I am thankful for all the blog-o-sphere websites which provide servers and websites for expressing opinions online. This doesn’t just include blogger.com, wordpress.com, or livejournal.com. I also include wikipedia and all of the wikia.com websites. And any website which allows people to add their opinions to the eternal flow of electronic information.
These websites are amazing. And they allow for the 80% of the world which isn’t represented by the mainstream news networks, hollywood movies, or local papers to express their opinions and find a community with those opinions.
But, I hate when those websites undermine the opinions of the bloggers or commenters by adding advertisements to a detriment to their content. Advertisements are a necessary part of every information medium, but it doesn’t need to be in your face. Or even worse, detract from the content which the end-user actually went to the website for.
Earlier tonight, I was trying to write a snippet of code which would use the Google Closure Compiler to condense some javascript used on the UCSB websites and ran into this blog post: http://www.bloggingdeveloper.com/post/C-Wrapper-for-Google-Closure-Compiler-Compressing-Javascript-Files-on-the-fly-with-ASPNET-and-Closure-Compiler.aspx
It’s a pretty decent post, but the code wasn’t complete. At this point I assumed that their website would have a download section to get the original source code. Near the bottom of the post there is text “Download Closure.cs”, which leads to nothing.
So far this website is zero for three. I wanted to find some code that “just worked with Closure Compiler”. And I was blown away that the top google result that I found had an image for source code (which I couldn’t copy/paste), had missing variable definitions, and I couldn’t get the source code.
The strange thing is that none of that annoyed me. The source code on the website was very similar to the source code I wrote in my early attempts; so I felt that I was doing the right thing. I had already created a string format, and I didn’t think the real implementation of “data” would solve my problem. But, the idea that I couldn’t download the source from the website bugged me. There was explicit text that said “Download Closure.cs”.
Have you ever created a website that had a link “Download PDF”, and the link didn’t work? How many people complained? Everybody that tried it would complain. Even people that would never use the PDF document would complain that the link didn’t work.
BUT … BUT … That text is not that big on the screen. There is a huge image which says “Download” right below it. That image probably appears on every page, and it probably confuses every person that sees it. The HUGE “DOWNLOAD” link only allows users to subscribe to an RSS feed. FTW??
What the hell does RSS feeds have to do with Downloading? What RSS feed on the planet Downloads? When has the term download ever been associated with RSS?
At this point I started to look at the website layout and started to notice the big images which say SUBSCRIBE and SPONSORS. Direct advertising! I understand that everybody needs to make money to survive. But, is it neccessary?
What is the business model of blogger, wordpress, and livejournal? How do they make money without pissing off their users?
Any why is anyone using a blogging website that would add content to your posts which you never asked for?
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