Dec 3

Stupid Bunch of Yahoos.

You know, the web designers of sports.yahoo.com apparently wouldn’t know a Mac if you beaned them in the nose with an 17″ TiBook. I can’t think of any other explanation for them only supporting the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, a browser which hasn’t had a major update since it was released in 2001. I’d suspect backroom dealings with Microsoft, but even the Microsofties have abandoned development of the browser, so what would be the point of restricting access to modern browsers like Safari and Mozilla?

In the past year, the only improvement I can find of the audio streaming broadcasts Yahoo provides is that Windows Media Player for Mac is now actually able to open the streaming files, rather than claiming that the “codec is not supported.” Granted, being able to open the files is infinitely better than not being able to open them, but now the challenge is to find the magic sequence of links that takes you to the file itself. I find a page with a list of games available to listen to. I click on the audio icon next to “North Carolina vs. Illinois”. Do I get to listen? No. I get: “Follow North Carolina all season long!” Advertising their broadcasts. I click on “You are already signed up for College Pack”, which is the only available link on the page. I get a page with a list of games available to listen to. Looks familiar. I keep this up for ten minutes or so trying to see if there’s a link I’ve missed somewhere. Eventually I give up.

With about ten minutes left in the game, I go back and try logging out and logging back in again. Bingo. Media window comes up. As usual I have to reload the page twice to get the stream to actually start playing, and there are no player controls anywhere in the window.

I ain’t paying $4.95 a month for this crap. [edit 5/31/04: This is, sadly, a complete lie. I eventually caved. But I wasn’t happy about it, dammit!]

I wonder if Yahoo has exclusive internet broadcast rights? Seems to me that UNC, which, by the way, pioneered live internet streaming broadcasts, should be able to offer it too. I’d forgive all of UNC’s various administrative sins and humbly join the General Alumni Association if they’d make basketball games available free as a benefit. Hear that, GAA? You know my price.


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