Announcing CenterlineScores 2.0

As many of you who follow our Facebook page already know, we have been working very hard to create a new version of CenterlineScores.com (CLS 2.0). This is something we’ve been working on for over 2 years and are very excited to be able to bring it to the American Dressage community.

A new User Experience

While most of the behind-the-scenes data & processing are the same (with the notable exception of improved internal error-checking and automated reloads when show management sends in updates to an already-finished show), the front-end has been completely rewritten from scratch as a “Progressive Web App” or PWA. The primary advantage of a PWA is that on mobile platforms (iPhone, Android, etc.) it looks and acts like a native mobile application while also automatically adapting itself to work even better/faster on the desktop. The most immediate benefit of this new User Experience is that CLS 2.0 will now look SO MUCH better on mobile. To be fair, when we first launched, mobile was not the dominant platform that it is today. But look at this:

With surprising consistency, over half of our users have been visiting the site using a mobile device. Over 60% of our users are on a phone or tablet. The new CLS 2.0 makes this experience much more pleasant, friendly and to-be-honest just a whole lot more readable and usable.

In addition to a better mobile experience, the new CLS 2.0 should be an order of magnitude faster than the old site. With a completely rewritten back-end and database focused primarily on getting data to the application as fast and as efficiently as possible.

What’s new?

Most of the primary information displayed will be familiar to regular users of CenterlineScores.com. The new version of CenterlineScores will add some new and expanded information, but there will also be a few new changes to the way we present information as well as how CenterlineScores operates.

A (mostly) Better Search

CLS 2.0 brings a completely revamped search engine (we are using the same technology that companies such as Adobe, Amazon and e-Bay use to power their search systems). This upgrade will bring a number of immediate benefits to the platform. Firstly, it’s lightning fast. In addition, rather than just displaying a name and an ID, the app gives additional information about the horse or rider to help you find the right profile you’re looking for. There is one caveat though. Over the next 4 weeks, we will be dialing in the search algorithm so that the results most relevant to you are returned at the top of the list.

A New Easier-to-Remember ID

One of the small new changes you’ll see will be our new “CLS Universal ID”. Our primary goal is to offer an easier-to-use (for us and you) way to refer to and identify Rider and Horses. In this example, we’re looking at Steffen Peter’s CLSID. The CLSID is a 5–6 digit alphanumeric (non-case sensitive) assigned to each rider and horse that uniquely identifies them. Behind-the-scenes and in our search engine, this more-friendly ID links to any other IDs that may be on file in the publicly available show data-sources. This allows a lookup using not only USDF#, but also USEF, FEI and/or any other local GMO identifiers that are available. This change will become particularly useful as we start integrating additional show/performance records from other disciplines outside of Dressage.

Missing but Coming Soon

There are a few pieces of data/information that were available on the old site, but that are not available in the initial release.

• Horse Awards & Achievements
• Some Rider Awards & Achievements
• Detailed individual Shows, Scores & Timeline — an easy to use visualization of all important events for a horse/rider consolidated into a timeline.

We’ll be adding and releasing these over the next couple months as we finish development and testing. In addition, we are super-interested in knowing which features you want to be released next. To vote on or submit ideas for enhancements or new features, go to our online Ideas Portal. Our beta testers have already started submitting ideas, so go check it out and let us know what you want to see.

Completely New Homepage Layout

The main landing/homepage will show an assortment of new dashboard components. These are displayed in a random order each time you visit the site. The current array of components includes:

• Recent Medalists: Each set of new medalists (Bronze, Silver & Gold) are displayed in a separate component. These are updated nightly.
• Recent Shows: The show must go on! Here’s where you’ll see a listing of the shows most recently loaded to CenterlineScores.
• Personal Best: Everyone loves beating their own record. This card shows riders who have recently scored higher than their own previous personal best.
• A Word from Our Sponsors: CenterlineScores is supported by both our advertisers and subscribers.
• CLS National Rankings: This component shows our very own National Rankings list. Loosely modeled from the FEI-WDRL, the CLS-NR ranks horse/rider pairs based on their top 7 scores over the prior 12-months. The homepage shows the top 5 pairs from each Level and is updated weekly. In future updates, Subscribers will be able to explore these rankings to see top horse/rider pairs by Level, Region, State, Rider Rating and even by Breed or Test.

Introducing Subscriptions

Back in 2010, there was only one way to get access to historical Dressage scores in the U.S. and that was to pay a $20 fee to the United States Dressage Federation (USDF) for a “lifetime score report” even though those same show results had already been published publicly in multiple places on the internet. We knew there had to be a better way, so after several months of programming and “data wrangling”, we created the site. CenterlineScores.com — which offered access to historical scores for both riders and horses in a user-friendly and useful format — was made available to the American Dressage community for free. Although we launched without any publicity or marketing CenterlineScores rapidly became THE place to find scores for US Dressage riders, horses and trainers.

As more people began relying on CenterlineScores, month-by-month, year-by-year, the number of visitors and fans grew. Our success also increased the costs to host the site (we use both Amazon’s web infrastructure as well as our own hardware). In addition to these basic hosting costs, providing basic user support, maintaining and enhancing a modern web application and its associated database with over 2.1 million rides, 116K riders and over 160K horses takes time, effort and money.

This new version (CLS 2.0) represents approximately 2 years and over 2,000 hours of application development, analysis and data work. Over the last several years, we have heard from many of you telling us that you would be happy to support us financially. While we like the Patreon support model, we think that a more sustainable model, long-term will be to offer and develop enhanced features for a small monthly subscription fee.

Subscription Model

Starting today, CenterlineScores is moving to a hybrid subscription model. The vast majority of our visitors come to the site via a Google search with a very limited goal, to get information on a horse or rider.

• Free: Over 80% of our users view a very small number of horse/rider profiles and then may not visit again for 4–6 weeks. We want to make sure that these users can still do this. So, non-registered, non-subscriber users can view up to 7 different horse or rider profiles every month.
• Basic (Registered User): For users who want to do a little more research on the site, you can register an account and answer just a couple of questions (we promise we will NEVER sell your information to any 3rd party). Registered users will be able to view up to 14 different horse/rider profiles each month.
• Plus (Subscriber): For the hardcore Dressage rider/owner/trainer/fan, we are now offering our “CLS Plus” Subscription which gives subscribers access to Unlimited access to hundreds of thousands of horse/rider profiles. In addition, we will offer and continue to add new enhancements and features that are only available to Subscribers. These will include detailed reports on our National Rankings List, horse/rider profile customizations (pictures, story/biography, etc), the ability to add a note to individual scores (so you can explain that your 55% was likely caused by a TD who decided to fold a blue tarp in the middle of your test), more detailed analyses of different performance impact factors (like weather, horse & rider skill/experience and, yes, we’ll likely touch the 3rd rail of assessing disparities between different judges).

The bottom line is that we are committed to continuing to rapidly add new features for our Subscribers that won’t be available anywhere else. Our new software architecture enables us to do this faster than ever before. Over the last 8 years, we’ve given the American Dressage community a way to view and interact with their already-publicly available dressage data in a useful and usable way. The monthly cost for a CLS PLUS Subscription will be just $7/month. For a limited time, we’re going to be offering discounts to early subscribers using the coupon codes below:

• FLYINGCHANGE — $4.50 / month :: Limited to 10 subscribers
• PIAFFE— $5.00 / month :: Limited to 30 subscribers
• PASSAGE— $5.50 / month :: Limited to 40 subscribers
• HALFPASS— $6.00 / month :: Limited to 70 subscribers
• CANTER — $6.50 / month :: Limited to 110 subscribers

As these coupons are deactivated/redeemed, we’ll try to keep this post updated as well as provide notifications on Facebook directly.

More to Come Soon!

Please go check out the new site. If you love it and want more data, analytics and visualizations on American Dressage, please consider supporting us by becoming a subscriber.