Yahoo (and others), get your act together!

In this ubiquitous world of Web 2.0 there is simply no excuse for it...and I'm fed up!

I go to Yahoo several times a day to check on news headlines and stock quotes, but I find myself getting more and more frustrated.

Anytime you find a link to view a video clip from one of their channels, you have about a 50/50 chance of not being able to view it unless you have Windows Media Player installed in your browser.

 

 

I'm a Mac user and Microsoft has decided to cancel all development of WMP for this platform...but even if I didn't use a Mac, I'm still forced to use this player on Yahoo. What really burns me is that Yahoo has the audacity to first make me watch a video advertisement (which plays just fine) before they tell me I can't view the selected video.

 

 

 

That's obnoxious.   

So I did a little digging and found something particularly puzzling.

If you click on the video from Reuters called The Update: Baghdad bridge bombing on Yahoo, you first get to watch an ad, and then they tell you you can't view the video.

 

 

 

 

 

If you go to Reuters and click on the SAME video...you first get to watch an ad for Microsoft (how's that for a coincidence?)...and then ta da...the video plays...because it is encoded in Flash.

 

 

 

So why does the same clip from Yahoo...that originates from the same news organization...have two different video formats?

Can anyone explain that to me? 

 

Of the 18 channels currently available the following cannot be viewed on Yahoo without the WMP plug-in:

reuters
cnn
weather.com
accuweather
cbc
expanded books
talk to power
adventures
charlie rose
bbc
australia 7

I'm fed up with this! If you have a public site and you want my eyeballs and my business, you are going to have to start encoding your video in a format that can be seen by everyone. If not, I'm not patronizing your site anymore. There are plenty of options outside of Windows Media that don't discriminate...and if you can't get your act together, then you don't get my traffic.

If you want to have a private service that uses a proprietary technology to play your media, more power to you. But if you operate a public portal, then you need to step up and make your "public media" available to all...Windows, Mac, Linux...