A little company called Statsheet, today announced their grand plans to automate the development of sports content, beginning with blogs. The founder of Statesheet states:
A blogger/writer’s internal script is pretty much set. They generally don’t change or improve the quality or comprehensiveness of their content over time in a significant way, but algorithms can be upgraded continuously. The “voice” of the content can be improved.
Now this might hold true with some sports reporters, such as Bob Costas or Joe Buck, but I disagree that sports content doesn’t improve over time. I also find it hard to believe that an algorithm is going to come up with the type of truly witty, perverse and outright outrageous content for which I read sports blogs. If all Statsheet is going to do is produce short summaries of games based on statistics, it sounds more like a replacement for the AP’s sports desk.
