Has anyone else noticed that if you type SwimmingWorld.TV into your address bar, it takes you someplace different than where the link from Swimming World's site takes you? Go ahead, try it. You will be impressed. SWTV has been completely redesigned!
They aren't doing a grand opening yet as it is still under construction, but Jason Marsteller gave me a sneak peek and has finally given me permission to "Release the Hounds!" I have spent a little time browsing the site and I am very excited. It looks like the TV site is just the first phase of a complete overhaul of Swimming World Magazine's web presence. From the looks of what they have done so far, it will be a tremendous improvement.
Their flash on the main page has a great look. Their archives are much easier to search than in the past. My favorite new feature: when you are on an Event page, you can easily pull up any event you want to watch from their event list on the left side of the page.
Check it out!
Lets say I am away from my laptop, but I do have my iPhone. Video still not available in QuickTime. Other than that, looks sharp. Unless of course I am wrong.
ReplyDeleterumor is that iPhone formats are part of future plans.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately Apple has a competitive problem with Flash formats on the web. They refuse to support something on which many web sites are built.
ReplyDeleteAt this time, we don't have the ability to make the content available to iPhones. It's something that is in our long-term goal list, however. We just wanted to answer the more pressing need of providing the vast majority of our users the chance to more easily find our content via their computers. We think we've done that in a more visually pleasing manner than we've attempted in the past.
We are pretty excited about the direction of the new TV look, and can't wait until we get the chance to apply that look and feel to the rest of the site. While we are still the top viewed swimming media site in the world, the biggest complaint we get is the look, feel and navigation of our site. We're working to fix that, while bettering the overall use of our site.
Thanks for the support!
Ladies and Gentlemen, Steve Jobs.
ReplyDeleteSWTV's new site looks great Jason! I too like the new events navigation.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the flash/iPhone problem, your web designer can have the page test to see if the viewer is on a mobile phone (or even specifically the iPhone), and if so, NOT display the flash and instead display an alternative. It is fairly easily done, and most of the work has probably already been done to pull the headlines together for the flash!
Thanks, Luke. We are definitely looking into various options to make sure our content can be seen by the widest possible amount of users.
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