Yankees.Com Hits A Home Run 78
Yankees.com is a home run, a beautifully-conceived website that blends technology, interactivity and information architecture, and that brings a musty old cultural tradition into the Digital Age.
Media people and dusty old cultural institutions and businesses, take note.
Venerated print and text industries like journalism and publishing are almost desperately trying to figure out how to respond to the Internet. Their urgency is at least an improvement on the favored solution of the late 80's and 90's: throwing up clunky, non-interactive Web pages known online as "shovelware."
Print media have spent countless millions of dollars rushing to establish these generally dreary, online versions. Imagine how much better newspapers and magazines would be if they'd spent the same money hiring staff, improving graphics and modernizing their news coverage? And used the Web to draw some new readers?
Meanwhile, no book publisher has yet produced a striking, effective or innovative website. Inside publishing houses, publicists and marketing consultants emphasize the importance of placing stories on the relatively tiny Slate and the more trafficked and interactive Salon.com (both of which attract an infinitesmal fraction of Net and Web traffic).
Beyond that lazy impulse, they don't seem to have a clue as to how to use the Net or what it might mean for them down the road. Ten years ago, this lack of imagination was understandable; these days, with Grandma likely to be online downloading videostreaming software, there's less excuse.
Only a handful of news organizations - the San Jose Mercury News? Mercurycenter.com, CNN, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today - have broken through, establishing themselves as truly interactive (sometimes even profitable) -- not just traditional media organizations with Url's. The huge difference is interactivity. And sensitivity - knowing and fighting for Web users.
From e-trading to eBay, the lessons of the Web are that if you give people new means of connecting with the products, advertising or information they want, they will come.
Information architecture and design, therefore have become critically important to companies making the transition to the virtual world. Web information is complicated, write Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville, in "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web," published by O'Reilly ($US24), one of the most accesssible, coherent and useful guides to the principles of Web design. You can't create a website that works, the authors argue, until you understand the basic principles of Web architecture and use, any more than you can design great buildings without real world architecture.
"You can't become a proficient web site architect unless you first know what it's like to really use the Web on a regular basis," write Rosenfeld and Morville. A site, they suggest, must grow from a carefully planned information architecture for users to be successful in finding pages and accomplishing tasks. Confused users, lost users, and unhappy users can quickly turn into former users or none at all.
"In other words, the best web site producer is an experienced consumer. You must become the toughest, most critical consumer of web sites you possibly can. Determining what you love, what you hate, and why, will shape your own personal web design philosophy?."
This statement invokes the striking revamped Yankees site, (www.yankees.com), a boon n ot only to the baseball team's fans, but more significantly a model of the kind of consumer empathy, design and understanding Rosenfeld and Morville are talking about.
Yankee.com shows how a well-designed, interactive site can make a traditional produce (a ball game, a book, a newspaper) more accessible and appealing, instead of simply more digital.
Amazon.com has generated enormous publicity and confusion in the media and business world (it has yet to make money) but much of Amazon's success flows from the fact that it was designed by planners who understood the Web. It's architecture was, especially at the time of its inception, simple and user friendly, designed very much with Web browsers in mind. Yankee.com does the same thing, but with more relevance to institutions trying to leap into the Digital Age.
In design, concept and architecture, Yankee.com shows how connectivity can reinforce name- brand institutions, using the Net to hook them up with old and new customers. It follows Rosenfeld's and Morville's advice to seriously ponder what the target audience likes about the Web and doesn't, and then to incorporate a lot of the former and eliminate a lot of the latter.
Major League baseball is curiously analogous to journalism and publishing in a lot of odd ways: an older institution, threatened by ferocious competition from new forms of entertainment and information technologies, from cable wrestling to online gaming. A reactionary institution, like journalism and publishing, it has been bitterly and justifiably criticized for being slow to change, seeing the Web at first as a menace, not a boon.
But what draws consumers to the Web is that it gives them new ways of getting to the things they already love - music, movies, Persian rugs, stocks, TV listings. L.L. Bean was one of the first large retailers to get this; it moved its catalogue business online and created a website that was highly user-friendly; it didn't start offering virtual campires. In fact, it emphasized its traditional virtues - reliability and familiarity - online.
The designers of Yankee.com also understand the importance of figuring out what people most like about the thing you're selling and then using the Web to bring it to them.
In the case of baseball, fans love to yak about their team, follow stats and scores, buy gew-gaws for themselves or their kids, and get tickets. All are radically simple on Yankees.com, a complex site whose dimensions are simple, clearly portrayed and easy to grasp.
First off, the Yankees have made it an interactive delight to buy a ticket. Customers who click on the Box Office icon are linked to a list of upcoming games, click on the one they want to see and the money they want to spend. They can pull up a seating plan, even see a photo of the field from their perspective seat. By punching in a credit card number, they can receive tickets (by mail or UPS, ground or next day), or pick them up at the box office.)
In addition, they get animated tickers providing news of the latest Yankee games, video "tours" of the team's clubhouse, easy-to-use and very fast forums on which to chat with other fans and ask questions (members have to sign up: topics are posted and listed and the conversations are surprisingly coherent and civil) and the opportunity to buy Yankee junk. The site is crammed with advertisers.
Just as Rosenfeld and Morville might suggest (what do you hate about the Web?), Yankees.com uses "cookie" and other recognition software to recognize your computer, thus freeing users from the insane and annoying need to memorize ID's and track down passwords and usernames.
There's almost nothing in theory more culturally endangered than a baseball game. Why travel long distances, braving crowds, high prices and traffic jams, to watch guys in funny uniforms smack a ball around with a stick? But people's feelings about technology and tradition are complex and unpredictable. It's quite possible for the same person who trawls the Web for hours to still savor the experience of selling a baseball game. Or reading a book.
What does this have to do with media, journalism or publishing?
A lot. I've yet to encounter a publishing website in America that's as interactive, graphically appealing or technically savvy. Yankees.com requires some relatively sophisticated programs to run its color and animation. The site figures out what programs users will need, links them to the right downloading sites (automatically reading the difference between Macs and PCs), and guides them through the simple downloading process. Building it probably cost a bundle.
But it was a wise investment. The site is intensely participatory, offering users a wide range of options and activities - including news, search engines, Internet access and free e-mail. The Yankees have embraced what journalism and publishing resist so bitterly - interactivity.
Newspapers and publishers have already blown myriad opportunities to draw consumers into their websites. Daily news meetings could be simulcast via webcams - allowing readers to offer their ideas and reactions. Editors retain control, but could also get input. Websites could guide news consumers through the editorial process -- readers could see some stories before and after they were copy-edited, perhaps even be offered the chance to correct factual errors or misconceptions before they appear. They could see the reaction journalists get to their work, offer questions for public officials, chat live with reporters and editors after major stories, or at certain times of the day. Papers could also offer Net access and free e-mail as a way of bringing customers onto their sites, keeping them connected to papers.
Book publishing offers as many opportunities, if not more. Instead of throwing up sluggish and useless promotional websites, or mailing books to a handful of snooty literary websites hardly anyone reads, publishers could draw readers into the process. They could organize websites by genres, and bring readers closer to the process of assigning, editing, producing and publishing books.
When a new catalogue is published, a book might automatically get its own corner of the website. Interested readers could follow its status -- what print run is anticipated, where the book is being ordered, what publicity is scheduled, where the writer is in the production process, what covers are being contemplated and designed. Invisible elements in publishing - designers, for example - could get invaluable feedback from readers on what covers attract them in bookstores, for example.
Publishers could have some fun, too. They could learn if readers would like the author to visit their town, if there's a local group that might be interested in a particular book. Readers could access lists of chain and independent outlets where they could buy the book. As with the Yankee's ticket software, they could enter their zip codes and get a list of every bookstore within 20 miles that stocks it. Such a site could also give publishers valuable databases, and a better sense of how well a book might do, how many copies to print and distribute, eliminating some of the voodoo guesswork that publishing sales departments rely on.
What the Yankees organization has figured out is that a website has to be truly empathetic to and knowledgeable about its users. It has to go to bat for battered Web-browsers snagged and derailed by confusing sites that don't work generate more problems than they solve.
It's strange that a baseball team would get this idea while publishers and editors resist it so fiercely. Admitted to the party, given choices, the public rushes to embrace technology and interactivity and uses it to get to the games, books, CD's, movies, hiking boots - and news - it wants. Excluded and kept at bay, the people move quickly on, almost surely leaving a string of Millenial dinosaurs behind.
yankeeS.com (Score:2)
yankees.com [yankees.com]
Wake up and smell the coffee (Score:2)
Hey, fancy that. Companies can make money off the Web? They're beginning to be interested in developping high-profile sites for business online? Fascinating... Good thing Yankees thought of it first, and Katz pointed it out!
[/sarcasm]
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
Gawd i hope so :) (Score:1)
Re:yankeeS.com (Score:1)
Now, at yankee.com [yankee.com] we can read about removing nuclear reactor vessels and decomissioning nuclear power plants, whoa, way cool!
More seriously, correct the url typo, quick, before we
George
Yankee or Yankees dot com (Score:3)
Pagh.
wrong audiance (Score:2)
i'm not trying to be anti-katz here (plenty of people do that well enough : )), but i really don't see how this belongs on
Re:yankeeS.com (Score:1)
Seriously, I don't think there's a correlation that shows that being a nerd/geek/techno-weenie automatically bars you from being interested in following sports.
No alternate text. Frames. (Score:2)
Not to mention the site uses frames and seems to have no alternate text at all.
Graphic-intensive web sites are bad enough, but without alternate text they are broken. Some people actually turn off graphics or use text-based browsers in the real world, you know. And did I mention the site uses frames [useit.com] and doesn't seem to have any real need to?
At least the site didn't require me to turn JavaScript on like some other poorly-designed web sites do.
--
Re:yankeeS.com (Score:1)
Sorry Prof. Sociology, but that's a load of crap.
Columbine illustrates the extreme scenario of students that are ostracized lash back at their "oppressors". Sure, I've know a lot of jocks that can't think for themselves, but the same is true for nerds/outcasts. Do you really think all those Marilyn Manson, Korn, or Insane Clown Posse fans are any different than a bunch of rabid football fans?
Everyone's marching to the beat of a drummer.
TGL
Re:yankeeS.com (Score:1)
The strategies involved in the games are interesting intellectual excercises with football being on the same level (for me anyway) as a good old-fashioned war-game.
John Katz visits a website. Film at 11 (Score:5)
The website also doesn't have anything revolutionary. Cookies to keep track of users? Even slashdot does that. Message forums? You're looking at them! Message forums with a very polite membership? (Where's the fun in that?) Check out C|net's Builder Buzz. I can think of half a dozen sites just on my daily rounds alone that are just as interactive, if not more so than yankees.com. Better designed to boot.
As a webmaster, I also know what the designers were thinking when they built the website, (I know, I think this way too). They weren't thinking "let's do something revolutionary", they were thinking "Look at all these other sites (slashdot) that have message boards, voting booths, and news! We better to do that too!) They relied on the yankees name to draw people there. the truly revolutionary websites don't have that kind of help. They were thinking of how to make money and how to sucker in yankees fans like Katz. It worked for the yankees fans, the rest of us aren't that impressed.
ahh that's a bunch of horseshit (Score:1)
this is exactly what is bad about Info Arch. and web design. it is clever and well executed, but the IA is horrendous and unmanageable.
Did the company that built the site also post the glowing review?
sheesh f jackie
Re:Yankee or Yankees dot com (Score:1)
Slooowwww (Score:1)
home page. Sure it's colorful and has lots of
wizz-bang stuff on it, but to hold it up as a
shining example of web design is too much.
You can tell a good web design by what is left
out more than what is added.
With the massive amount of people on the web now,
the struggle is to keep the non-upgraders happy
while also satisfying the gee-whiz crowd. The
web used to be a rowboat, now it's an ocean liner.
We can't turn this thing real easy like in 1995.
A little hyperbole? (Score:1)
> throwing up clunky, non-interactive Web pages known online as "shovelware."
They had web pages in the late 80's? Geez, where was I?
> Beyond that lazy impulse, they don't seem to have a clue as to how to use the Net or what it
> might mean for them down the road. Ten years ago, this lack of imagination was understandable;
Yeah, since the 'net (specifically, the www part of the 'net) didn't exist 10 years ago, I guess "this lack of imagination was understandable".
How 'bout a little less hyperbole there, guy.
User Forums on yankees.com (Score:1)
Keep in mind, though that this site, while ordinary today , was at one point ahead of its time for its market.
It did stay up reliably, and I was able to inquire about ticket availability, and do most of the useful things reasonably well.
This Site Looks Like Ass (Score:1)
On my Mac with NS4.6, the fonts are so small as to be entirely unreadable, their Java scrolling thing is actually *layered over* my button bar (Back, Forward, Reload, etc.), their stadium seating map requires Flash, and there's a lot of blank space at the bottom of the front page. And they use frames, which generally sucks.
It might looks nice on IE5 on NT, but, fortunately for the world, not everybody runs IE5 on NT.
worth a slashdot poll (Score:1)
this kind of articles manages nothing but to provoke me (well done) and I'm sure a lot of other users are pissed off about this too.
It's so lame, it seems almost like some kind of joke, this article talking about how great a single site is.
I totally agree with the [sarcasm] post, and yankees.com is nothing but a site full of rip-off java applets, it's regular total shit hell I bet lynx would core on it.
Is Katz a necessary evil ????
Katz (Score:2)
Re:User Forums on yankees.com (Score:1)
The opposite extreme of "shovelware" (Score:3)
First of all, Katz has an excellent point about "shovelware." I've seen plenty of those sites, and they suck. Having a Web page only for the sake of having a Web page strikes me as useless.
However, there are a lot of sites (and yankees.com has this tendency as well) that go to the opposite extreme. The "gadgetware" sites sometimes have good content, yes. But only the fastest and newest machines with completely up-to-date software can truly take advantage of it.
My home machine right now is a 486 with a 14.4 modem, and I usually run Lynx. It's aggravating when someone with a flashy site makes it unreadable to anyone who doesn't have InternetGadget 9.9.9. It makes me LESS likely to do business with them, not more.
We shouldn't be encouraging "shovelware." Katz is absolutely right there. But "gadgetware" is every bit as bad.
Re:Yankee or Yankees dot com (Score:3)
The key insight is the one that Katz identified: know your readership. Slashdotters are a different audience to Yankee fans (although I suppose there might be some overlap :-). And as for bandwidth, I recall the days when the modern Slashdot would have been considered a bandwidth hog. All those graphic elements scattered around...
Every book I've ever read about how to write effectively starts by saying that you should know what your audience is, and then write the things they need to know in a style they can read. This is the core skill for any writer.
This principle applies even more to the web. But in addition to the style of the writing, there is also the style of the site. We are starting to see conventions emerge for navigating information, like the button bar at the top of the page, that a significant proportion of the population know how to use. A designer who is familiar with these conventions and the way different people relate to them can use them to pitch a site at a target audience.
Possibly the first example of this way of thinking was the (IIRC) '96 Olympics web site, in which an explicit design constraint required that no piece of information be more than three clicks away form the home page.
Hemos and Cmdr. Taco also obviously understand this principle. Slashdot is a hackers site: highly configurable, high information density, rewards long-term use (Karma), not afraid of complicated stuff like the raw HTML I'm typing now. These are the characteristics of things that hackers like to use, but they would sink like a stone with any other audience.
Paul.
Re:This Site Looks Like (Score:1)
This isn't news for either baseball or the web (Score:1)
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publisher site (Score:1)
the design isn't the greatest, but the concept is very innovative & useful...
Behind the scenes technology (Score:1)
Unfortunately, it appears the online store part of the site is done in ASP. Of course, that may explain why it is completely un-integrated into the look and feel of the site. Probably some contract job or off-the-shelf ecommerce system.
Bad Website, Worse Article (Score:1)
What a nightmare to download and navigate. The old yankees.com sucked, but Steinbrenner really outdid himself with this one!
People shouldn't have to download all that junk to get the information they're looking for.
To see Website reviews on
Slashdot
News for nerds with T3s in their apartments, GUI only browsers, and time on their hands
yankees.com Needs Too Many Resources (Score:2)
While the designers have clearly achieved a striking look and their navigational design is OK, they really hurt their site by using NESTED framesets. I couldn't believe it when I tried to load the largest pane into its own window.
Once I figured out how to break the page down into components, I took a look at the box-menu [yankees.com]. This is displayed when you are in the Box Office section of the site. Is it really necessary to create a set of tables within this small segment of the page, just to give immediate visual feedback to a newby? Wouldn't you expect that a box labeled "Stadium Seating Map" would do something if you clicked it? Why not the old-fashioned GIF and image map?
With respect to the analogies to physical architectural design flying around in Katz's article, I'll agree that there are several schools of thought in the Web Development community. The people that designed this site belong to the Broadband School, which tends to neglect the typical user's configuration because they are trying to achieve a look that will knock your socks off. The Realist School knows that the typical consumer has a commercial on-line service (like AOL) and a Winmodem, which provides much less bandwidth than most of us are used to.
So, yes, I'll agree with Katz that they've got all of the information that their customers expect. But, I totally disagree that they have produced a usable site. The people in charge need to go back, deconstruct a few successful consumer sites, and figure out how to deliver the same information, with a similar look and feel, on much less complex pages.
Re:The opposite extreme of "shovelware" (Score:1)
Gadgetware- I love it.
Coincidence?: (Whois on gadgetware.com)
What pisses me off about a site more than anything is when it loads Java for no apparent reason, on the front page.
I'm on a fast connection (University Ether), with a reasonably fast machine (G3/400), and I still gotta sit there watching the spinning beachball while Java loads.
There oughtta be a law: no loading Java without first telling me why it's loading and letting me opt out.
dr. johnWorld Wide Web (Score:2)
-locust
[1] I know, I know a bunch of companies outside the US have
Re:Yankee or Yankees dot com (Score:2)
My OC3 was choking on it.... (Score:1)
Wow, what a chock full-o-^$%! site.
It's pretty, but in terms of actually using it - I'd much prefer sites like Slashdot, which while not paragons of aesthetic vision, are easy to use. Jakob Neilsen's Useit.com [useit.com] is a good example of a site with no graphics, but easy to use. It also is a great resource for web designers, and should be in their bookmarks.
Sorry Jon, nothing really innovative here.
Re:worth a slashdot poll (Score:1)
The guy must have sum kind of dirt on Cmdr Taco or something.
Or maybe it really is all just a big joke. If so, now would be a good time to let the angry mob in on it.
Re:worth a slashdot poll (Score:1)
Re:This Site Looks Like (Score:1)
Great site, but...how do you use it? (Score:1)
After waiting for the index page to load for a while (I'm on a T3 by the way...), what first catches your eye?
The red box with news? Now, after reading the news blurb, what are you supposed to click on? The darkened links at the top of the red box?
Look around the rest of the interface, what's a link and what isn't a link? Some of the links are yellow, others are white, and some are black until you mouseover them to turn them white.
The design is so busy that I didn't even notice the navigation bar at the top. Shouldn't it be more prominent, or look somewhat like a navigation bar?
Overall, I think it's too hard to use and needs a redesign.
Matt
(BTW, did this site remind anyone else of Comdedy Central's site [comcentral.com]?)
Several points (Score:3)
The Yankees have a site worth spotlighting on Slashdot? I'm sorry, I'll go with the professionals who checked it out and reported their findings: over-the-top sites are Web pollution, and I'm told they don't even get decent cross-platform results. Is Jon Katz getting kickbacks or something? First Apple, now this.
Lastly, 'shovelware' is more accurately a relic of the CD-Rom boom days, when people thought anything on a CD-Rom was instant riches. CD-Roms are capacious, especially back in those days, so it was indeed like 'shovelling' data onto them, and there were a lot of disks made that were total garbage to cash in on the (hypothetical) boom- hence, shovelware.
Isn't there anybody who could at least _edit_ Jon Katz and stop certain articles like this from being run as articles? Sometimes it's awfully obvious that he's blown it again. I use a Mac and really like it and think Apple's doing great things, but I still think his lovefest of Apple was _also_ inappropriate for Slashdot. Stop The Madness... (str)
What did Katz smoke for breakfast? (Score:1)
- it takes too long to load
- the fonts are too small
- there are too many graphics
- it's confusing to navigate
- etc etc etc
Somebody send Johnboy to get a head exam!
In your face (and mine) (Score:1)
Don't forget about http://www.azdiamondbacks.com (Score:1)
Wafting Yet another Airball with Jon Katz (Score:1)
Call the media!!
JOns found the web, well welcome to the 90's son. HEs found that its NEAT and can bring people TOGETHER. WOW!!!!!!!
Even for katz this article is lame, it is like an excuse to fill space.
I have a simple request, as we are able from time to time to moderate each other as posters, can we moderate the articles? I think it would go a long way in showing this kind of pablum for its worth.
As to the yankees site.. Its a web site that has faults, that needs some work, but in the end is about the Yanks, so it cant be all bad.
Jon Katz, the loosingest writter on the net writes about the Yanks, the winningest team in all of baseball.
Isnt it ironic, dont ya think?
MLB is generally Net-hostile. (Score:2)
Baseball has always been hostile towards new media technologies; owners were originally afraid that by allowing any broadcast TV at all, fans would not bother going to the games. More recently, MLB has made exclusive deals with networks (Fox, ESPN) giving exclusive TV broadcast rights to certain days and games. Until this year, MLB either didn't know about or tried to eliminate sites broadcasting baseball games on the internet. Now that internet broadcasts are tolerated, there is still only one broadcaster (broadcast.com), and MLB only "officially" allows the home team's broadcast on the net.
This style of dealing with the media is completely the opposite of what the internet is about. Fans should be able to pick whatever radio (and as bandwith increases, TV) game they want to watch; unlike TV, the only intrinsic restriction of the net is bandwidth, not the number of channels. MLB fears that fans will just sit on the net and never get out to a game; they should realize that (just as with TV broadcasts 50 years ago) more media coverage will result in more fan interest and more butts in the seats.
JMC
Just sad.. (Score:1)
Reminds me alot of George Bush when he discovered supermarket scanners during the '88 election campaign.
Well, at least he didnt mention Columbine again.
Bowie J. Poag
SportsZone: There is no substitute (Score:1)
end of story.
These guys pioneered and continue to produce THE most useful and informative website of its kind. (IMHO, of course.) Everybody should follow their shining example.
Mariners.org (Score:1)
http://www.mariners.org [mariners.org]
Viewing in linux (Score:1)
--
Scott Miga
Re:Jon Katz visits a website. Film at 11 (Score:1)
The Philadelphia Eagles [eaglesnet.com] site is just as colorful, just as information-heavy, and loads in a tenth of the time. It's almost as full-featured without having as many gadgets. And I'll bet the Eagles website budget was about one-fifth the Yanks website budget, just in thinking about how the organizations operate.
Of course, I'm biased since I work on the Eagles site. But I wouldn't say that just to name-drop, no sir I wouldn't.
LOL, Yankees.com just bring down my Netscape 3.04 (Score:1)
Here is why JonKatz is worse than John C. Dvorak as far as journalism goes. Yankees.com is THE reason Derek Jeter lost to Nomar in the All Star voting. Yankees.com has more than 2 times the email add than the Redsox.com, yet it failed to generate decent online voters for Jeter, Redsox.com not only send a newsletter in the beginning on the ballot, it sends another emergency email to register users in the end, which boosted just enough votes to surpass Jeter. (who [yahoo.com] is leading every offensive catergory except doubles in AL now hud? hud?;)
As a big yankees fan, I never care about the site except I found online ticketMaster from there. And normal yankees fan doesn't care it either, in news:alt.sports.baseball.ny.yankees [sports.bas...ny-yankees] nobody mention it either, you can check Dejanews if you don't believe me.
CY
Re:Yankee or Yankees dot com (Score:1)
CY
Re:yankeeS.com (Score:1)
I'm a geek and I will be the first to admit that I am in love with Ohio State football and basketball. Given a choice between my PC and a game...I choose both.
While, I'm not partial to the Yankees (being a Cleveland fan for the past ten years). This is definately a cool thing.
Go Browns, Bucks, and Indians!
Everyone's a critic (Score:1)
As if there weren't half a bajillion of the Slashdot Hezbollah lying in wait for his next article, he had to go and pick something as esoteric and subjective as web design with which to incite the masses. He couldn't have set himself up more easily if he'd titled it "Cool Websites - and why Linux sucks."
I learned one thing right away when I first started doing web design for a living: You can never please everyone.
If you invite criticism of a website (like Flamebait J. Katz has certainly done here), you will get it. What often gets overlooked is that this is still better than being ignored.
Either it looks boring, and no one will visit, or your use of tables and color will offend Jakob Nielsen und his crowd of usability Luddites because your site doesn't load in five seconds at Bell protocol speeds on AOL 2.0 for the Blind.
For myself and for most web designers of repute that I know, I tend to enjoy not cheating the people who bought the good equipment. It's called progress, and you can't make any if you don't push the envelope once in a while.
This is the website for a Major League Baseball team, and one of the most storied ones ever, at that. They want to sell tickets and generate hype amongst those myopic homers they call fans. Does it occur to anyone that they might actually *want* to look a little busy?
When those are considerations, and for yankees.com it's perfectly understandable that they are, sometimes it's OK to make the pages a little fat, or implement PHP (even, as my Katz-hating, Spanky-loving New Yorker friend says, badly).
That being said, yankees.com isn't bad. The font size complaint is valid, but no website is perfect. It certainly doesn't suck as horribly as indians.com, or my team's website, dodgers.com.
Is JK a David Bowie fan? (Score:1)
K.
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Da Bronx, Da Katz, and Me...Re:Everyone's a critic (Score:1)
Yea, so whatcha gona make of it bub?
Yes web design is not a job that is known for its thanks, often it can be said "no good job will go unpunished".
Mainly though, and i think you will bear me out on this, its mor to do with the fact that the people up top in Da Big Orfice in Da Sky have all the web savy of Jon katz on Prodigy. In short, the job is doomed to a certian amoutn of suckage becuase the bosses are mentaly retarded imac loving image crazy bloat vicitims.
The old yankees site was way way way cooler, much more useable, and a order of magnitude faster. Yes i love my yankees, i was born and raised on 207th street in da bronx so thats the way it is. It pains me to see Jon Katz pushing a crap site. Well actualy it just pains me to see jon Katz on slash dot, but thats beside this point.
An interesting thing that you pointed out to me, that the Yanks are going to be an ISP and Sell content....Hello..sell content? Where the fuck have they been recetnly. Go check the recetn fiascos when places try to sell content areas.
I wonde if Jon katz "missed" this in his in depth research onthe yankees site, or if maybe hes down for a percetentage of the gate. Nah, taht would require brains, and
Re:publisher site (Score:1)
macmillin is a publisher that has a very good & innovative site. www.mcp.com offers the ability to maintian a personal library of books that they make freely available. also beta books that are not yet in stores are available as they are being written, giving the opportinity for reader feedback & info & advance looks at books on new technologies.
Macmillan's personal bookshelf blew me away! They have hundreds of their books available for browsing online, all you have to do is register and cop the occasional spam (which generally announces new books available for you to read). And of course, all it takes is a "Save As.." and you're browsing them offline too! I pulled up "Teach Yourself Perl In 21 Days" and "Teach Yourself CGI Programming In A Week" and voila! this [goth.org.au] was the result.
Re:I smell a rat... (Score:1)
I read this article and came to one conclusion... (Score:1)
this site is crap. it took nearly 3-4 minutes to load connected at 26,400. total size including images is 154kb. it uses frames for no good reason. and WHAT THE HELL is that blue checkerish background. puke. that dhtml scrollbar behaves like its on crack. clicking the down button moves the viewing area further than if you click the part of the bar without the draggable button. (not to mention the draggable button never goes all the way down). there is, infact, a 'non frames version', but only to read the forums. after clicking the forum button, a menu pops up asking 'frames' or 'no frames'. real snazzy. doesn't this totally defeat the purpose?
this isn't website design. this is graphic design with some poor javascript and shtml programming. too often people show me these 'awesome' websites that they say 'have cool web design'. i go there and its nothing more than a table with some hitech looking graphics. 'look mah, today in computer class i learned how to import my images into microsoft word and save it as html' (you get my point). or better yet, an image map. while i commend the graphics, i (try to) politely inform the person that it is graphic design and im not very impressed with the 'web design'. yankees.com is a good example. except, of course, i dont commend the graphics. they dont look good, nor do they match to create an asthetically pleasing design.
i hate to say this, but i agree with the person who earlier said 'jon katz knew someone working on the site and put in a good word for them'. he may be wrong, but if he is, jon needs to try again.
shtml=dhtml (Score:1)
The site is BAD (Score:1)
This site deserves to be in a hall of shame as a prime example of how not to do a website.
Far too graphic intensive! (Score:1)
Mina Inerz [N. Reinking]
THIS site is supposed to be great? (Score:1)
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Re:This Site Looks Like Ass (Score:1)
Oh well (Score:1)
Sorry for the slightly offtopic reply - it's not often my two favorite subjects get covered in one thread!