Yahoo, Serious(ly)
Sometimes I will switch to a different piece of software, service, or web site if something comes along that is head and shoulders better than what I am currently using. I marveled at MapQuest in 1997. Yahoo Maps proved much less irritating and quickly replaced it. Yahoo pretty much remained the standard until Google Maps appeared and blew everything else out of the water in terms of interface. I presume Yahoo Maps has improved since then, but I have no motivation to bother checking.
There is another motivating factor: when an upgrade goes horribly wrong. Since I’ve been using the Web since the early days (would that be Web 0.5?), I’m used to doing everything I can via the Internet, including my TV listings. I’d always used Yahoo’s TV listings, which while a bit clunky, were perfectly functional and worked well enough to let me see what was on in the timeframe I was interested in.
In recent weeks, it seems Yahoo has given their TV listings site a huge upgrade. Previously it refreshed the page when you jumped around on the timelime. Now, it has the requisite AJAX crap going on so you can drag a scroll bar around to update the time view. This would be great, except it manages to look absolutely horrible, feels just as clunky if not worse than the old site, and most damning of all, sometimes loads incorrectly or not at all under a vanilla Firefox 2.0.
I am now using Zap2It.
There is actually a third motivating factor: my needs change. Interestingly this did apply, but wouldn’t have been a tipping factor. What changed is that I recently broke down and bought a LCD TV with an integrated HDTV receiver. Yahoo’s broadcast listings, for whatever reason, still only include analog channels. If there was a way to turn on digital listings in the new site, it wasn’t immediately obvious. Zap2It displays all the channels.
Since I generally am only checking for channels that have analog counterparts anyway, that annoyance probably wouldn’t have been enough in and of itself to make me switch from Yahoo. Coupled with the broken site upgrade, it’s pretty much set my new TV listings ‘provider’ in cement.
As an aside, holy crap does Southern California have a lot of digital broadcast channels. What was also interesting, although not shocking to me, was even though I’ve always had very marginal reception using cheap indoor antennas, most of the digital channels come through very well with a minimum of fidgeting using the same antennas. Viva technology.
There is another motivating factor: when an upgrade goes horribly wrong. Since I’ve been using the Web since the early days (would that be Web 0.5?), I’m used to doing everything I can via the Internet, including my TV listings. I’d always used Yahoo’s TV listings, which while a bit clunky, were perfectly functional and worked well enough to let me see what was on in the timeframe I was interested in.
In recent weeks, it seems Yahoo has given their TV listings site a huge upgrade. Previously it refreshed the page when you jumped around on the timelime. Now, it has the requisite AJAX crap going on so you can drag a scroll bar around to update the time view. This would be great, except it manages to look absolutely horrible, feels just as clunky if not worse than the old site, and most damning of all, sometimes loads incorrectly or not at all under a vanilla Firefox 2.0.
I am now using Zap2It.
There is actually a third motivating factor: my needs change. Interestingly this did apply, but wouldn’t have been a tipping factor. What changed is that I recently broke down and bought a LCD TV with an integrated HDTV receiver. Yahoo’s broadcast listings, for whatever reason, still only include analog channels. If there was a way to turn on digital listings in the new site, it wasn’t immediately obvious. Zap2It displays all the channels.
Since I generally am only checking for channels that have analog counterparts anyway, that annoyance probably wouldn’t have been enough in and of itself to make me switch from Yahoo. Coupled with the broken site upgrade, it’s pretty much set my new TV listings ‘provider’ in cement.
As an aside, holy crap does Southern California have a lot of digital broadcast channels. What was also interesting, although not shocking to me, was even though I’ve always had very marginal reception using cheap indoor antennas, most of the digital channels come through very well with a minimum of fidgeting using the same antennas. Viva technology.
Posted by Nathaniel Trost on
Thursday January 4, 2007 at 11:25am