Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Myspace previews complete redesign

new.myspace.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 275 posts

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#261

Post by esrauch »

ryanmolden wrote: post #234
esrauch wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that many IE8 users don't even know what a browser is. That isn't an euphemism, they literally don't know the word "browser". There message as displayed conveys the message better than "We don't support your browser" to those people, and there are more of those people than there are Opera users.

That line of reasoning almost works, except for the fact their error message already says browser.

My point wasn't that as soon as you say the word "browser" their brain's are going to shut off; with the message as presented you don't need to know anything about the word "browser" or even what a browser is or does to understand what they are saying.

Obviously they could have written a paragraph of text explaining that, but just saying "something you are using is so old that it is lame (in the duck sense, not in the teenage slang sense), here's how to fix it" gets the job done in one sentence.

This isn't a business website, this is a social network that gets most of their traffic from bands now. I can't fathom how the smallest amount of snark about IE8 being old on a product like this is raising so much anger on the HN community.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#262

Post by esrauch »

jarek wrote: post #208
khet wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes character and guts to stand up for something. I think MySpace can be credited for that. The snark-iness was probably meant more for ie6-7 users than Opera users.

> It takes character and guts to stand up for something. What does showing a message "Our superpowers have detected you're using an outdated browser. That must mean: a - You don't use the Internet very often. b - You're at your parents' place on the PC they bought in 1996. c - You work for the government or a big corporation." to users using a browser released in the past month stand up for, other than ignorance?

Doesn't it seem far more likely to be indifference to a negligible market share than ignorance of Opera's existence? It's not worth their money to spend any amount of time making a custom error for "Your browser is new, but we don't support it anyway" separate from "Your browser is old and we don't support it" when 99.9% of the people seeing the message are in the latter category.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#263

Post by jarek »

esrauch wrote: post #262
jarek wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It takes character and guts to stand up for something. What does showing a message "Our superpowers have detected you're using an outdated browser. That must mean: a - You don't use the Internet very often. b - You're at your parents' place on the PC they bought in 1996. c - You work for the government or a big corporation." to users using a browser released in the past month stand up for, other than ignorance?

Doesn't it seem far more likely to be indifference to a negligible market share than ignorance of Opera's existence? It's not worth their money to spend any amount of time making a custom error for "Your browser is new, but we don't support it anyway" separate from "Your browser is old and we don't support it" when 99.9% of the people seeing the message are in the latter category.

I was referring specifically to khet's statement I quoted. What is Myspace "standing up for" here?

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#264

Post by jarek »

__abc wrote: post #152
akldfgj wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hey friend, it looks like you are using Opera. Beware, pal, that we don't go to the opera down here on the ranch, so there may be rough-riding ahead! Try one of these nifty browsers buddy, or sally forth into the unknown. OK, pardner?"

You can put all the disclaimers you want before a use and they will "venture forth into the unknown". However, they will ignore (if they even read/understood it) your warning and then bury you in support tickets, complain loudly to their friends, and leave you with a mess to deal with and no real clean/easy way out.

> then bury you in support tickets

After all, Myspace has a commonly-used bug reporting functionality.

> complain loudly to their friends

Because they won't complain about being locked out?

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#265

Post by jarek »

h2s wrote: post #206
jenius wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what exactly do you propose? That we just halt all technological innovation on the web so that people that don't feel better about having old browsers and/or computers? This is a ridiculous idea, and a ridiculous comment. I'm a web developer and I'm so excited about making awesome things and the fact that the web is evolving and enabling us to do this, and share our creations with the world. People like you and co…

> I'm a web developer Me too, and I agree with you. I would be interested to hear from anybody who currently works as a professional web developer and thinks that supporting a well-defined set of browsers is a bad idea. I suspect that a lot of this negative commentary is coming from people who have no idea what kind of workload can be added by supporting an extra browser.

The issue isn't "supporting". They actively went out of their way to specifically add code blocking Opera's user-agent string. It's more work to that than to let it through and let it fail if it must.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#266

Post by ryanmolden »

esrauch wrote: post #261
ryanmolden wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That line of reasoning almost works, except for the fact their error message already says browser.

My point wasn't that as soon as you say the word "browser" their brain's are going to shut off; with the message as presented you don't need to know anything about the word "browser" or even what a browser is or does to understand what they are saying. Obviously they could have written a paragraph of text explaining that, but just saying "something you are using is so old that it is lame (in the duck sense, not in th…

People don't appreciate being needlessly insulted, I can't fathom that you don't actually understand that. Your "big paragraph explaining a browser" is a strawman. They already say browser, they don't need to elaborate. They can still suggest browsers they do support, the shark just gains them nothing. You honestly think someone seeing the message they have is going to think they are cool/clever/funny/hip? When a course of action gains you nothing and has the possibility of offending potential customers/users the decision seems pretty obvious to me.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#267

Post by jarek »

robbyvalles wrote: post #260
lordlarm wrote: post #48

As a computer scientist and an Opera user this actually insults me: http://i.imgur.com/7k0bN.png Ironically Opera was the one who proposed the -tag which this site uses for it's rotating LP, in 2007. [1] Way to exclude users. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video#History_of_.3Cvideo...

opera 12 is supported now, just pushed

Thank you.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#268

Post by esrauch »

ryanmolden wrote: post #266
esrauch wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point wasn't that as soon as you say the word "browser" their brain's are going to shut off; with the message as presented you don't need to know anything about the word "browser" or even what a browser is or does to understand what they are saying. Obviously they could have written a paragraph of text explaining that, but just saying "something you are using is so old that it is lame (in the duck sense, not in th…

People don't appreciate being needlessly insulted, I can't fathom that you don't actually understand that. Your "big paragraph explaining a browser" is a strawman. They already say browser, they don't need to elaborate. They can still suggest browsers they do support, the shark just gains them nothing. You honestly think someone seeing the message they have is going to think they are cool/clever/funny/hip? When a cou…

I expect most people would not care at all, with the remaining minority either grinning or groaning. I'm not surprised that you think it was ill-advised, but for so many people on HN to be offended or feel insulted because of a lousy attempt at humorously calling out users of out-of-date browsers is just a bizarre concept to me.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#269

Post by ehutch79 »

jff wrote: post #202
logn wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musicians like myspace because you can customize your homepage. And it's accepted to send invites to random people. On Facebook you don't have either of these. Also they added music friendly features such as letting users select your tune as their homepage theme song. As a musician I've found Myspace to be invaluable. I think they face stiff competition from soundcloud. But a big problem with soundcloud is the amount…

Customized homepages, random invites, and homepage theme songs: you basically just outlined the main reasons I stopped using Myspace.

As a musician, THIS can not be said enough!

Autoplaying music on any page, even a bands is a bad idea.

Re: Myspace previews complete redesign

#270

Post by path411 »

ary wrote: post #4

Myspace previews design concept video. I'll believe this interface in a browser when I see it. That said, it's a nice concept.

That interface is entirely possible in a browser. Blurring the concept of software and web applications is entirely the trend that people should be pushing towards.
Post reply on HN