New AFL site (suggestions, complaints and compliments)

[Rorschach2]

My personal prefernence is for embedded media. In the IA for the new version of AFL.com.au, we've allowed for an embedded experience should we wish to execute that.

Thanks for your reply Sandy, but check this out:
YouTube: The biggest success story of the internet in the past couple of years
Bigpond TV: Only works for 56% of it's users

As for the DRM concerns, MTV doesn't seem so worried. And even if users are savy enough to copy streamed flash video to their PC [which would be a very small percentage, not enough I know how to do that] what's the concern? I'm assuming the video will be topped and tailed with sponsor's billboards. If users share it among themselves all it does is give you and your sponsors more exposure.

Anyway, this is a relatively minor issue in the stumbling beast that is afl.com.au.

Thanks for your time

 

[paulg99]

>1) Are the AFL are concerned with the feedback they are getting?

In my experience, the AFL is very interested in the feedback they get. The trouble is, the feedback is filtered by Telstra before it gets to the AFL. In one of my burst of complaints about the match replay video where Telstra wasn't able to help beyond telling me to clear my cookies, I was able to secure Ben Buckley's email address (he was the AFL's operations manager I think).

He was interested in my experience and responded personally, and must have given a bollocking to someone at Telstra because that guy very testily sniffed that if I didn't like the service, I could have my money back. I told him I don't want to give up the service and it would be a bargain at twice the price if it worked. I was put in touch with someone technical at Telstra, Grant Coulter, and he proved very helpful in determining the problem was at their end.

I have given credit where credit is due too. Ben was pleased to hear last year when I complimented Telstra on its performance, and told me about some of the added features that were supposed to be coming in 2007. Like video of games being available with 12 hours not 24. That one has proved a disappointment as most often we get the link to the video but just not the actual video.

We are lucky to have Sandy taking an interest in these issues. Sandy is not just a PR person and has a good reputation in the industry. From this outreach, it shows a sea change in culture at Telstra that it is the customer experience and not just kissing up to the client (the AFL) that is important.

Paul

 

[Borgsta]

Thanks for your reply Sandy, but check this out:
YouTube: The biggest success story of the internet in the past couple of years
Bigpond TV: Only works for 56% of it's users

As for the DRM concerns, MTV doesn't seem so worried. And even if users are savy enough to copy streamed flash video to their PC [which would be a very small percentage, not enough I know how to do that] what's the concern? I'm assuming the video will be topped and tailed with sponsor's billboards. If users share it among themselves all it does is give you and your sponsors more exposure.

Anyway, this is a relatively minor issue in the stumbling beast that is afl.com.au.

Thanks for your time

The DRM is an interesting comment considering you can stream from the BigpondTV directly from WMP easily enough. When I tried it took me about 2 minutes to get the hand of it and I'm no genius.

 

[Borgsta]

Hey all,

We've changed the ladder to present the % with two decimal points.

This came up yesterday.

http://afl.com.au/Season2007/Ladder/tabid/74/Default.aspx

Cheers,
Sandy

Excellent. Oh wait I get this pile of crap.

Running Windows XP and Opera. Have no issues with any other websites and amazingly if I add "www." to the start of this the web page comes up fine....

 

[m0nty]

We are lucky to have Sandy taking an interest in these issues. Sandy is not just a PR person and has a good reputation in the industry. From this outreach, it shows a sea change in culture at Telstra that it is the customer experience and not just kissing up to the client (the AFL) that is important.

Paul

Dude, you joined BigFooty yesterday and you have only made two posts, both of them praising Telstra and Sandra in this thread. That's one of the more obvious attempts at astroturfing I've seen lately. It would be shameful if it weren't so pitiful. You and whoever you're working for have no credibility. I have reported you and expect you to be banned. And I bet I won't be the only one on the lookout for further astroturfing accounts.

 

[mollyfud]

Dude, you joined BigFooty yesterday and you have only made two posts, both of them praising Telstra and Sandra in this thread. That's one of the more obvious attempts at astroturfing I've seen lately. It would be shameful if it weren't so pitiful. You and whoever you're working for have no credibility. I have reported you and expect you to be banned. And I bet I won't be the only one on the lookout for further astroturfing accounts.

Call me a conspiracy theorist but Team Followed: Sydney! Isn't the firm working on the AFL site in Sydney?

Molly

 

[fishman]

Best AFL website?

http://web.archive.org/web/20031119103528/http://afl.com.au/

Simple and easy to use.

If you really want to see hpow it morphed into these 'object of beauty'...

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.afl.com.au

I used to be a supervisor in Bigpond technical support (thru teletech international) for about three years. Nothing I hated more than calls from the untrained staff when it dealt with V8 supercars. Why? because no one could figure out nor support the product cause in most instances it didnt work. Fills me with dread to think this is being thought about when talking about afl.com.au

 

[Linda Crescent]

'sldavey', as previously mentioned in this thread by so many, including me, please "...attention to detail".

Below is a screen grab of the story/headline concerning a serious injury to Hawthorn player Mark Williams.

Please let it be known to BigPond's "site developers and partners" that the photo is in fact one of Mark Williams the coach of Port Adelaide, not Mark Williams the full forward for Hawthorn who the story is about.

This content error is stupid, close to offensive. Who knows what Mark and Mark think about it (?).

 

[sausageroll]

i found it under video & audio > audio > listen now...text links to audio that plays in your media player natively.

well I'm ****ed if I can find it!!

 

[sausageroll]

Hi SausageRoll,

There are separate links now to just audio if you don't want to use GameDayLive.

Not sure why your browser is crashing ... and it's a bit hard for me to help without knowing the circumstances that might be causing the crash.

Page weight is being worked on. It's definitely heavier than I personally would like to see, though there's a large discrepancy in size across many news and sports sites. I've seen some up around the 1MB mark and lots down around the 200k mark. Rest assured though, I'm asking for a crash diet for afl.com.au!

Regarding your last paragraph, perhaps you could scour this forum for posts by me. It'd be helpful before suggesting that we're not listening, not acknowledging problems, or that we aren't trying to deliver upon the myriad requests that come in from fans.

Cheers,
Sandy

Thanks Sandy.
When I close gameday live all other web pages I've got opened freeze and I get a message "program not responding". It only ever happens when I close gameday live.

I couldn't find a link to the radio anywhere. Only what looked like a link on the audio page which said "live radio (on now) but it was only text...not a link! Please tell me where I can find it.

I have read this thread from start to finish since it started pre-season. The only times I've posted on this thread before my previous post was to congratulate YOU on coming onto BF to get feedback for the AFL site and doing what you can to fix problems and respond to the comments from BF members. I still think you're doing a great job and will say it again... Well Done
But the point I was trying to make is that the site developers have got it COMPLETELY WRONG. It's great that you're trying to Fine-tune things like you're doing but what we really want is a simple, fast site to access information on AFL. We don't really need the Abode Flash pictures, just a thumbnail pic. Flash slows things down way too much. Get rid of it!

Anyway, I'm getting back to gameday live

 

[sausageroll]

I couldn't find a link to the radio anywhere. Only what looked like a link on the audio page which said "live radio (on now)" but it was only text...not a link! Please tell me where I can find it.

LOL. I found a link ON GAMEDAY LIVE (top section) that allows you to listen to the radio without using gameday live!
WTF???
I have to open Gameday live to get to that link? Kinda defeats the purpose.

I know it's not your fault Sandy. You have to admit though, somebody involved with the site needs closer supervision.

 

[pies/eagles girl]

at the moment the site is showing the ladder from midway through round 3- is that happeneing to anyone else?

 

[sldavey]

Hi All,
So many posts to comment upon so am merging them all into one response...

vanberlo comments on sla's...
We have a multitude of SLA's in place but the one I was specifically referring to last night was that we don't have a direct relationship with ChampionData for stats. That relationship is held by the AFL.

But I agree with you. SLA's are fundamentally important and necessary.

I am the General Manager of Sport for BigPond so I'm involved with all our new medida sport investments, AFL.com.au being one of them. For background ... I was the EP on Supercars before moving to the entire sport portfolio. I am not a PM on this nor am I PR.

I accepted responsibility in a previous posting on AFL.com.au even though I'm not the PM or EP. It's ultimately people working for me so that's why I accepted responsibility for AFL.com.au in this forum.

One thing Telstra specialises in is documents! A gazillion of them. With specific regards to AFL.com.au, we've got specs, solution architecture design documents, complex Requirements documents, etc.

What I will acknowledge is the difficulty we had in migrating the old AFL.com.au site across to the new one. I've done a long posting on this migration in previous postings. One major disadvantage for our development company was the lack of documentation on the old system, particularly the dbase architecture, making the migration extremely complex.

rorschach and borstra comment on DRM and video...
I'm very interested to see what MTV is doing and also the recent announcement by one of the major music labels in removing DRM from their environments. Very interesting.

Unfortunately the big labels ... Sony, Universal and for me, horseracing, currently require tight DRM over the video. This may change over time.

On a sport specific DRM note though, luckily at the moment we dont have to wrap AFL, NRL, Supercars with DRM. It's only horseracing we have to do that with. IF we offered a 'download' sport product (which I really want to do), then we will be required to DRM the video and set business rules for expiry).

Borsta shows a screendump...
Not sure I can help here except to say Opera isn't supported Borgsta. Please use II or FF as your browser.

mOnty suggests paulg99 is a bit suss...
For the record, I don't know paulg99. But I think I like him

Mollyfud suggests the team working on this are Sydney...
For the third time, there are more than 15 companies that provide different things for AFL.com.au eg:

• ChampionData - live stats for GameDayLive, stats, etc
• AAP - news
• Media Giants - editorial
• hosting - WebCentral
• Design and Digital Marketing - Spin New Media
• Development - Cfour

etc etc etc

As I mentioned the other day, it'd be great to have one company that could do the lot that AFl.com.au needs but that would be a miracle to find a company that could do everything.

Importantly for you Molly, editorial, video, UI, design, stats, etc are all done by Melbourne companies.

However ... I'm not sure where this whole Melbourne/Sydney thing is coming from. After all, isn't AFL supposed to be a national sport?

fishman comments on Supercars...
Interesting fishman. I went to every V8 Supercar event for about 20 months. I worked very very closely with a lot of people on that product. You need to be careful when you make sweeping comments like "it didn't work".

I'll admit though ... doing live broadcast streaming and synchrosing telemetry and live timing data feeds, in real time, with video, back in 2003, yes there were problems! Combined with the pecularities of the ADSL vs cable vs satellite access networks meant people would experience different behaviour (eg. buffering).

But the number one problem we had with Supercars ... people's PC's.

The multiple configurations, iterations that people get upto with their PC's more often than not, would be the problem. As a practical example, the number of firewalls that block video and helping users to set their firewall settings to allow video was a number one support feature we had to do.

I could talk for hours about Supercars so maybe send me a private message if you want to continue this.

LindaCrescent comments on wrong content...
This is a comment for the editorial team and I will pass that one (actually they read this forum).

That's obviously a human error on our part and I apologise.

Sausageroll asks about direct live audio...
http://afl.com.au/VideoAudio/Audio/tabid/8545/Default.aspx
Yes it launches GameDayLive and then gives you the option of just live radio. Mmmmmmm ...

I was kinda hoping for what you were hoping for ... and that's just direct radio links to run in a native media window right? Lemme find out why we haven't done that...

pies/eagles girl comments on the ladder...
Nope, showing the correct stuff. Refresh or hard refresh your browser.

Cheers
Sandy

 

[red+black]

If the name Mark Williams confuses them, then Nathan Brown will send them into a spin. There's only three of them.

 

[VanBerlo=God]

'sldavey', as previously mentioned in this thread by so many, including me, please "...attention to detail".

Below is a screen grab of the story/headline concerning a serious injury to Hawthorn player Mark Williams.

Please let it be known to BigPond's "site developers and partners" that the photo is in fact one of Mark Williams the coach of Port Adelaide, not Mark Williams the full forward for Hawthorn who the story is about.

This content error is stupid, close to offensive. Who knows what Mark and Mark think about it (?).

ROFL AAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

that is so friggen funny!

 

[Sandola]

at the moment the site is showing the ladder from midway through round 3- is that happeneing to anyone else?

Yes. This has happened to several of us over the last few days. It's intermittent, but a "hard refresh" isn't necessary. Sometimes the ladder is correct, sometimes it's the 2- or 3- games played one. My own theory is that it's some sort of default screen that comes into play when the correct screen isn't available for some reason. I'm not technical though, and it could be anything. Only sure thing is that sldavey hasn't got it figured out, either.

 

[Chief]

ROFL AAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

that is so friggen funny!

We need t-shirts of that one.

 

[Borgsta]

Borsta shows a screendump...
Not sure I can help here except to say Opera isn't supported Borgsta. Please use II or FF as your browser.

It works when it says

www.afl.com....

but not

afl.com....

That is just lazy programming.

 

[peechers]

'sldavey', as previously mentioned in this thread by so many, including me, please "...attention to detail".

Below is a screen grab of the story/headline concerning a serious injury to Hawthorn player Mark Williams.

Please let it be known to BigPond's "site developers and partners" that the photo is in fact one of Mark Williams the coach of Port Adelaide, not Mark Williams the full forward for Hawthorn who the story is about.

This content error is stupid, close to offensive. Who knows what Mark and Mark think about it (?).

Sandy, you are right...I apologise for anything I may have said that may have offended you in anyway.

You stated that the problem you had with Supercars was everyone elses pc's. This is clearly correct in the case with afl.com.au too.
See above, this clearly came up on someones pc...obviously they need to update their system.

Yep the problem is Telstras customers...always is,isn't it?

 

[the croucher]

Sandy, two questions.

1)
As www.afl.com.au is clearly identified as the official site of the Australian Football League, why is there no obvious email link allowing us to make enquiries of the AFL management and staff ? A professionally run site would always have one visible on the home page.

2)
Why are there so many factual errors in the history sections of the site and what are you going to do to have them corrected ?
In particular I refer to the Hall of Fame pages, and the Awards page - All-Australian.

 

[VanBerlo=God]

We need t-shirts of that one.

you get the print layout, i get the T's

 

[sldavey]

It works when it says

www.afl.com....

but not

afl.com....

That is just lazy programming.

Borgsta,

Come on mate, this is hassling for hassling sakes. You using Opera. We don't support Opera and you know that.

Both iterations of afl.com.au and www.afl.com.au work in IE and FF.

Cheers,
Sandy

 

[sldavey]

Sandy, you are right...I apologise for anything I may have said that may have offended you in anyway.

You stated that the problem you had with Supercars was everyone elses pc's. This is clearly correct in the case with afl.com.au too.
See above, this clearly came up on someones pc...obviously they need to update their system.

Yep the problem is Telstras customers...always is,isn't it?

Peechers,

I did not say the problem is always the customer.

Deploying complex web sites, the problems are generally everywhere, including ours. But also including PC's. You oughta know that from spending those years on an internet tech desk (which I did two years by the way in the early 90's).

I also mentioned in the email you're quoting that the access networks (adsl, cable, etc) can be problematic but I also mentioned the number 1 problem I've seen with video over the years is predominantly PC settings like firewalls. That's not to say we don't get it wrong as well with things like encoding quality.

It cuts both ways, I know that.

Cheers,
Sandy

 

[PHX]

WTF?

Sandy, please go to the stream of SEN right now. The volume is wavering very badly. Loud-soft-loud-soft constantly, even on ads.

Is this the stream or quite possibly just a problem at the station itself. If someone is in Melbourne and can tune in through radio to check it that would confirm the problem source.

Any ideas???

Cheers.

 

[sldavey]

Sandy, two questions.

1)
As www.afl.com.au is clearly identified as the official site of the Australian Football League, why is there no obvious email link allowing us to make enquiries of the AFL management and staff ? A professionally run site would always have one visible on the home page.

2)
Why are there so many factual errors in the history sections of the site and what are you going to do to have them corrected ?
In particular I refer to the Hall of Fame pages, and the Awards page - All-Australian.

Hi Croucher,

"Help" sections of sites have typically been in the header and footer for years, those locations pretty much being the defacto standard.

In the footer of every page of afl.com.au at http://telstra.com/subscriptions/afl/contactus/feedbackchoice.asp, there is a button there to contact the AFL direct.

Secondly, factual errors in the stats ...
If you are referring to the History section in AFL HQ, at http://www.afl.com.au/*****/tabid/81/Default.aspx, that content is managed and maintained by the AFL.

If you are referring to the Awards section under Season2007 at http://www.afl.com.au/Season2007/Awards/tabid/71/Default.aspx, that content is managed and maintained by the AFL.

I'll raise it with them on Monday.

Cheers,
Sandy