom is sharing and reviewing your own game films. You can choose to share with just other coaches on your own team or include parents and players. Many teams do this already by swapping DVDs, but parents and players are usually cut out of the process. This is too bad since players especially love being able to watch and replay their own games (and that's aside from the coaching benefit of players seeing what they did right or wrong). Another great thing about using GridRoom to share with your whole team is the ability to call out and highlight the positive and essential work done by linemen and blockers that is often invisible from the stands.
Of course, once you're using GridRoom for reviewing your own game films, it's an easy next step to using GridRoom for opponent film swaps and scouting. Heck, we hope people do use GridRoom for film swaps because it exposes the product to more potential users. But that certainly doesn't mean we want or expect youth football coaches to become obsessive about opponent scouting!
Our first release of September went live last night. This one has more nuts-and-bolts improvements than whiz-bang features, but it does include some important usability changes--and the ability to setup paid accounts as we transition from beta mode to full production mode. Here are the highlights:
Redesigned account setup flow - One usability problem in the past has been caused by the fact that about 80% of our user accounts were created automatically when an existing user shared a video. The problem was that these automatically created users weren't presented with the opportunity to customize their account type and actual name when they activated their accounts. So when they actually did anything (such as uploading videos, sharing, adding notes, etc.) we could only display their email addresses. This made it hard for other users to figure out who was doing what with their shared videos. The big change here is to flip everything around so we start with just the email address for all users. Now everything else gets configured when users actually activate their account and everyone is led through the same activation and setup steps.
Here's the new account activation screen: 
Redesigned account info screen - This is a pretty simple set of screens. We don't store much information about users, and billing is tracked and handled through Amazon Payments. We cleaned things up a bit and turned on the billing configuration functions.
Actual pricing plans - Previously all users were automatically setup with free, unlimited accounts for beta testing. Now there are two choices:
We also gave our beta testers a nice bonus feature: a special account type that gives them free, unlimited use of GridRoom forever!
We've updated our "Introducing GridRoom" video with all the recent new features. Check it out:
I recently discovered a sugar-free electrolyte-enhanced sports drink called Nuun. It comes only in tablet form so it's easy to transport. Simply drop a tablet into 16oz of water and voilà--you have a sugar free solution that keeps you hydrated. With a variety of flavors, there's one to please all taste buds. If you don't like the extra sugar and calories found in most sports drinks give this a try. It's awesome!
