Team up with other fans

Don’t you hate it when travel gets in the way of watching the big game? You can liven up any trip with SportsFanLive.com, a website that helps you meet up with other fans who are excited about watching the same game.

What’s hot: I was immediately drawn to the FanFinder. Here’s how it works: Enter your favorite team, date and the ZIP Code you’ll be traveling to, and a Google map displays sports bars that will be showing your game. I swapped “pizza” for “sports bar” and found new results. After more time on the site, I grew to appreciate how SportsFanLive took my favorite team info and customized my home page to show news headlines pertaining just to my teams. You can also click on “My Teams” to get team-specific news, league rankings, game schedules and stats.

What’s not: The site will be better when more people are using it. I could look up where my game was being played, but most of my results (for watching the USC Trojans at random ZIPs in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco) didn’t turn up any fans who would be watching the game at any of the locales. (That said, I didn’t commit to being there either.) The social networking tools also look promising but need more users.

-- Jen Leo