Superman filming for City website

[Damocles]

Stephen Ireland was out and about filming for the new City website yesterday, can't wait for the launch although I am told there have been one or two last minute technical issues!

Damocles anyone ??

No thanks :D

The current site is shockingly bad on all levels; it is information overload, it doesn't render well across all browsers, it isn't search engine friendly, the menu scheme is a bit naff, the ticketing site and store are completely separate entities that are tacked on to it, and the site is hard on disabled users.

I'm worried that the new site will be all Flash menus and swishy looks. Many web developers seem to tend towards this approach because it looks spiffy, and impresses idiot clients. Even worse, they build it on some 'new and trendy technology' such as Microsoft Silverlight and it is shite because nobody outside the language developers has worked out how to use it properly yet.

The IT department at MCFC (the actual guys in the stadium) are pretty decent lads from what I remember of them, and if they get any call in the decision, it will be fine. If it is a marketing call, it will be garbage. I honestly cannot think of a single football club's website that even approaches decent.

Examples of decent websites: google.com, reddit.com, demonoid.com, wikipedia.org, sites which present the content as the central point without randomly throwing it all on the screen.

Rubbish sites are the ones that aren't usable (for example, anything with Silverlight on won't work unless you have Silverlight, which discounts all of the Mac/Linux users, well sorta, the FA does this), look terrible, or doesn't look the same across different browsers.

I hope City get it right, I know they probably won't.

Oh also, Ric *IS* a professional web developer, and having seen his work, a damn good one too.

 

[i see skies of blue]

Interesting stuff, here's hoping the website is top drawer. Regarding our own actual TV station, I don't think this is a viable option for any football club. If you think of our viewing habits these days, sky+, youtube, iplayer ect it's all about video on demand. The website would be a far better option for highlights, interviews, exclusives, behind the scenes ect and you can dip in and out as necessary. A 24hr channel would soon turn stale, it's about quality not quantity.

 

[Anonymous]

I just hope for a few things.

That there is more football, news and deatails of the Academy and Reserves.

That the narrator won't be a hardline manc like the newcastle site has a hardline geordie voice <a class="postlink" href="http://www.nufc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Home/0,,10278,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.nufc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Ho ... 78,00.html</a>

 

[Ric]

They should get Sir Ric on board then.

No disrespect to Ric but they seem to have a big professional team involved...cameramen and all sorts!

Couldn't agree more, what they are doing with the site is going to be unique (from what I've heard, I get to see it on Monday so will be able to say more after that). To be fair to the club though, they've said to me that it's in no way competition, they see it as complementing the existing fan sites. There'll be no forum on there for instance, It's only right, we should have a shit hot site.

 

[bizzbo]

Personally, I hope it doesnt look like wikipedia. google and wikipedia aren't good comparisons because they deal in text, this site will have to be attractive and dynamic. I hope there is a ton of flash and ajax, because it's been shown that you can make extremely usable sites that will still knock your socks off / deliver superb experiences. as long as we don't have to load a 5mb flash intro every time we want to check a fixture date, and they've made something intuitive, they should run wild. I'm pretty excited by this.

 

[bluealf]

It's so exciting being a City fan at the moment. haven't been this excited since Keegan joined & then Anelka signed. we've got a great crop of players with the promise of more to come, a management team committed to success and an owner seemingly determined to make us the happiest fans in the world.

You not get excited when Robinho signed then ?

 

[jimharri]

It's so exciting being a City fan at the moment. haven't been this excited since Keegan joined & then Anelka signed. we've got a great crop of players with the promise of more to come, a management team committed to success and an owner seemingly determined to make us the happiest fans in the world.

You not get excited when Robinho signed then ?

Who?

 

[Project]

Damocles anyone ??

No thanks :D

The current site is shockingly bad on all levels; it is information overload, it doesn't render well across all browsers, it isn't search engine friendly, the menu scheme is a bit naff, the ticketing site and store are completely separate entities that are tacked on to it, and the site is hard on disabled users.

I'm worried that the new site will be all Flash menus and swishy looks. Many web developers seem to tend towards this approach because it looks spiffy, and impresses idiot clients. Even worse, they build it on some 'new and trendy technology' such as Microsoft Silverlight and it is shite because nobody outside the language developers has worked out how to use it properly yet.

The IT department at MCFC (the actual guys in the stadium) are pretty decent lads from what I remember of them, and if they get any call in the decision, it will be fine. If it is a marketing call, it will be garbage. I honestly cannot think of a single football club's website that even approaches decent.

Examples of decent websites: google.com, reddit.com, demonoid.com, wikipedia.org, sites which present the content as the central point without randomly throwing it all on the screen.

Rubbish sites are the ones that aren't usable (for example, anything with Silverlight on won't work unless you have Silverlight, which discounts all of the Mac/Linux users, well sorta, the FA does this), look terrible, or doesn't look the same across different browsers.

I hope City get it right, I know they probably won't.

Oh also, Ric *IS* a professional web developer, and having seen his work, a damn good one too.

While I am a proponent of web standards Silverlight works fine on the Mac as there is a plugin from Microsoft themselves. And the Linux version is available from the Mono project. You can't blame the tools when it comes to web development - even for something like Flash. If something looks or works terrible then that's down to the people behind the decisions to make it that way. And it's easy to pass the buck on the marketing folks but the reality is there are also a lot of shit designers out there.

 

[Damocles]

While I am a proponent of web standards Silverlight works fine on the Mac as there is a plugin from Microsoft themselves. And the Linux version is available from the Mono project. You can't blame the tools when it comes to web development - even for something like Flash. If something looks or works terrible then that's down to the people behind the decisions to make it that way. And it's easy to pass the buck on the marketing folks but the reality is there are also a lot of shit designers out there.

The Mac Silverlight plugin has some problems, and Moonlight is currently highly inefficient. This is why I said sort of, but you have a fair point.

I also agree on the abundance of shit designers out there. There are far too many people who are artists who know a bit of HTML and call themselves web designers. The central problem is that they will ignore technical arguments if the presentation is good enough, this is never a good start for an extensible site, and one of the reasons why websites don't evolve as a project, they start afresh every time.

Personally, I hope it doesnt look like wikipedia. google and wikipedia aren't good comparisons because they deal in text, this site will have to be attractive and dynamic. I hope there is a ton of flash and ajax, because it's been shown that you can make extremely usable sites that will still knock your socks off / deliver superb experiences. as long as we don't have to load a 5mb flash intro every time we want to check a fixture date, and they've made something intuitive, they should run wild. I'm pretty excited by this.

What does MCFC.co.uk deal in? Morse Code?

I'm sure the millions of partially/unsighted people, and disabled users will be glad to hear your excited about a Flash site. No screen readers or accessibility tools can use Flash. The moment you use it, you discount a wide user base. There is also the Linux user base, many of who do not have Flash, another market lost (and considering the OLPC project, that's a big number in places like Africa). In addition to this, you have mobile users, many of whom don't have Flash.

But hey, it looks good and *I* can use it, so why not?!?

Seriously, please try to be informed about an opinion before posting it.

 

[cfn1963]

I hope its accessible to lots of people.

But for purely personal purposes I hope it works on mac and iphone.