"We Are Facebook on Steroids for Poker"

@Nicolas Levi talks to @Lee Davy about #HeroScore and RankingHero.com!

Tell me about Hero Score.

“All sports have their industry ranking such as the PGA, and they are very good in terms of an aspirational model, but we also think poker is different. It’s not just a sport – it’s also a game. So we decided to do something completely different and create rankings of poker prestige and influence. If you rank people by the money they have made it doesn’t tell the whole story. Also, don’t forget, those rankings don’t tell you how much they have lost.

“It’s like comparing companies by who is spending the most money. WE want to know who is creating the better contribution: where does Apple fit against Tesla, or McDonalds? So we are introducing a ranking system that has an actual meaning: how much does a poker player do for the industry. We think it’s needed. A lot of people are complaining about the pros that just care about making money. If that were all you are going to say about them, then why would they want to do anything else?

“The Hero Score has three dimensions. The first is results, because the best poker players naturally get prestige. These results compare live and online, so the likes of Moorman, Kaiser, and Isildur will now be considered. Then there is a dimension for popularity. Suddenly, people, like Dan Bilzerian pops up. You also get some local stars. Patrick Bruel is mega famous in France, and he pops up because he single handedly created the fourth biggest poker market in the world. The third is contribution. Here we look at what someone has done – like a Linked In resume – so you can say that you created a blog; streamed on Twitch, etc., and this gives you a base amount of points. Then the community can up vote for these things. The more people do this, the more relevant the scores get.

“I have looked at the tables. They look pretty solid. It will evolve as the community continues to rank these people. As we reward people for doing meaningful things in the industry, it gives people a reason to do well. We have beta tested this for eight months and it’s the most exciting thing we have done.”

How important is it to find something different like this?

“I would say it’s not just important to be different, it’s the whole point. If you come to a mature industry, like poker, then you have to ask why are we here and what are we doing? We want to generate conversation. People talk about results and rankings so we need these to make people feel at home. At Ranking Hero you can see what they have won live and online, where they are posting, Facebook, Twitter, and you can congratulate them when they cash. It’s a one-stop shop for every activity in the poker industry for a player. It’s a completely different value proposition from everybody else, and it took a tremendous amount of time to build. We couldn’t be more different.”

read on:

Nicolas Levi on Ranking Hero’s New Hero Score RankingsLee Davy catches up with Ranking Hero co-founder, Nicolas Levi, to talk about the social media network’s latest development: The Hero Score.calvinayre.com