Launch.com: Are You Experienced?

I don't mean to be blunt, but "Welcome to the Macintosh and 5% market share". I am surprised you haven't run into this more. I know a lot of projects especially in QA that consciously blew off the Mac because of time and money considering the small market. I didn’t agree, but it wasn't my decision. After all it is a business decision.

Odd as it may seem, is it possible that you actually do have to be running NS 4.7 and have Windows Media Player for the Mac? Hosting only Windows Media files is ridiculous, but it might be the case.

that's ridiculous. the market share isn't the issue, it's laziness on the part of the developers and the lack of respect given to their audience.

one more service that won't get my business.

Marketshare is hardly an issue - this effects everyone. The developers purposely scripted their page so that it detects and sends away any user not using a particular brand of browser and operating system. I can stream video from all kinds of web sites in RealPlayer, Windows Media, and of course QuickTime, without trouble. Not only does Launch.com send away their users, but they fail to provide any useful information as to what the minimum system requirements are for the content. I had no idea the content was actually a Windows Media movie until I pulled Netscape 4.7 out of mothballs to test it.

I point this out not to be snippy and act like a jerk, but to point out examples of what non-standards based coding looks like, and as a prelude of what the web would most likely feel like if the entire internet required Internet Explorer as a client.

Using Windows ME, it worked first time for me...

The example you documented IS really asinine...developers, programmers, etc NEED to support as many possibilities as they reasonably can...

But, in truth, there ARE too many standards, even within the Windows world itself...

I hate that there is QT, WMP, Real...if you include multimedia content in a site, who the hell knows what the hell will open it on the client's end? What version? etc, etc...

I know....I'm talking to the choir...

The issue isn't that there are too many standards, even for multimedia, but that the standards that exist aren't followed. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to limit your audience to a particular browser (in this case, an OS even) to play embedded multimedia files. This boils down to nothing more than a pure unwillingness to design the application correctly from the beginning.

Todd, count yourself lucky as happily self employed. At least you don't run into messages like this one.

Sorry, but it's totally about 1) market share, and 2) business relationships and free promotion. Launch is owned by Yahoo! and Yahoo!'s arch-enemy is AOL. Who also hates AOL? Microsoft. Launch gets tons of free promotion at WindowsMedia.com and very significant encoding and hosting support from Redmond for making the Launch experience a showcase for WindowsMedia content. Launch is losing millions every year, and there is no way they could afford to encode stuff in WM, Real, and QT ... nor do they care to as it would sabotage their business relationships. It's not about designing the application correctly - it's about business, or as the DOJ might call it "anti-competitive practices." No one at Launch or in Redmond could care crap-all whether anyone on a Mac can see their videos - rather it's in their best interests to frustrate your attempts. Job well done, eh?

ironically, I'm getting a render bug on IE 5.2 mac whereby when I position my cursor over the final link in the story, the word leaps to the right by about a quarter-inch and stays there until I reposition my cursor... whereupon it leaps to the right again. It's hilarious

The names have been changed to protect the guilty: Around 1998 a fledgling, typical, we-have-no-idea-how-to-make-money-dotcom called MusicVideos.com started up, run by two kids in Hermosa Beach. They had a cable access music video show and realized this was a great way to get record labels to send you videos, which they also started digitizing and putting online. They quickly got the attention of Microsoft, who were looking for partners willing to showcase their WindowsMedia product exclusively (back before the DOJ lawsuit). Back in the day, Microsoft was going around to everyone who had content, from record labels to news outlets and offering free encoding, free hosting, free promotion, and often sizable cash payments, to make your content available only in WinMedia. I personally was involved in a deal like this for just one bluechip recording artist that included a $25000 payment from MS. Just as they had attacked Netscape, MS was now going after QuickTime and RealNetworks and they were using every arrow in their impressive quiver. Musicvideos.com grew fast, eventually netting the founders a pretty sweet stock-laden deal with Launch.com, pre-bust, pre-Yahoo! acquisition. Making the experience work for the general web population has never been part of the MV/Launch charter, and it never will be. It's one giant Microsoft promotion, masquerading as an independent web site - always was, always will be. It's just one of hundreds. That bottomless barrel of Redmond dollars buys you lots of friends.

I also crinch at shoddy craftsmenship from people that supposedly have the resources to do PERFECT jobs but in the long run is it really a bad thing that the middle man is stabbing himself? I guarantee there is probably very little at Launch.com that is of much interest to anyone that does not count Brittany Spears as their favorite musical act. Fuck the middle man (and Wall Street media companies and their spood fed entertainment) and go directly to the source, eg, Here or any number of quality indy record labels that are able to rock the video direction well. Do we really need another MTV?

and another thing that i can not get over is how big media keeps investing in the "p" words» portals and push technologies. When will they learn?

They used Windows Media Player!? They should have used something with a wider viewership, like, uh, video in Flash.... ;-)
http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/tech_breakdown.html
http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html

Regards,
John Dowdell
Macromedia Support

I've used the product on Windows, and it works but only in IE. There's a "stand-alone" version (whioch actually uses IE as its rendering app).

It's a nifty service, but I hate having to leave my browser to enjoy it.

They used Windows Media Player!?

Y'all are missing the point. No one made a technical decision here, or a usability decision, or a programming decision. It was a business decision - pure and simple. They chose WinMedia/IE because MS [essentially] paid them to, and had they chosen to support other formats as well, it would likely have dampened the enthusiasm MS has for promoting their content. Poke your head out of geekoid idealistic sand - it's business, screwing the other guy, y'know? Who does it better than Bill & Co?

does it work with lynx? :-)

Just wanted to say thanks for some of the very informative comments, including the direct connection between Yahoo! and Microsoft. I suspected that was the reason.

Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

What is more likely, that M$ and Yahoo hatched a dark plot to frustrate Yahoo/Launch.com users? OR that some developer wrote a crappy sniff script and that nobody did sufficient testing to find it?

Fine, don't believe me. Whadya need, copies of memos? I'm not suggesting a dark plot, but just a complete, conscious policy of ignoring Mac/NS/Real/QT users. Not laziness, but a business policy to make M$ happy by making the experience optimum for Win users (and not others). There are people who actually find this scenario hard to believe? It's been standard business practice for years.

Actually, I DO think there are too many standards...for multimedia, for computers in general, etc...

We're all geeks. We like to upgrade, get the latest versions, take things apart and put them back together.

Normal people don't. It should work like your phone (and I don't mean your Nokia 8390 with email, voicemail, to-do list, calendar, voice recorder, voice tags, text messaging, etc)...

It needs to be simpler without as many choices. That's right, I said, NOT as many choices.

Now, I'm not making excuses for the nitwitted web devs out there who deliberately put something out that is not tested cross-platform, cross-browser, cross-dressing or what have you.

And I'm not making excuses for MSFT either.

But I hate the fact that things just don't work as you intend them because of:

a) Browser makers don't support this or that in this version.

b) This plug-in doesn't support that.

c) The user has chosen to install this or that which causes a conflict with a plug-in or browser function.

I mean, c'mon, it's about communication. It's what we do. Who cares about the esoterica of how it gets delivered or if this company's a 'dark cloud' and a 'monopoly' if what we need to do is get our product and/or message delivered to the masses.

And as far as MSFT being the Darth Vadar of the world...that's a tired old horse. We need to move on...

I came across this as well, when a friend sent me his LaunchCast 'Channel'. It is, truly, idiotic.

Another possibility with your experience is that you have Windows Media Player in OS X, but you *don't* have it for Classic--therefore, when you finally launched the 'right' (ack) browser, it couldn't serve you the format it wished to.

My suspicion? Even if you installed a Classic-compatible version of WiMP, you'd be told you don't have the right codecs ;)

Tom, the experience is hardly "optimum for Win users", in fact, as I write this Launch is down. When Launch is up it's a maze of popup plugin windows, and move-wrong-and-it's-gone subtabs.

Believe me, nobody at Launch HQ (or Yahoo, or M$) said "Hey, lets show OSX users nonsense error messages to enhance our brand and revenue stream!" A more likely scenario: Launch has an aging codebase, and cost constraints prevent them from doing the major standards-compliant overhaul that would ironically save them money and win more customers.

I personally think this is a sad example of what happens when you pay your developers peanuts, you get monkeys... of course I'm only guessing.
However I am right behind the idea that if you are short of cash the first thing you will do is drop any customer segment which adds too much development time... say if you had to add 25% development time for 5% of your customers. But all this really means is that you have to make better choices when you start developing. I have been looking into flash for my video streaming since flash MX came out and it is almost there. Plus you can play flash on a mac!

yea, it is a business decision to support only one platform but it is really a business decision to neglect to tell the users that are not on that platform ? Or tell them the minimum requirements for viewing? That, I think, is todd's point? And if Yahoo is anything like my old empoyeer, the largest non porn server of news video on the web, then i bet it was bad project managment, info architecture and shoddy coding that caused these horrible contiguency errors and not a damn business plan.

i meant to write "non porn video" OR "news video" but i wrote both. In IM mode sorry.

If I said I was there at the meetings would you believe me? Probably not, so nevermind.

ok. you were at the meetings. I believe you.

Name Withheld, if everything you say is true, and you were at "THE MEETINGS", so what? There is nothing sinister or unusual about companies making an exclusive promotion deal.

Anyway, I am pretty sure that Dominey's point is that Launch's contingency design failed spectacularly. The problem is not that Launch only streams WinMedia, or fails to support OSX, the problem is that Launch uses outmoded browser sniffers and frustrating, incorrect error messages.

The point is, they don't care. The site is for Windows users only (essentially). It works for most of them. All I'm saying is it's not because they are lazy code slobs, although no doubt they are, but because they don't care about other users, other OS's, standards compliant code or whatever error messages you might getting. Pretend they are an MSN site. If you're on OS9 you're lucky the site gives you an error message at all and not just a bomb.

Definitely a case of lazing coding. Yahoo! apparently doesn't have too many Macs lying around the office. Launch.com has really gone downhill since Yahoo! took it over so what do you expect. It's a tough time for Yahoo! especially with Google getting all the attention now. Rightfully so too.

"Name withheld" alleges a business conspiracy on that music site, and I can confirm this: they do not feature any accordion music, but have tons of electric guitars. This is obvious proof of some type of collusion.... ;-)

jd

Curioser and curioser. Now it seems that Launch/Yahoo are debuting a pay-per-play service. Hope that works out for 'em.

Good point Mr. Dowdell. Looks like Wierd AL could mount an anti-trust case.

;)

Quote:
"They used Windows Media Player!? They should have used something with a wider viewership, like, uh, video in Flash.…"

Second that.

In addition to the astute observations about business behavior, I think somebody there's just being a complete dumbass.

I had a similar experience with VH1.com today. How rampant is this? VH1 really has no excuse.

Oh well, we all got given assignements in university the other day, something along the lines of presenting a website which involves a particular community, so I decided on music. Typical of me to leave everything at the last minite, but I came across launch.com after searching through quite a few music based websites, I thought to myself this will be ideal.
The next day I proceeded to talk about the website, then I typed the url in on the computer set up on the projector (which happened to be a power mac G5, as its a art, media & design university all the computers are macs,) to my dismay a error msg popped up complaining about the browser, so promptly I started up classic, set up netscape, then got another error msg about windows media player, so I proceded to install that. Guess what, the content couldnt be displayed properly due to 4.7 being a very old browser, and when I did manage to select a video it wouldnt play, needless to say I got very bad marks for that assignment!.

This week I decided to upgrade my ancient 6500 power mac for a G4 eMac, being a student I couldnt afford a G5 just yet, and to be quite honest it does me just fine at the moment, untill tonight, oh lets have a look on launch.com at some new music videos, *shock horror* error msg with safari, then IE, ive tried everything tonight, with no sucess.

I give up, does this mean I need to go purchase emulation software or build a cheap pc just to so I can view music videos?.

And as regard to different multimedia standards, codecs & etc, this is something that concerns myself, as I am studying for a degree in multimedia, I feel this can affect me, from a design point of view, but I do agree there are far to many standards.
for example, imagaine if you needed to download a codec to watch a different program on tv, because bbc is broadcasting it, and you cant watch coronation street on ITV because your tv is made by sony, and it runs on a different cpu to other tv's, no one would put up with it, there does need to be some form of standardization.