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As you can see
from the above table there are a number of options available on the market today. Which tool your league selects depends greatly on
your situation. Some people simply have a
preference for one tool or another. I
recommend you visit each web site and give each tool a “test run” prior to your
draft if all of these tools are unfamiliar to you. However,
you most people likely have a preference at this point, and I strongly recommend going
with the tool that you are most comfortable with, after all who wants to worry about
potential technical glitches on draft day? The above said
I would personally recommend different tools for different situations:
Most of my
leagues have settled on the Yahoo Chat room. However,
virtually every draft includes at least a few minutes where someone either losses a
connection, or in a few cases the entire yahoo chat system went down. Downloading and
using messenger services regardless of the brand has become almost second nature to most
proficient Internet users. If your league is
filled with these types of people then using a messenger is a better way to go. It
provides more reliability than a basic chat room. However,
be aware that if you plan to participate from work that some companies have a no download
policy. This may force you to use a chat room
option. Using the
Internet to conduct a draft will also generally add about 10-15 minutes to your auction /
draft per hour of what it would normally take. Things
just go slower, because people generally have to be concerned with both the draft and the
means by which they are communicating (also it takes most of us a lot longer to type
something than to say it.) Most of the
above tools also now offer an audio chat function. If
you have good speakers and a reliable microphone, having a few teams use this function can
really speed things along. There are also
some video conferencing options available on the market.
However, most of us do not have the bandwidth or the resources (rather it be
the equipment or the fees required to conduct a multi-site conference) to utilize that
technology that this time. I’m sure
in the next two years the technology will continue to rapidly change. After all, two years ago messenger services were
just beginning to gain popularity, now almost everyone I know uses one and some people use
two or more. Perhaps in two years we will all
be using video technology in the same manner, and our drafts / auctions of the future will
be less and less “virtual” and more and more realistic.
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