We posted the job with a closing date of August 27th, which was last Friday (is it really the end of August already?). For a few reasons, we’ve decided to extend the closing date by two weeks. We will continue to accept applications through Friday, September 10.

We’ll be arranging interviews early in the week of September 13th, so if you have applied and have been selected for an interview, you’ll hear from us then. We’re looking to have somebody on board and ready to go – ideally – for the week of October 4th.

Thanks to all applicants for taking the time to submit their resumes, and of course for their patience while we get things in order.

Imagine that – a startup where things are constantly changing!

But there is some news to share on this fine July day, and it comes with mixed feelings:

In May, we celebrated a major company milestone when we hired Erik – our first employee – who was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed graduate of the University of Victoria’s computer science program. When we offered him the position in April, he managed to negotiate himself a deferred start date. We wanted him to start in the first week of May, but ultimately, he started May 17. Turns out Erik had planned a post-graduation road trip with some of his buddies from Victoria (which is pretty much as far west as one can go in Canada) all the way to the easternmost point in North America: Cape Spear, Newfoundland.

We agreed to let him go on the roadtrip before he started with us on the condition that he come back with some good stories. And he did.

But that seemed to have only spurred his sense of adventure, because Erik will soon be leaving us to embark on an entirely new journey.

Like the rest of us, Erik and two of his close friends felt a sense of helplessness with the horrible images and stories of despair from the Gulf Coast where the BP oil spill has impacted so many lives, both human and non-human alike.

Not being one to sit idly by, he quickly organized and planned a campaign to build awareness around what’s happening in the fishing communities affected by the spill, while at the same time educating people here at home to help protect BC’s coastline from experiencing a similar tragedy in the future.

So how exactly are these guys planning to build this awareness? By getting on their bicycles and riding from Victoria to Louisiana. No kidding – they will be riding 4,300km on their bicycles down to Louisiana.

It’s an ambitious plan, to be sure. But it’s an admirable plan, and we have every bit of confidence that Erik and his buddies will find it to be rewarding, enlightening, and insightful in ways that the rest of us will probably never know.

We wish Erik every bit of luck and success on this journey, and on whichever journey he takes after this one. But when one door closes, another opens: we’re now hiring a new Junior Developer, so if you or somebody you know might fit the bill, apply asap! Erik’s last day with Bet Smart Media will be September 1st.

Good luck, buddy!

Biking Up The Mess Website: http://bikingupthemess.com/
To Donate: Sierra Club of BC

While Bet Smart Media has been around for a little while now, today is effectively the first day that we’re open for business. The next few weeks will be spent working out the kinks, so WiseStats is only open to those with an invitation to test it out. If you’d like an invitation to test it before we blow ‘er wide open in a few weeks, Contact Us and we’ll try to get you one.

To those of you that have invitations and are checking out WiseStats for the first time, we need your feedback. Please take a few minutes to send us your thoughts – good or bad.

If you’d rather wait a few weeks until the kinks are ironed out before you try WiseStats, make sure to put your email address on the list to be notified when registration is open to everyone.

To everyone that’s helped us get to today – thank you. We’ve had great support from some great people, and our excitement about the possibilities that WiseStats holds is tough to contain… but we’re trying!

Summer Solstice 2010 has been a memorable one for us, marking the beginning of a new chapter in the Bet Smart Media story. Here’s hoping that Summer Solstice 2011 will be just as epic!

Judd, Grant & Jesse

So, without further delay, meet WiseStats:

WiseStats will be launching as planned on June 21. It will start off as a closed beta, which basically means that you need an invitation from us to join. We’re limiting the number of invitations to 100 so we can focus on getting immediate feedback, fix the bugs, and find out what’s working/not working for users. Then once we’re comfortable that the WiseStats kicks just the right amount of ass, we’ll open it up to everybody to use!

If you want to be included in the first 100, contact us asap to request an invitation.

For those of you who have been following our story since the beginning, we’ve scrapped the name “WagerTrax” in favour of “WiseStats”. The name change reflects the expanded vision and product features, both of which have evolved significantly since the company’s inception.

See you in 10 days!

• Preview each upcoming game in each of the Big 6 leagues with WiseStats ‘Matchup Stats’, which include head-to-head statistics based on historical stats back to 2005, historical matchup results, injury/weather reports, and the latest news headlines
• Get real-time sports odds across 12 of the largest and most popular online odds markets
• Set alerts to be notified about changes to odds
• Log your picks with just a couple clicks and get insights into which types of picks you’ve been winning, your overall position, and ROI. Colorful charts will make it easy to understand!

Yes, there’s lots more that we’ll be launching with, and even more that we won’t be launching with. But we had to stop building somewhere and just launch the dang thing already! We’re not kidding when we say what we’re developing will be unlike anything you’ve ever seen, but we need to lay the foundation for it first. On June 21st when WiseStats launches, the foundation will be laid.

We’ll need feedback, suggestions, ideas, and criticism. The people that use WiseStats early will be the ones whose opinions drive the its evolution. WiseStats is launching as a free tool to help you start to become a smarter sports bettor… you quite literally have nothing to lose by trying it when it launches! Heck, you don’t even need to give your name to signup for it!

So come join us on June 21st. We’ll be making lots more noise closer to that date, so consider this forewarning =)

So what have we been up to since the blog fell off the grid last November? “Lots” is the short answer; the long answer is more like:

• Developing WiseStats. We’re tired of talking to people about WiseStats, so we’ve been burning the candle at both ends trying to get an initial version launched for you to actually try! At the risk of a massive jinx, we’re working to launch it at some point this June, which is terrifyingly soon, so stay tuned for more news on the WiseStats launch!
• Making friends. We’re trying to shake things up with WiseStats, and anytime you do that, you need allies. We’ve been spending loads of time meeting with a lot of good people that dig what we’re working on – potential partners & investors, test users, industry folks, usability experts, and so on. It’s more behind-the-scenes stuff than anything, but it’s critically important if we want to make good on our promise that WiseStats will be awesome.
• Getting feedback. We have developed the core set of features in WiseStats that, architecturally speaking, forms the foundation of the software. We have some smart, smart folks using it to tell us if we’re on the right track. As kickass as we think WiseStats is, our opinions aren’t worth the paper they’re written on if our users don’t agree. So, we’ve been taking initial feedback to heart and making changes along the way. Ahhh the glamorous life of software development!

Yes, the fellas at Bet Smart have been hoppin’ busy. These are exciting times for us, and we’re having so much fun so far (and yes, work CAN be fun – keep an eye on our Careers page if you want to try and see for yourself).

As busy as we are though, there’s no way we’d forget about all the good stuff coming up in the sports world in April: the crowning of the NCAA basketball National Champion (anybody’s brackets still alive?), a highly anticipated NFL Draft, a crazy NHL playoff race followed by the start of the playoffs, and an equally exciting NBA playoff race. Aaaaand exhale!

But away from our corner of the globe, today is another significant day in professional sports: it’s the first day with season rosters set for Major League Baseball teams. Yesterday was the trade deadline, and teams will no longer be able to move players between organizations. And what’s the significance of this? Well, it creates the usual excitement for fans trying to speculate which players will be dealt, and to where. It also tends to expose the teams that have all but conceded their chances of winning the World Series this year, as evidenced by the dumping of big-money player contracts in favor of acquiring young, inexpensive prospects for rebuilding.

But something else happens that rarely gets reported in the media during trade deadline season, and that is the undeniable changes to teams’ expected chances of winning as a result of the trades they make at the deadline. It also provides a great example of why the tools that we are developing here at Bet Smart Media will provide our users with incredible value. But how so? Let’s look at what happened yesterday.

The Seattle Mariners traded away two of their key players – Jeff Clement and Jarrod Washburn – and received what has been perceived to be less valuable players in return. Looking at the prices of MLB Futures – that is, what oddsmakers feel are the Mariners chances to win the World Series – we can see that the Mariners were devalued as a result of the moves they made. Before the deadline, furures market oddsmakers had the Mariners at +15000 (0.66% chance of  winning the World Series), and after all the moves were made, they were reduced to +25000 (0.40% chance of winning).

The team that acquired Mariners’ pitcher Jarrod Wash burn, the Detroit Tigers, saw their futures market odds actually improve with the move. The were upgraded from +1700 (5.5% chance of winning the World Series) to +1200 (7.7% chance of winning).

For bettors out there that were holding Seattle Mariners futures, their portfolio was significantly devalued, that is unless they were able to sell some (or all) of their holding prior to the trade deadline. For those that were holding Detroit Tigers futures, their portfolios increased in value: buying one unit of Detroit Tigers futures contracts cost $5.56 before the trade deadline, and $7.69 after the trade deadline (assuming $100 unit sizes).

It’s sort of starting to look like something else a lot of people recognize…  public equity markets! Having access to timely market-relevant information made is extremely valuable. Imagine if you could have sold your Seattle Mariners futures before the market reacted to the news of Washburn’s trade? Or, if you could have loaded up on Tigers futures at $5.56 before the market priced them up to $7.69?

Kind of interesting, isn’t it?

Let that be a bit of a window into what we’re working on here at Bet Smart Media

On our national holiday today, our favorite MLB team, the Toronto Blue Jays, thumped the reigning American League champion Tampa Devil Rays with a decisive 5-0 victory. Canada Day also marks the first day of NHL free agency, one of the biggest off-season days of the year for hockey fans.

Happy Canada Day to all, and enjoy the party tonight wherever you find yourself in our great land!

We are Bet Smart Media, a gritty young company with big aspirations. Founded by 3 guys and based in good ol’ Victoria, BC, we’re a technology company focusing on developing new and innovative applications for fans of the most popular North American sports leagues.

The company’s flagship product is called WiseStats. We’re going to remain pretty hush-hush about what it is exactly, but we think we can have something ready to show you in Spring 2010, so that’s what we’re committing to for now!

Get in touch with us if you’d like to learn more about who we are and what we’re up to.