MSNBC: Lame Lame Lame

When you get bounced out of Hotmail you of course land on the MSN page, which has links to top stories on MSNBC. So they were plugging the amateur video from the tsunamis that sadly have killed nearly 30,000 people at this point, and I was curious to see just what this looked like.

I bounce on over there and launch the video clip. Wouldn't you know it, you can only view it with Internet Explorer. Could that be any more lame? I can deal with having to use Windows Media Player, but MSNBC wants to force me to use IE? And if I'm using a Mac I should do what?

For all of the crap that Microsoft has taken for exercising its monopoly power to dominate certain markets, and given the pending litigation in Europe, I can't believe they would allow something this lame to occur.

Sure, it's their business, and they can require users to use whatever software they choose. However, when you start doing this with news media, you're doing little but giving your critics the fuel they need to blast you some more. Controlling the distribution of news media in this manner is a real kick in the nuts to the journalists that risk their lives to get the story.

3 Comments

  • The IE market share is slipping. This is a perfect method to raise it's share. *wink*

  • I disagree that this in any way "controlling the distribution of the news media". By the same logic you can say that requirement to have a computer in order to view the site. I don't see anyone raising objections over 99% of movie trailers showing up in QuickTime.



    As you said it yourself, it's their site and they are free to chose method of content delivery. There are plenty of alternatives and there's no need to bring up "journalists risking their lives" to show how much you prefer Firefox over IE.



    just my .02

  • There's little point in responding to your post since you seem to think that movie trailers and news are the same thing, and that computers are something controlled by one company.

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