Lizard's Rant

Since launching SportsLizard in 2004 there’s been a whole lot of content published.  I’d like to think most of it’s been pretty good, but there are a handful of articles and posts that I consider to be great reads for anyone who is involved in the hobby in any capacity.  I’ve added a “Best of” sidebar to the Lizard’s Rant Blog and to the new Collector’s Voice so to help new readers find these articles and old readers re-discover them.

Here’s the list:

• Pack Searching Experiment (It Should Not be this Easy)
• The Problem with Autograph Authentication
• How to Make a Custom McFarlane
• Blogs - How I Think the Card Industry Will Be Saved
• Tuff Stuff Misses the Point with Autograph Removal Article
• Proof That You Can Impact an Industry

Last week I was interviewed by Mike over at CardScape.net regarding the economy and its impact on card values.  I thought he asked a bunch of good questions on the topic.

Here’s a quick excerpt:

Does a down economy affect card values?
I think it has to. Cards are a commodity item, an unnecessary expense, and when faced with the choice of paying the bills or buying a box of cards, the bills will always win. The hobby has really evolved to rely on the collector who spends their disposable income on cards. We’re talking hundreds of dollars a month, not just a few packs here and there. Those same collectors also drive the secondary market. The ‘hot’ cards in the hobby, generally cost $50 or $100 or more. The demand is there because there’s someone willing to pay that much for a card pulled out of a pack. When those people diminish (as they likely will), values will definitely diminish as well. How much is anyone’s guess.

You can read the full interview over on CardScape.

Thanks again to Mike for the opportunity.  I’m planning on doing a full review of the CardScape software in the coming weeks.

It took a bit longer than I had hoped, but I’m happy to finally announce that the new SportsLizard.com is up and running!  There are so many new features that I’m not exactly sure where to start.  I’m planning a few more detailed posts where I’ll dive in to some of the more not-so-subtle changes, but here is an overview of what’s new:

• New design -  a cleaner, simpler, and more modern look and feel.
• Improved Price Guide -  unlimited searches for free with no account, improved accuracy with our “auto filter” feature, and item images for Premium Accounts so you are 100% sure that the card you have is the same as the one being factored into your price.
• New Collector’s Voice - the best place to read collectibles news, updated hourly with headlines from the best collectibles blogs.  Discover new sites, share articles that aren’t posted, comment on articles, and more.
• Improved Collectibles Search - easier browsing of your favorite teams/players, and search results now include results from eBay and Google Product Search.  The eBay widget is super cool, almost too cool for words.  Take a look at the LaDainian Tomlinson page for a great example.

Check out the new site if you have’t already and let me know what you think in the comments below.

Oh, and thank you to everyone who has emailed and commented over the past few months.  I tried to take everything I heard into account when building the new site.  Also - you may have noticed some prolonged site issues during the transition.  I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.  Everything should be all set now.

I promised to post updates on the planned site overhaul, so I figured I’d share the new logo that was designed over the weekend. I also got a long way on the web design side of things. The site follows the “modern” look of the logo and mimics a stack of sports cards with the information being displayed on various cards. I’ll post photos of that when it’s 100% done, but so far the feedback from my partners has been great. Hopefully all of that will be complete in the next week or so and I can move on to the more fun stuff like actually developing the new features and re-organizing all of the information that’s accrued here over the past four years.

Thanks to everyone who has commented/emailed with ideas and support! I’ll continue to post updates as I go.

I’m happy to announce that SportsLizard has partnered with NAXCOM to help promote their new auctions. As I mentioned the other day, NAXCOM is introducing auctions into their marketplace on November 7th and will finally provide some legit competition with eBay. To help them start off with a bang, NAXCOM is offering a special promotion for SportsLizard visitors:

• Sign up for a NAXCOM account (if you don’t already have one)
• Start buying and selling on NAXCOM auctions starting on November 7th
• Before November 21, email support@sportslizard.com with your NAXCOM account number and a list of purchases (item + how much you paid) you made during the first week of auctions (11/7 - 11/14)
• NAXCOM will deposit $20 into the account of the user who purchased the most, $10 for the second most, and $5 for the third. All three will receive a FREE Upper Deck LeBron James Uncirculated Encased RC - NAXCOM had these cards made exclusively by Upper Deck

We have also reached an agreement giving NAXCOM exclusive advertising rights for the Price Guide - you’ll notice NAXCOM Auctions ads on every single page starting today.

In addition, we also now have a “Proud Partner of NAXCOM” link on the bottom of every page on SportsLizard.com

Now the million dollar question: why align ourselves with NAXCOM? Good question, here’s my answer: we’re very, very careful who we align SportsLizard with, and NAXCOM is one of the few companies in the industry that I/we really respect and feel is doing good for the industry (I think loyal readers can figure out by the process of elimination that the other one is McFarlane).

We’re in a state of crisis with card companies struggling to survive, card shops closing, scams everywhere on the internet, and a dwindling number of collectors supporting the hobby. Some combination of ignorance, selfishness, and stubbornness caused the problems, and it’s going to take innovative companies that care about the hobby to keep it from dying a slow death. NAXCOM is one of the few companies that has the power to truly do that. They have a deep rooted history in the hobby, a strong group of programmers (absolutely necessary to innovate this industry), and the expertise and user base to make a real impact. I’ve dealt with a lot of different companies in web business (both collectibles sites and in other industries for other sites we own) and NAXCOM - in particular VP of Marketing Bill Elder with whom I’ve had many discussions - has been nothing but class. They have a great team in place and I’m really excited to see how NAXCOM Auctions changes the shape of the hobby as we know it.

I often get asked the question “why doesn’t SportsLizard have a forum?” While I believe it would be a nice fit and we have the necessary traffic and user base to support one, my answer is always “because there’s already a lot of great forums out there for collectors”. For a while now, I’ve been searching for the right forum for SportsLizard to align itself with. Today I’m happy to announce that SportsLizard has partnered with Sports Card Freaks. Freaks is one of the most respected card collectors communities on the web, with extremely active buy/sell/trade sections and sports discussion sections.

You’ll notice that there is now a “Sports Card Forum” link on the footer of every page, and that our large home page advertisement is now promoting Freaks. Sports Card Freaks members will notice SportsLizard Ads on the forum, along with special offers for Price Guide accounts. Hopefully as time moves on we’ll integrate the two sites even more.

Today we launched a significant upgrade to our Price Guide, most notably a new feature called “Trends” that enables you to view previous price reports graphically for items saved to your collection. Below is a sample of the trends for a Carson Palmer McFarlane 13 Variant price report, which shows the previous 10 price reports that you’ve done for the particular item:

In addition, we’ve also made the following improvements:

• More accurate results by automatically eliminating extreme outliers from consideration (like $0 priced items)
• Better handling of characters like commas, pound symbols, and quotes
• A cleaner presentation of the “Items” so you can clearly see what each individual item is selling for and identify which items don’t belong
• Links to items in the SportsLizard marketplace. If an item is factored into your price report that is actively for sale in our marketplace, you can click to view and purchase the item
• A new user tutorial that automatically displays the first time you log in

The “Trends” feature is available to premium users only, so we’re extending our free trial period for the rest of June to 14 days for existing subscribers. All you need to do is log in to your account and click the “Upgrade Account” link in the upper-right. Give it a shot - if you don’t like it you can always cancel…even after 13 days to avoid getting charged!

Every month we’re giving away a $100 gift certificate to Authentic Signed Sports. In April and May we gave away the gift certificate to random newsletter subscribers. For both June and July we’re giving the gift certificate to one random subscriber to the SportsLizard Price Guide. You don’t have to sign up for a premium account to enter - just sign up for the free account and you’ll be entered to win.

Each month we’re also going to be upgrading 10 people to lifetime premium subscriptions for free. We’re choosing five random newsletter subscribers and five random free account price guide users.

Sign up for the price guide at Prices.SportsLizard.com and for the newsletter at Rant.SportsLizard.com to be entered to win!

Sometimes I ask myself (as I’m sure you do) what difference can I really make? Whether it’s in business or politics or something else, sometimes it’s hard to think that your opinion or your vote counts in the grand scheme of things. The sports cards and collectibles industry is no different. Dominated by a few large companies, until recently everything we saw or heard was filtered by Beckett or Tuff Stuff or one of the card/collectible manufacturers.

The internet has officially changed everything. Google doesn’t care if your company has a $0 marketing budget or a $10 million marketing budget, they rank a site according to what they perceive to have the most relevant result. I started SportsLizard in 2004 as a college senior because I saw an opportunity to positively impact an industry that I grew up loving. Five or ten years earlier, that would have been impossible for me to do on a shoe string budget like I did.

One of the more controversial topics I’ve written about has been the topic of autograph authentication. This article entitled “The Problem with Autograph Authentication” from 2005 has led to countless emails in my inbox, and has become one of the most popular pages on SportsLizard. Take a look at a Google search for autograph authentication, a term searched thousands of times each month:

SportsLizard comes up as the 3rd natural result, with the description “How large autograph authentication companies are hurting small businesses.” Think that article has made a few collectors second guess authentication companies? Think PSA and other companies would love to have that page dropped from Google? Too bad. To Google, my opinion is important, and that means that I (or you or anyone else) can have their voice heard.

To that point - if you ever want to voice your opinion on something, drop me an email at ajm@sportslizard.com and I’d be happy to let you write and/or contribute to an article. I’ve done it for other collectors before, and I’d be happy to do it for you.

After months of hard work, we’re proud to announce the launch of our new cards and collectibles price guide at Prices.SportsLizard.com. Check out the video below and sign up today!