Wayne D's Blog

(updated April 4, 2009) Time change and things improve see Yahoo TV lisitng s don't suck anymore for an update

I first realized that Rogers Yahoo had changed their TV listing when the grid on my rogers.yahoo.com personalized pages changed and lost about half the clickable links to show information.  When I clicked on one of the shows that was still linked I was transported to the new Rogers Yahoo TV beta. Wow, what a change. What seems to have gotten most people up in arms is the new TV listings. The major complaint people have is that the page doesn't load the information until you scroll and then you wait, and wait some more.

My biggest complaint is that the summary listings on my personalized Rogers Yahoo page are severely broken.  For example the listing for Malcolm in the Middle on YTV tonight at 8 shows that the show runs from 8 until 10:35. I went looking for a replacment and found that msn.ca's listings are a pretty servicable replacment. They lack the information on when a show was originally aired but otherwise they load quickly, have a nice clean look and actually show the right information. The pop-up box that shows additional show information is pretty cool too. The new Yahoo TV listings are the kind of application that shows why using the newest technology is not necessarily the best idea. The implementation of Rogers Yahoo TV listings uses Ajax which is the same technology that Google Maps uses so effectively and which runs like a three legged dog in Rogers Yahoo TV beta. I'm a bit surprised that Yahoo didn't run the TV beta in parallel with the old version as they did with the Yahoo Mail beta. That would have allowed their users a safety valve now all they can do is vent and offer alternatives in the Yahoo Feedback blog.

Here are a couple of other articles that offer their take on the roll out, a blog posting by Jeremy Zawodny, A Yahoo staffer and an article by David Utter at webpronews.com.

This probably isn't such good timing for Rogers. their old affinity bundle program expires at the end of December and they have reduced the savings that are available to customers who purchase multiple products from them. One of the guys I work with is extremely unhappy about this price increase. I wonder how many other Rogers users are checking what other options are available. About a year ago Rogers stopped providing Usenet access as part of their Internet service while Sympatico still offers limited Usenet access through a third party provider.

I'm curious to see what happens with Yahoo TV. I'm going to give polls a try to see what other Rogers Yahoo TV users think.