World Cup 2006 Pick 'Em Game

No thank you. I've had it with this US-centricty. Why in the world can't I participate?? This is evil. Report me all you want, but I speak the truth. This contest, just like the last one, is US-only. Newsvine is going to a place, where I don't want to follow. I don't see the expansion into other countries and languages, as was promised. Sorry, I like liked Newsvine, now it's merely a tool for me.

If I play and win can I donate the iPOD if I win ? as I do not live under the jackboot of the imperialist American regime.

Heh. I SPY is my evil-twin! What's up man?!

@Mike: OK.

I SPY: That's basically what I will be doing if I win: donate the player to a friend of mine.

Providing they'll let me. Maybe I should research the official rules some more…

They're allowing us to participate, but even if we win, we don't get the prize or get to donate it.
To save Mike the trouble of repeating this everytime someone asks:

The problem is that the laws governing what is considered 'gambling' vs. what is considered a legal 'contest' are different in each country. And, realistically we're not going to get legal counsel in each country to write up official rules for all 200+ countries in the world. The game itself would have to be different to comply with other laws. Someday, when we have the bankroll we'll give it a go, but right now we hope that users appreciate getting to play a game, even if it's for fun due to their geographical separation.

I appreciate the fact that I'm getting to play the game. How blessed am I!!

Just joking, I'm playing anyway. As I said earlier in an email to Mike, I'm not in it for the iPod. I have enough money to buy myself one. And I thought I was the one in a "third world country".

I just checked the rules more thoroughly, and it's pretty clear: you can't transfer the prize to someone else.

You can have a US-based friend sign up and enter the exact same teams and goal score as you did, though. :-)

As I said earlier in an email to Mike, I'm not in it for the iPod. I have enough money to buy myself one. And I thought I was the one in a "third world country".

Same here (you made your comment just between my loading of this page and making my comment above :-)).

If I really wanted the current video iPod, I'd be going for a 60gb black one and just buying it (with a discount!) but really, I'm just kind of holding out for the next iPod, whenever it'll come. :-)

Simran - I think you need to chill, buddy. This is no different than any other contest originating from the United States or a United States website. Sorry it irks you, but contests like these are bound by laws regarding eligibility - if it were open to one person outside the US, it has to be open to them all, and that creates a logistical nightmare for several reasons, not the least of which is that not everyone outside of the US speaks English.

Speaking of which, how do you expect the site to be compatible internationally. There is no magic switch in Seattle that the guys have deliberately turned off. It takes a staff fluent in those languages to moderate and ensure the Code of Honor at Newsvine is being respected. I'm sure Mike, Lance, Calvin, Josh, Tom and Mark would love to be fluent in all the languages of the world to facilitate this, but that's not realistic.

So for the time being, I invite you to take a pill of the chill variety.

That's basically what I will be doing if I win: donate the player to a friend of mine.

This is kind of awkward, Faruk... but... would you like to be my friend?

Only a bourgeois cosmopolite would own an iPOD anyway Simran. It is only a vehicle for the imperialist oppressor.

I SPY: Evil commie!!!!!!! ;-)

* is glad he's a Creative fanboy *

I'm not a fan of the iPod. They're nice music players, but I find I get better audio quality out of my old Creative Zen Xtra than I do out of my sister's fancy new fifth-gen.

just out of curiousity what do you suppose they would do to you if they found out that you gave the ipod away to someone in another country (hundreds of thousands of ipods are smuggled across our borders every day!), then they asked you about it and you were like, "i dunno, i lost it or something."
then they said, "you've violated the rules of the contest, we are going to confiscate your prize.... wait., we will send you to a country where they can torture you,...?"

I am just thinking that is a stupid rule, and stupid rules are difficult to enforce. Even if they were to bring out the big gun lawyers, it's hard to punish an act of charity/compassion.

That's basically what I will be doing if I win: donate the player to a friend of mine.

This is kind of awkward, Faruk... but... would you like to be my friend?

*sniffle* you mean..after all this time, after all we've been through together, you didn't think of me as your friend?!

You broke my heart, Brian!

my misunderstanding i thought the contest was an external link.... in the case mentioned above the newsvine contest organizers would most certainly just track you down themselves, strap you to a chair, and hold hot metal up to your face, or put your head in the newsVICE until you told them where the ipod was.

Brian! Don't go breaking hearts man. Makes all of this even more depressing. Thankfully I have my new MacBook Pro to snuggle with. Come here you 2.16ghz of love. Hahaha...

So for the time being, I invite you to take a pill of the chill variety.

Is it red or blue? Cause I want to go down the rabbit hole, I hear Alice is hot.

I didn't try the basketball one, and I'm kinda sad about that - didn't realise it would be fun even though I know nothing about basketball (well, I can play, but I have no idea about teams) until it was too late. I know a little about football though, so this should be fun.

I demand a fantasy cricket tournament!

Hey Oobs! I second that. Cricket rules. We need a cricket guild on here.

Oooo American college football would be amazing, too ;)

Very sweet.

I can't wait...

Is there a chance that we could do a 2nd half of the MLB season fantasy baseball?

Hey Pete Seroogy, unless Newsvine is planning this mid-season fantasy baseball, we can try the next best thing, go here for more info.

Consider me joined, cause guessing is the way to go with sports I know nothing about.

A bit of help for the tie-breaker question, about how many goals are scored in a normal World Cup game?

I feel right at home with my fellow lucky guessers.

@Adam Hobson: I'd like to know about how many games total are played in the World Cup as well (call me someone who has about no clue and you'd be right).

ilyanep, I figured 31 games since there seems to be 32 teams, 16 first round games, then 8 then 4 then 2 then 1. Or is this not the format used? I guess this is good question to ask, for I think this assumption of mine is totally wrong.

World Cup schedule. Count the games to get the number of total games. It's more than 32 games because the first round is round robin (does anyone in the U.S. follow World Cup soccer other than me?! :) j/k!)

According the Fifa's website and the pdf file, it's 64 matches total.

Awesome. Now if there is only one point scored in every game I'll win the tie-breaker.

I love soccer.

I'll join, but I want everyone to know I don't like soccer...

proof

Pete:
don't you mean: "Soccer - bah! Humbug!"

:-)

Brian, you crack me up sometimes :-)

Just for that alone, I joined your group ;-)

Adam... goals scored per game can be zero (in the first round it is a round robin....can't recall second round... so a tie is OK) rarely is their a score of 4 or more for a team unless one team totally dominates another. most games where there is a winner you get a 1 point difference with total goals score being less than 5.... at least that has been my experience of watching World Cup.

Thank you very much Behind My Screen, I think I just got a bit smarter here. :)

Well, I sort of anticipated that. I didn't pick any lower ranked teams, either. I sort of went for teams that cost me around 10-18 points.

I guess the extent of my knowledge is that Brazil is really good. I figured everyone would pick them and I should just go ahead and try for some teams that seem like they -might- be able to make it through long enough to rack up some points.

Seeing as how I supplied an intro and analysis on the NCAA Tournament Pick 'Em when that came out, I prepose Dojc dish his thoughts on this game. I'd like to try the game, but I know ziltch about soccer. A quick run down of teams and patterns of the World Cup could be mighty useful to people like me.

Well, I think that's the nice thing about the Newsvine setup -- you don't really have to know what you're doing in order to do well.

Though, I think Mike is right in that Soccer seems to be dominated by a few favorites and that "knowing" those favorites might help.

But even then, if everyone picks one favorite they're going to be stuck with a few smaller teams (and the same teams that several other people picked) and someone with mid-level teams could sneak through. I'm pretty sure that in the NCAA tournament, a lot of people that knew nothing at all about sports managed to stay in it until the end.

The wikipedia link in my earlier comment could be a great resource, because you can get an idea of which teams are likely to go the distance and which one's mike sneak through.

Again, my strategy was mainly to pick a range of teams that could sneak through.

Well, sixty points will let you pick Brazil (24), France (16) and Germany (20), who are all pretty damn good.

Note: I didn't.

Ooble: indeed, that was my first check. Not a good tactic if you ask me: Brazil and France got knocked out real early last time, despite being top favorites.

I did what made most sense to me: choose as many strong (but not super-expensive) teams as possible so as to increase chances of scoring points. Even if Brazil manages to win the Cup, for instance, that's only 4+ wins. All my teams could end up not getting past the first round, but still making one or two wins each, giving me 5+ wins easily.

Sorry to burst your bubble but Brazil won the last world cup, and in 1994, making them two of the last three cups.

And France won the one in the middle. :-)

MORF: whoops, my bad. England* and France. And various other highly rated teams, too.

I had the privilege o go to two World Cup games in 94. Austria v. Sweden (I think... it has been a while) and Brazil v. some unlucky cumps :-)...... at the Brazil game... there was a huge huge huge huge group of folks from brazil and the entire game you heard ole-e-e- ole-e- ole ole... ole-e-e-e-, ole-e-e-e-.

fantastic!!! I still have my program and ticket and I bought a flag but my Kids destroyed it.

LOL Djehuty, you never know what might happen. :-) I am sure people thought South Korea, Turkey and Senegal wouldn't make it very far in the last World Cup and they surprised everyone.

Who was it? Cameroon? who won the Olympic soccer gold medal? Fantastic :-)

It's good being the underdog though, because there are no expectations.

Yup that's true Djehuty.

I chose The Netherlands as my last team, for the exact same reasons :-) (I'm Dutch)

Also, Yannick: South Korea and Turkey surprised everyone, but a large thanks to that was having fantastic coaches and nothing but passion and determination to play a good game, whereas almost all other major countries' teams were overrun with ego, pride and cockiness. I was so happy to see most of them go out in the first round :-)

That's true also Faruk, hehe, and it can happen again this year.

Djehuty, it was Nigeria that won the Olympic gold medal. A curiosity: Brazil never won an Olympic gold medal in football. I think it is the only important title we don't have.

what was it? 150?

161 goals were scored in the last World Cup, so that should give everyone an idea of where to start estimating. hehe.

That wouldn't be too absurd, actually... that's just over two goals a game. I'd say less than that, but not by too much.

My initial guess was 93 goals scored, but that was using my terribly wrong assumption that there are only 31 games total.

I think Italy looks more "obvious" than France and Germany, but we never know...

Well, it won't generate a lot of hate... what it will generate is a lot of "you're beating the dead horse" responses.

It's not as though they woudln't "like" to be able to do more. They're a young crowd and even bigger corporations very very rarely do international contests.

Slamming them over and over does little to help the situation.

I can understand the problem of doing an International competition, but surely it has to be possible. Newsvine, being as revolutionary as it is, should be the first to set the trend.

My problem with Newsvine doesn't just stem from this. It's just generally not very friendly to anyone outside the US. I can go to Google News, put it on news.google.co.uk and get all the news from my area perfectly well. However, with Newsvine, I struggle and occasionally feel isolated when it comes to looking for news in my country. My final real problem is the stories that may interest an international crowd seem pretty poor at best. It's horrible to say, but even MySpace handles international users better.

I say, roll on a Newsvine.co.uk, com.au, .ca, and whatever everyone else wants.

I can go to Google News, put it on news.google.co.uk and get all the news from my area perfectly well.

Google also happens to have a bit more employees than Newsvine's six. That may help their internationalization effort :-)

For your example of an international story done wrong, that is the AP's fault, though I wonder how well the BBC or Reuters handles baseball or American football ;-)

The BBC handles it perfectly well by the way. Ever visited the site? They even have language-learning material on there. But isn't English the only language that everyone should just speak? Why complicate matters with diversity? Everyone should clutch their iPod in their left hand, a baseball bat in the other and scream: "All hail the hedge!".

I share the views of the person near the top (even though it'll obviously generate a lot of hate) that it's unfair (even past the legal issues) that it's a US-only thing. It does add to the generalisation that Newsvine is a US-only site, and also considering the fact that Newsvine got the England flag wrong it doesn't help create a good image.

Other than that, I'm glad to see something aimed towards a more international crowd. Football being my favourite sport by far the World Cup is one of the happiest moments a guy feels.

I can understand the problem of doing an International competition, but surely it has to be possible. Newsvine, being as revolutionary as it is, should be the first to set the trend.

My problem with Newsvine doesn't just stem from this. It's just generally not very friendly to anyone outside the US. I can go to Google News, put it on news.google.co.uk and get all the news from my area perfectly well. However, with Newsvine, I struggle and occasionally feel isolated when it comes to looking for news in my country. My final real problem is the stories that may interest an international crowd seem pretty poor at best. It's horrible to say, but even MySpace handles international users better.

I say, roll on a Newsvine.co.uk, com.au, .ca, and whatever everyone else wants.

Mike B., you echo my thoughts better than I have been able to express them in the past. Thank you for voicing your opinion. It seems like I'm the only guy fighting for the internationalisation (with a s!) of this site, that I like so much. We know you're just six guys, Mike D., but you could at least try. I don't think it would take much to replace that gigantic US News section with a North America one... and how about news sections for the other... uhhh.. 2 continents? Yes, that's it. Africa and China! I know Africa from Live 8 and China, because that continent made my MacBook Pro.

Calvin,
It's not a continent. It's a country. (duh) You should have known that considering you are Chinese....

Uhm... I was trying to be sarcastic, to start with. Looks like it didn't work.

i was trying to be sarcastic too,... just to be clear.

Guy, smilies... whaddya think they're for? :-p

I was thinking about being sarcastic as I read this series of comments, but decided against it.

Smart move, Darrel ;-)