I didn’t see this in yesterday’s press release but tonight’s concert will be streamed live on MSNBC.com at 8 p.m. EDT; the address is http://hurricane.msnbc.com. (I found about it in a print ad.) One drawback: MSNBC.com video is limited to IE 6 users; MSFT Media Player 10 and Macromedia Flash 7 also are required.
I heard about the MSNBC.com browser issue this week from a reader who wondered if the site’s video-viewing numbers were lower because it excludes millions of other browser (Firefox, Safari, etc.) users. I asked various people at MSN and MSNBC about this in the past, always getting the response that it’s designed for the vast majority of users.
Here’s what my correspondent had to say: “Note that from a technical standpoint, ‘developing for IE’ is a cop-out. Nearly all news video sites work with non-IE browsers, I’ve found, except MSNBC, Reuters, and Feedroom (BusinessWeek and USAToday). MSNBC is the only one that targets users to install/upgrade IE, though…the remaining only have onerous user-agent browser string detection.”
To which I’ll add, no matter the reasons, the perception is that of a site pushing one of its owner’s products.
Update: Watching online now. It’s running behind the broadcast and I’ve had a few blips but overall pretty good. The full-screen image on my Sony Vaio S4460 is more than decent. Interesting … sponsor Capital One gets continual billing next to the stream, which is not the case on TV. One mistake: no direct donation link on the video page.
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