JC / Railbird

Marketing Archive

Great Idea

… not so great execution. NYRA announced today the launch of Curlin’s Corner, a “multimedia site” that “will give fans an interactive experience” as they follow Curlin to the Woodward. Here’s how Curlin’s Corner appears in Firefox, the second most popular web browser, on both Mac and PC:

Note to the NYRA web developer: The broken images can be fixed by changing the backslashes to slashes and then this table-based, non-standard, usability-unfriendly, bizarrely pop-up and PDF laden, cutting edge for 1999 page will look (mostly) the same across browsers and platforms.
Related: Constructive criticism from Green but Game.
Tangentially related: I’m a fan of PEB, but what’s up with this commemorative Curlin poster? Not only does the image not make sense, it’s kind of offensive.
11:45 p.m. update: Images are fixed and now appear in Firefox! Thanks, NYRA. Now about the un-embedded video, pop-ups, and the importance of web standards and functional, usable web design …

Posted in Marketing on August 27, 2008

The Fundamental Problem

“Between 1990 and 2000, the North American parimutuel handle increased from $10 billion to $15 billion, due not to some emergence of star horses with long careers but to the convenience of full-card simulcasting and an explosion of new betting opportunities. Since then, the figure has not budged, despite all the feel-good stories…. Instead of thinking like 21st century business operators competing for market share, racing prefers to imagine that some old-style publicity … will suddenly make it become 1957 again” (DRF).

Posted in Marketing on June 29, 2007