i'm on a few conference calls today and planned on doing some peripheral learning. there were a few interesting things over at scobleshow.com lately that i found intriguing and wanted to watch. i went to the site and was disappointed. why...well let me phrase this appropriately :-)
i have a brand new windows vista machine. loaded (fill-in-your-favorite-browser) on it. visited scobleshow and clicked on a "watch now" link. this is what it looked like:
why did i get this? because scobleshow only enables MOV format (arguably the intended viewer is Quicktime format -- which i hate). so as a user i'm unable to view this unless i download quicktime (or another plugin that isn't recognized automatically). i should note that when viewed in firefox, there was at least a message indicating that i have missing plugins. the size of the missing "plugin" (aka quicktime) is 18MB according to the quicktime player link i clicked on. ouch...flash plugin? i have no idea but it loaded in about 4 seconds for me (loaded = dowloaded+installed+started working). this is why i hate quicktime -- it isn't a plugin -- it's a friggin application and a hog.
of course i could download a quicktime plugin that is light-weight, but that's me -- i'm a power user...i know about it. my mother-in-law doesn't know any better and will always accept the default. this is who we need to design for--the least common denominator. okay, sure my mother-in-law then is likely not viewing scobleshow, but what if i find something interesting (ahem, scrapblog) that she might like and send her a link...now she is a consumer.
so why am i picking on scoble?
from a post "Why I don't use Flash":
"I have a brand new Windows Vista machine. Loaded Firefox on it. And visited PodShow (a podcasting competitor of PodTech’s).
This is what it looked like. Now, if a “normal” person (non geek) hit this site, what would they do? I’ll tell you what they’ll do. They’ll hit back and get out of there. Note the title tag. Be Patient? No, I click that little green back button and leave before I get hurt. Thank you very much. Have a nice day.
Lesson: always have HTML first before you get to Flash content."
:-) sooo robert? what are you going to do? what could the site have done better? offer options? offer some html about the viewer needed? if so, can you please ask yourself those questions and change your way of thinking for scobleshow? why not use a flash viewer -- it's almost default installed. oh you want higher quality and that's why you use MOV format? hmmm...soapbox seems to have gotten it right. oh, you want widescreen format? why? is your content "widescreen-capable" (meaning: is there a reason for widescreen? i mean, apologies and all, but i'm not watching scobleshow on my 60" HDTV with surround sound -- so i don't need it)? oh you want to deliver HD content? hmm...okay, but what about those who wouldn't be able to consume it -- again, give me options.
so scoble, i beg of you: 1) fix the page to show some warning; 2) give me a default player for the "watch now"; 3) show me options (look at how your previous employer gives me download options on each show); 4) do something to reach the masses. right now i'm unable to enjoy the content.
