Lame amateur site-o-the-weak: PlayersARC

Any site that blocks you from using it based on the browser you use deserves public humiliation. Today's example: Players ARC, a college recruiting site. Go ahead, check it out in Firefox or on your Mac.

http://www.playersarc.com/

In fact, I might as well slam them for their ridiculous business too, which preys on the hopes and dreams of kids that don't have a snowball's chance in hell of being recruited for a college sport. I coach junior Olympic 17's in volleyball, arguably the most competitive level below college, and I can tell you that all of these services are crap, setting up false expectations. If you're curious to know what your chances are to play in college, I wrote an article that pretty much sums it up here.

4 Comments

  • At least they are up front about it.



    How would you like it if you were shopping at an ecommerce site, filled in your address and credit card info then the site screwed up while you were checking out?

    Wouldn't you rather have been notified up front?



    They should be applauded for admitting it doesn't work.



    Perhaps you could throw them a couple dollars to support Firefox. While you are at it why don't you buy them a Mac so they can make it work there as well.





    -Dave

  • With all due respect (or not at all), that's a ridiculous cop out. To expect someone to use a specific browser to do anything is stupid. For you to suggest that it takes IE to buy merchandise online is just silly.

  • I've been developing websites for roughly 7 years and have never had an easy time implementing advanced features in every browser out there. There are just too many differences to make sure every feature works in every browser. No matter what, someone will always be unhappy. I guess for a large company (google.com, microsoft.com, ebay.com, etc.) where funds and resources are limitless I would certainly expect the site to work in a wide variety of browsers, however, I've done work for clients who expect the world to be delivered from a technology standpoint on very small budgets. I've also worked with 1 and 2 man design shops who simply have to draw the line somewhere in order to stay in business yet do amazing work. If I found out PlayersARC was making millions of dollars per year I'd certainly lean more towards your side of this coin but since I've never heard of them I assume they're either fairly small or fairly new so I'm be slow to rip them apart. They very clearly state the requirements for using their application so I guess I don't take issue with something they post clearly. I can either choose to use the required applications or I can choose not to visit the site. Isn't this similar to almost every software application out there? Same with Java and/or Flash sites. I'm required to have software installed to use them.



    As I said earlier, you can't please everyone. For example, in my personal opinion I think CoasterBuzz.com is a very poorly designed site. Does the site get a lot of traffic? Probably. Does it serve its purpose to its intended audience? Probably. Was it built perfectly to please every person in the world? No. A simple HTML validator check against it returns 298 errors. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.coasterbuzz.com%2F - Have you checked this website in every browser out there? There's no way you possibly can. Besides, with all the things going on in the world, why make a point to bash someone's goal of building a recruiting website? If it doesn't work it looks like the kids will at least have a nice digital collection of their highlights and stats from what I read on the site. I don't mean to start a war with you or anything I was just very surprised at your write up of the site.



    -Ryan Phelps

  • I'm not interested in having my site validate, I'm interested in making it work for nearly everyone. And yes, I have tested the site in IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari, effectively covering 99.99% of the people that visit my site. Hell, it even works in Netscape. I did the work, not make excuses.



    And aside from having a piss-poor amateur site, I stand by the fact that their business model exploits kids and their families by playing into unrealistic expectations.

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