For this post, we’re comparing Google, CNN, and CBSNews.
I am very disappointed in both Google and CNN, but frankly quite impressed with CBSNews. In this modern day and age, when the word “real-time” is used, we no longer expect the need to refresh the page, and CBSNews has risen to the occasion. CNN’s flash based website requires a page refresh in order to load the data. Google on the other-hand, at the time of this blog being written, isn’t even working.
Not only are page refresh yesterday’s news, but it also consumes more bandwidth because you’re loading the entire page, not just the part that changed. They should seriously put more resources on pages they expect a lot of people to see. I can expect CNN, a news site, not having the most “1337” (elite) programmers working on their site, but not Google. I’m frankly quite disappointed.
It’s this growing expectation that visitors have of web functionality and the lack of it that reinforces my belief that web development is still an increasingly important field.