Yahoo! needs to stop rolling out services that are not ready for prime time
.. or they might just need to reconsider what is appropriate for prime time.
For years I have been using Yahoo! TV for getting TV schedule listings. Today, I changed my bookmark. Yahoo! TV seems to be experimenting with a new format that, like their Mail Beta, takes forever to load even when you are already on the page. I am not interested in seeing the little thinking bar when I just want to see the schedule and am already on the page, just scrolling down.
I’m trying out AOL’s TV listings. Anybody use anything else that works? I’m just looking for something simple that gives me the listings without annoying wait times.
At least Yahoo! Mail lets you switch back to the old version (I’m assuming due to user protest over the new version). I didn’t see this switch-back option on the TV portal.
UPDATE: One point I forgot to note is that Yahoo! also made the mistake of switching the system in a way that I got a 404 error when I clicked on my old bookmark. That’s not smart. If you’re going to change things, at least do so in a way that people aren’t channeled toward an error page.
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:53 pm
If it aint broken, why fix it? I don’t use Yahoo TV listings, but I do use their email quite a lot, and I don’t like their Beta Mail. I tried it a couple of times, and each time changed back. Like you said I found it slow, and also it did not fit properly on my computer screen. ( I like 800×600 screen resolutuin)
Best Regards, Will.
December 3rd, 2006 at 12:33 pm
I use the listings at TVGuide.com; they take a few seconds to load up as well, but also have pop-up “balloons” associated with each show, so that all one has to do to see the synopsis is roll one’s mouse over the title. I consider a five-second delay to be worth having this function, especially when I have yet to find a free service that loads any faster.
December 8th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
Tell me about it! I couldn’t believe it when I went to my long-bookmarked Yahoo TV page and instead found total nonsense. It was one of handful of reference pages I’m pretty much guaranteed to visit every evening. Now they’ve lost me and countless other former fans of the service. TechCrunch posted something about it a few days ago and dozens of people chimed in with similar complaints.
I tried using TVGuide.com but found it to be an even worse user experience. Right now I’m playing with Zap2It. It’s not too bad, but they cram so much info into each listing that it takes a long time to work your way through all the channels. I’ve also found that its controls for setting favorites don’t seem to stick for very long. There’s also MeeVee, but I haven’t used it long enough to form an opinion. (Not that this usually stops me, of course.) -andy
btw, mazel tov on the MacA grant. That’s wonderful news!
December 9th, 2006 at 12:55 am
For the record, TechCrunch posted about this the day after I blogged about it.
Thanks for the information about the other services, I’ll have to try them out. AOL TV is okay, but since I’m usually already logged in to my Yahoo! account anyway, Yahoo! TV had been super convenient.