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Android App Review: Go Team
Mon, 21st Oct 2013
FYI, this story is more than a year old

I'll be upfront: this app is not aimed at people like me, because I don't see the appeal. I have only a mild interest in rugby and even less in the commercial hype around it.

It's sort of a bit like fantasy football, without getting to hand-pick your team.

It's sort of a bit like the TAB, without the potential financial rewards. It's almost exactly like sitting round with your friends telling each other your opinions about things, but in an organised, digital setting.

None of this appeals to me but I am a professional and I will get past it.

So, with unbiased eyes: Go Team, the app. It's pretty good, I think.

I used the All Blacks Game On version (“the official sports tipping game of New Zealand rugby”), but the beauty of Go Team is that businesses can use it to set up their own version for their staff or clients or whoever.

I assume it'll work much the same for them as it did for the All Blacks, so we can extrapolate from what I've seen.

I decided to try my luck guessing the results for the Pink Batts Heartland Championship semi-finals. I got to choose not just who I thought would win, but also by how much.

I earned points based on how accurate my predictions were (they weren't, as it turns out – I got 13 points this round, while the head of the table managed 21), and this determines where I stand against everyone else (pretty low at the moment, but just you wait till the next round).

The interface is easy and straightforward, and it looks very nice – although presumably you can customise this if you set up your own version. The nice looks here might be due to an All Blacks designer rather than the Go Team app itself.

While it's fun enough seeing how you stack up on a leaderboard with random strangers, I think Go Team's strength will really lie in the ability for businesses to set up their own versions.

To be able to set your sporting understanding against your mates (or workmates, anyway – they're not always the same thing) gives an added bonus of friendly rivalry that an anonymous open competition might not have.

So in conclusion: do you like sports? Do you like competitively guessing the outcome of sports? Do you want to do it on your phone?

Then Go Team's probably worth looking into. It's easy to use and as far as I can tell it does everything it's supposed to, and does it well.