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Post by mark687 on Aug 13, 2024 21:00:36 GMT
I guess it's progress of a sort, if that's how you find the BF website. I have it bookmarked and apparently my bookmark from the old site still works. See that way always worked. (which is why the loss of recognition from search engines surprised) Regards mark687
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Post by Ela on Aug 13, 2024 21:08:35 GMT
I guess it's progress of a sort, if that's how you find the BF website. I have it bookmarked and apparently my bookmark from the old site still works. See that way always worked. (which is why the loss of recognition from search engines surprised) Regards mark687 I don't think that's the way search engine optimization works.
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Post by hamsterexastris on Aug 13, 2024 22:21:44 GMT
I think we now know why BF went elsewhere. Not really. Hughes Media was acquired last November, and the new owners, Fifteen Design were the ones hosting Big Finish's old site (it was briefly accessible from bfn.fftn.dev earlier this month). So the dissolution of Hughes Media as a separate corporation back in January (per the linked documents) wouldn't, in and of itself, lead to any migration rush.
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Post by timleschild on Aug 13, 2024 22:49:07 GMT
I think we now know why BF went elsewhere. Not really. Hughes Media was acquired last November, and the new owners, Fifteen Design were the ones hosting Big Finish's old site (it was briefly accessible from bfn.fftn.dev earlier this month). So the dissolution of Hughes Media as a separate corporation back in January (per the linked documents) wouldn't, in and of itself, lead to any migration rush. Interesting stuff. I wonder if we will ever know.
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Post by theillusiveman on Aug 14, 2024 1:14:45 GMT
I think we now know why BF went elsewhere. Not really. Hughes Media was acquired last November, and the new owners, Fifteen Design were the ones hosting Big Finish's old site (it was briefly accessible from bfn.fftn.dev earlier this month). So the dissolution of Hughes Media as a separate corporation back in January (per the linked documents) wouldn't, in and of itself, lead to any migration rush. Interesting
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Post by enofa on Aug 14, 2024 1:30:21 GMT
There’s a lot of focus on the database stuff - understandably - but even when all the releases are ported over, all the purchases are restored, the app and account have been updated to include filters and sorting options, the whole thing is updated to include screen reader access and given a light mode, we’re still going to be stuck with a website that offers half a dozen slow as hell scroll bars spaced out down an enormous page, no infinite scroll, no easy access to ranges, things accessible via about six clicks where they were once found via one or two, separate release pages for CDs and downloads, nearly impossible to use scroll bars, genre descriptions that read like they’ve been written by a 10 year old, forward and back arrows both on the left of the page number, the lack of a War Doctor collection, forthcoming releases listed at the top of each collection’s page, free downloads with CDs added as a separate item in the shopping cart, release covers stretched into rectangles on the mobile site, Doctor Who spin-offs not included in The Worlds of Doctor Who…
While obviously getting all the actual content available again and making the site legally accessible to all should be the priority, even when that’s done we’re still going to be stuck with an ugly, amateurish, barely functional website. Honestly, if I came to the company for the first time through the current site, based on the design alone, I’d choose to just go to Amazon for my CDs, because it’s barely navigable. I don’t see how it’s actually fixable without rebuilding the entire thing from the ground up, which will be as expensive and time consuming as just making a new one that actually works.
I also note that none of the official communications have even mentioned the disappearance of the wish list feature, which I found so very useful during sales.
The lack of income this month will also be compounded by the lack of releases. BF normally put out six, seven, eight releases a month, but they’ve offered nothing new in more than a fortnight. I know a lot are preorders, but literally having no new products is not a good look either.
I genuinely don’t understand how this has happened. Back when I was in school many years ago, I took part in the Young Enterprise scheme where a group of us had to set up a business for a year. One guy claimed to be a great web designer, so we let him make the website. He did it unsupervised and when he showed the result it was abysmal, in 2002 it looked like something from about 1998. And everybody who saw it pointed it out. Everyone was very angry. And we were a bunch of teenagers just doing a school project. I truly cannot fathom how a professional company managed to take a look at this website and approve it. On a design level alone it fails on countless levels, and that doesn’t take into account functionality and reliability issues.
I’m kind of surprised they haven’t actually put up a temporary site, a minimal thing offering preorders and promising the rest of the catalogue will be available again soon once the technical issues are sorted out. It’s still running slow and janky as fiddlesticks, I can’t see how having it up is doing the servers, the company or their image any good at all.
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Kestrel
Chancellery Guard
Likes: 2,718
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 14, 2024 2:11:17 GMT
Interesting stuff. I wonder if we will ever know. It's kind of wild (not in a good way) how much we have to rely on speculation here. If Big Finish put out a statement that directed some blame for all this at a third party, rightly or wrongly, it would deflect a lot of criticism. Fans are generally able to overlook quite a bit -- if they have an excuse.
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Post by Ela on Aug 14, 2024 2:19:03 GMT
I suspect that BF doesn't want to go the route of blaming a third party, whether or not a third party is to blame. It's not a good look for them.
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Kestrel
Chancellery Guard
Likes: 2,718
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 14, 2024 3:05:37 GMT
True, but their present look isn't exactly a good one, either.
And, as I said earlier, even if a third party is totally to blame, Big Finish not having anyone in-house to to be able to oversee these things would, itself, be a pretty big problem, too.
EDIT: Personally I'm just not fond of this situation where it *seems* like a third party could be responsible, at least in part, but fans are left to speculate to Big Finish's benefit, without the company subjecting itself to scrutiny.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 6,011
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 14, 2024 6:47:38 GMT
I think we now know why BF went elsewhere. Not really. Hughes Media was acquired last November, and the new owners, Fifteen Design were the ones hosting Big Finish's old site (it was briefly accessible from bfn.fftn.dev earlier this month). So the dissolution of Hughes Media as a separate corporation back in January (per the linked documents) wouldn't, in and of itself, lead to any migration rush. I guess we will never know the full story of why BF took the decisions they did, but some pieces of the puzzle are starting to become a bit clearer.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 6,011
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 14, 2024 6:49:55 GMT
I suspect that BF doesn't want to go the route of blaming a third party, whether or not a third party is to blame. It's not a good look for them. There is also the possibility they could end up getting sued by the 3rd party, or undermine any action BF themselves may wish to take against the 3rd party.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 6,011
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 14, 2024 7:04:14 GMT
There’s a lot of focus on the database stuff - understandably - but even when all the releases are ported over, all the purchases are restored, the app and account have been updated to include filters and sorting options, the whole thing is updated to include screen reader access and given a light mode, we’re still going to be stuck with a website that offers half a dozen slow as hell scroll bars spaced out down an enormous page, no infinite scroll, no easy access to ranges, things accessible via about six clicks where they were once found via one or two, separate release pages for CDs and downloads, nearly impossible to use scroll bars, genre descriptions that read like they’ve been written by a 10 year old, forward and back arrows both on the left of the page number, the lack of a War Doctor collection, forthcoming releases listed at the top of each collection’s page, free downloads with CDs added as a separate item in the shopping cart, release covers stretched into rectangles on the mobile site, Doctor Who spin-offs not included in The Worlds of Doctor Who… While obviously getting all the actual content available again and making the site legally accessible to all should be the priority, even when that’s done we’re still going to be stuck with an ugly, amateurish, barely functional website. Honestly, if I came to the company for the first time through the current site, based on the design alone, I’d choose to just go to Amazon for my CDs, because it’s barely navigable. I don’t see how it’s actually fixable without rebuilding the entire thing from the ground up, which will be as expensive and time consuming as just making a new one that actually works. I also note that none of the official communications have even mentioned the disappearance of the wish list feature, which I found so very useful during sales. The lack of income this month will also be compounded by the lack of releases. BF normally put out six, seven, eight releases a month, but they’ve offered nothing new in more than a fortnight. I know a lot are preorders, but literally having no new products is not a good look either. I genuinely don’t understand how this has happened. Back when I was in school many years ago, I took part in the Young Enterprise scheme where a group of us had to set up a business for a year. One guy claimed to be a great web designer, so we let him make the website. He did it unsupervised and when he showed the result it was abysmal, in 2002 it looked like something from about 1998. And everybody who saw it pointed it out. Everyone was very angry. And we were a bunch of teenagers just doing a school project. I truly cannot fathom how a professional company managed to take a look at this website and approve it. On a design level alone it fails on countless levels, and that doesn’t take into account functionality and reliability issues. I’m kind of surprised they haven’t actually put up a temporary site, a minimal thing offering preorders and promising the rest of the catalogue will be available again soon once the technical issues are sorted out. It’s still running slow and janky as fiddlesticks, I can’t see how having it up is doing the servers, the company or their image any good at all. Speculation here, but given what we now know upthread about Fifteen's acquisition of Hughes and the very short time period the BF site was hosted by Fifteen, there could well have been an urgency to the switch to a new website - some change introduced by Fifteen that BF felt they couldn't live with. Most likely a price rise, but not necessarily so. A rush job would explain the problems the site has and why it went live before it was ready, before the necessary beta testing and before all the bugs were fixed. It is clear from some of BF's statements at the time of the switchover that they knew it wasn't quite 100% and they expected a few days of teething problems, although not obviously not on the scale we got. So why would they go live when they knew it wasn't quite 100%? Why not just postpone it a couple of weeks? I can only assume because there was an urgency about it. I wonder if Fifteen were really as bad as all that, given how the decision to move elsewhere seems to have played out. End of speculation
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Post by timleschild on Aug 14, 2024 7:30:21 GMT
Interesting stuff. I wonder if we will ever know. It's kind of wild (not in a good way) how much we have to rely on speculation here. If Big Finish put out a statement that directed some blame for all this at a third party, rightly or wrongly, it would deflect a lot of criticism. Fans are generally able to overlook quite a bit -- if they have an excuse. I dunno if directly blaming the third party would be the best option. There are obviously things they can't reveal but more transparency would be helpful. Any form of communication with their customers. We are all speculating, so many opinions but we don't know what is happening. BF seem to be burying their heads in the sand. Hoping it will all blow over. & once the website is working carry on with a business as usual approach ignoring all that happened. Not a good approach, feels like a contemptuous way to treat their customers.
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Post by timleschild on Aug 14, 2024 7:32:13 GMT
Not really. Hughes Media was acquired last November, and the new owners, Fifteen Design were the ones hosting Big Finish's old site (it was briefly accessible from bfn.fftn.dev earlier this month). So the dissolution of Hughes Media as a separate corporation back in January (per the linked documents) wouldn't, in and of itself, lead to any migration rush. I guess we will never know the full story of why BF took the decisions they did, but some pieces of the puzzle are starting to become a bit clearer. The problem is we have a few pieces of the puzzle but no one gave us the box with the picture on.
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Post by theillusiveman on Aug 14, 2024 7:39:59 GMT
There’s a lot of focus on the database stuff - understandably - but even when all the releases are ported over, all the purchases are restored, the app and account have been updated to include filters and sorting options, the whole thing is updated to include screen reader access and given a light mode, we’re still going to be stuck with a website that offers half a dozen slow as hell scroll bars spaced out down an enormous page, no infinite scroll, no easy access to ranges, things accessible via about six clicks where they were once found via one or two, separate release pages for CDs and downloads, nearly impossible to use scroll bars, genre descriptions that read like they’ve been written by a 10 year old, forward and back arrows both on the left of the page number, the lack of a War Doctor collection, forthcoming releases listed at the top of each collection’s page, free downloads with CDs added as a separate item in the shopping cart, release covers stretched into rectangles on the mobile site, Doctor Who spin-offs not included in The Worlds of Doctor Who… While obviously getting all the actual content available again and making the site legally accessible to all should be the priority, even when that’s done we’re still going to be stuck with an ugly, amateurish, barely functional website. Honestly, if I came to the company for the first time through the current site, based on the design alone, I’d choose to just go to Amazon for my CDs, because it’s barely navigable. I don’t see how it’s actually fixable without rebuilding the entire thing from the ground up, which will be as expensive and time consuming as just making a new one that actually works. I also note that none of the official communications have even mentioned the disappearance of the wish list feature, which I found so very useful during sales. The lack of income this month will also be compounded by the lack of releases. BF normally put out six, seven, eight releases a month, but they’ve offered nothing new in more than a fortnight. I know a lot are preorders, but literally having no new products is not a good look either. I genuinely don’t understand how this has happened. Back when I was in school many years ago, I took part in the Young Enterprise scheme where a group of us had to set up a business for a year. One guy claimed to be a great web designer, so we let him make the website. He did it unsupervised and when he showed the result it was abysmal, in 2002 it looked like something from about 1998. And everybody who saw it pointed it out. Everyone was very angry. And we were a bunch of teenagers just doing a school project. I truly cannot fathom how a professional company managed to take a look at this website and approve it. On a design level alone it fails on countless levels, and that doesn’t take into account functionality and reliability issues. I’m kind of surprised they haven’t actually put up a temporary site, a minimal thing offering preorders and promising the rest of the catalogue will be available again soon once the technical issues are sorted out. It’s still running slow and janky as fiddlesticks, I can’t see how having it up is doing the servers, the company or their image any good at all. Speculation here, but given what we now know upthread about Fifteen's acquisition of Hughes and the very short time period the BF site was hosted by Fifteen, there could well have been an urgency to the switch to a new website - some change introduced by Fifteen that BF felt they couldn't live with. Most likely a price rise, but not necessarily so. A rush job would explain the problems the site has and why it went live before it was ready, before the necessary beta testing and before all the bugs were fixed. It is clear from some of BF's statements at the time of the switchover that they knew it wasn't quite 100% and they expected a few days of teething problems, although not obviously not on the scale we got. So why would they go live when they knew it wasn't quite 100%? Why not just postpone it a couple of weeks? I can only assume because there was an urgency about it. I wonder if Fifteen were really as bad as all that, given how the decision to move elsewhere seems to have played out. End of speculation Am I misremembering but was there a closed beta for testing the website? I think maybe they should have advertised the new website in a YouTube video before revealing the website and get feedback before the final version released
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Post by Ela on Aug 14, 2024 7:42:34 GMT
I suspect that BF doesn't want to go the route of blaming a third party, whether or not a third party is to blame. It's not a good look for them. There is also the possibility they could end up getting sued by the 3rd party, or undermine any action BF themselves may wish to take against the 3rd party. True.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Aug 14, 2024 8:22:12 GMT
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Post by timleschild on Aug 14, 2024 9:22:43 GMT
More communicative than BF!
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Post by horatiowatson on Aug 14, 2024 11:22:19 GMT
I'm just waiting for the glitch that accidentally makes Torchwood: Absent Friends available to download.
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Post by timleschild on Aug 14, 2024 12:25:35 GMT
I'm just waiting for the glitch that accidentally makes Torchwood: Absent Friends available to download. Well BF are acting like an Absent Friend at the moment... Maybe in 10 years time it will be re-recorded as part of BF's Lost Stories?
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