Priority: normal
X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01)
Sender: owner-online-news@marketplace.com
Precedence: bulk
Status: O
X-Status: 

ddern@world.std.com (Daniel P Dern) wrote with a quill pen, 
apparently about nothing at all, to judge by the subject line:
 
> You're absolutely right.  I'll go call up all the radio stations who
> simulcast concerts and stuff, and tell them that if the audience doesn't
> have TVs, the heck with them.  

Ahem, simulcast came about because radio lost so much market share to 
the better technology, one that didn't pay much attention to the old.

>And I'll call up all the voice mail and
> IVR (Interactive Voice Response) vendors and tell them to stop worrying
> about people who don't have tone phones, or can't use 'em right, or
> are calling from pay phones or funky PBXs or foreign countries or
> hotel rooms that can't make tones right.  

So far as I can tell, they took your advice before it was offered. 
The only solution to that problem set is a human operator, and he 
doesn't work weekends. 

>The heck with them all.  If they
> don't have the sub-technology I'm marketing with, the heck with them.

For a site like www.word.com, that probably works, since attitude is 
what they're offering for sale.

> And the heck with those millions of CompuServe users who get Mosaic from
> CIS but can't, won't or don't get NetScape.  The heck with all the folks
> who have email only. The heck with everybody who won't go to the effort
> to get the clients and technologies you work with, in order to get the
> information you're trying to hand out.

That's probably true. Look at it this way. If this data were sound 
bytes or video, you wouldn't be running around saying that a 
publisher has to offer alternative text versions of the same content. 

I'd recommend that a publisher who offers data other than ASCII text 
should offer the appropriate viewer application. That would mean that 
if there's video, there should be a video player available on the 
site. If there's a RealAudio feed, the RealAudio player should be 
available. And I guess if you want to be truly egalitarian - if you use Netscape extensions, add a link to 
Netscape, since they're so mindlessly rigid about redistribution.
 
Extend this to address the Dern concern, and if you have a graphic, 
you would offer a link to a graphical browser. But it is exceedingly 
excessive and incredibly doctrinaire to demand or expect alternative versions of content.

dw
> 
> I'm not holding anybody back, or in anybody's way.  (And I've got and 
> periodically use NetScape, BTW.)  I'm saying (and I'm not alone...
> hop over to comp.infosystems.www.html, or internet-marketing, where
> this is an ongoing debate) that it's counter-productive to design
> Web presences that CAN serve everyone in ways so that they CAN'T.
> 
> Or are you saying that the only reason to go to sites like www.word
> are for the pictures?

Absolutely. Have you read that stuff?

> YMMV, as may mine.  But I still think that ALT-less top pages are a 
> heck of a poor welcome mat.

But as a screening device, you can't beat 'em.

dw

Mourning the 14th of July more and more each year.

        Donovan White

        Online Information Development and Design

        dwhite@iii.net           DonovanWhite@ichange.com

        (508) 597-5321           (508) 597-3285

From owner-online-news@marketplace.com Fri Jul  7 17:27:41 1995
Received: from marketplace.com (majordom@marketplace.com [199.45.128.10]) by cnj.digex.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA23690 ; for ; Fri, 7 Jul 1995 17:27:39 -0400
Received: (from majordom@localhost) by marketplace.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA16383 for online-news-outgoing; Fri, 7 Jul 1995 13:29:55 -0600
Received: from latimes.com (by-line.latimes.com [192.187.72.9]) by marketplace.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA16378 for ; Fri, 7 Jul 1995 13:29:51 -0600
Received: from bus.latimes.com (arcadia.bus.latimes.com [192.187.70.143]) by  latimes.com (8.6.10/8.6.9) with ESMTP id MAA06011 for ; Fri, 7 Jul 1995 12:28:01 -0700
Received: from utopia.bus.latimes.com (utopia.bus.latimes.com [192.187.70.144]) by  bus.latimes.com (8.6.9/8.6.9) with SMTP id MAA00690 for ; Fri, 7 Jul 1995 12:23:23 -0700
Received: by utopia.bus.latimes.com with Microsoft Mail
	id <2FFD8A57@utopia.bus.latimes.com>; Fri, 07 Jul 95 12:26:15 PDT