» AP Video on the site :: Web Notes

May222006

AP Video on the site

Filed under Site Updates, Transparency by damon kiesow at 11:33 am

Another new feature on the Web site today - AP video news: AP Video @ The Telegraph

We have had access to this service for a few months, but have been reluctant to promote it due to potential compatibility issues with many web browsers.

AP Video is a major collaboration with Microsoft, which provides the video technology and ad sales. It may be no surprise then, that you can only view the videos when using a Windows PC, Internet Explorer 6.0, and Windows Media Player 10.

As far as we can tell 80 percent of our online readers are using IE 6.0 on a PC. That leaves 20 percent of our readers out of the loop, which is too large a number to ignore.

As a compromise, we will be offering the videos, but we will restrict their promotion to the main page of the A/V Room, and there will be an included disclaimer to indicate what hardware/software combination you need to have installed to see the clips.

There is no such thing as 100% compatibility on the web, despite an abundance of open standards. However, in this case AP & Microsoft have purposefully ignored almost a quarter of our audience.

Many newspapers have called on AP to fix the product to allow Mac usersand non-Internet Explorer browsers access. No specific timeframe hasbeen promised, but AP has said they are working on it.

When and if they do, look for it to receive more prominent promotion on our site.