More Bizarro Fun

Lois Lane Reports

Some crazy vids and more info, etc.

And if you nose around, you'll find links to this contest:

bizarroishere.com

Who embeds a straight QT movie? Honestly! There's something neat called Flash. It plays video, and everyone has it. Seems to work for YouTube.

Yeah, if you don't mind more stalling, buffering, and stuttering than RealPlayer, not to mention generally lousy image quality, CPU hogging, and poor browser response. I think Adobe's Macintosh programmers are even worse at it than Cisco's Macintosh programmers.

At least on YouTube I can run a little chunk of JavaScript that rewrites the page and loads the H.264 version, which plays in QuickTime. Looks better, sounds better, plays better, and uses about a quarter of the CPU of the Flash version

I find Six Flags' use of something other than Flash to be refreshing. That they chose to use QuickTime is even better. They could have dressed up the controller a bit, but it works pretty nicely.

(Not to mention that Six Flags' videos will play on the iPhone, since they aren't flash...)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Why would you care how much CPU is used if you can view the video? I don't have any issues looking at YouTube or Vimeo on any of my Macs. For something like this, the technically superior solution is irrelevant when you want to reach the largest audience.

Well, on my G4's, it's the difference between watching at 8 FPS and at 29.97 FPS...

The one good thing about the iPod being locked to iTunes is that iTunes is based on QuickTime, with the result that QuickTime has a fairly solid installed base, including a lot of people who claim they "never use it" or "don't have it".

And again, I wonder if the page is targeted to the iPhone; it would make sense, given that this is an amusement park attraction, to be thinking in terms of making the online toys accessible to mobile browsers held by people waiting in line. And the iPhone doesn't do Flash.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

New video at seetheride.com too. This one gives away a few more details.

Auger of Doom? Nice.

(and yes, you guys - it's embedded quicktime again)

iPhones are a tiny fraction of traffic. That would be silly. 99.7% of visitors to this site have Flash. You target the biggest audience.

And the non-Intel Mac user count is dwindling to irrelevance as well. ;)

iPhones are a tiny fraction of total web traffic. But in the US, according to a recent report, they accounted for 50% of all *mobile* web traffic in February. If you are anticipating an audience *on mobile devices*, you have to plan for the iPhone.

What Six Flags is doing looks to me to be a bit beyond merely generating online buzz. We shall find out more once the parks are open, but from what I have seen so far, I will be surprised if they don't carry this whole campaign out to the parks. Right now, it's all about the computer. But once the parks are open, I fully expect that they will be encouraging people to explore this whole network of blog sites, company sites, and other online material on their cell phones while waiting in line.

Oh, yeah, I might be totally wrong. But to me it just seems so obvious that I'll be surprised if they don't do it. I haven't seen it talked about here on CoasterBuzz, but this is the same park company that put up "talking billboards" in some of their parks where you simply put your Bluetooth earpiece into discovery mode, and listen to the message.

This is just the logical next step from Disney taking joke suggestions via text message for the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, or Kennywood offering trivia quizzes via cell phone. Who knows, they could even do real-time promotions through the web site, now that a non-trivial number of their customers are carrying pocket web browsers.

In any case, this really is quite an elaborate campaign, with a whole lot of multimedia bells and whistles. Have you made it call you yet?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

RideMan said:
In any case, this really is quite an elaborate campaign, with a whole lot of multimedia bells and whistles. Have you made it call you yet?

I agree and I find it interesting that it hasn't seemed to generate much interest with enthusiasts (around here, at least). Because as far as these things go, this is easily the most complete and well thought out campaign like this coming from any park to date. They're putting a lot into this.

RideMan said:
But once the parks are open, I fully expect that they will be encouraging people to explore this whole network of blog sites, company sites, and other online material on their cell phones while waiting in line.

SF has actively been trying to get those cell phones into lockers while peeps wait in line to support their in-line advertising programs.

Jeff said:

And the non-Intel Mac user count is dwindling to irrelevance as well. ;)

HEY! I still have my old G4 Mini hooked up.. Does amazing video edits still.. I would say its still relevant in my house. :)

But I also still play my Atari 2600 and give my friends the big ass plane against my 3 tiny planes in the game combat. Hit 40 points before the score blinks FTW!

There is not a significant return on investment to try and accommodate 0.6% of your traffic because they're on a specific device. Besides, everything I've read about the kinds of usage with mobile devices indicated that people are not seeking out multimedia extravaganzas. Not yet anyway.

There's no buzz around this because it's not nearly as cool or novel as they think. This is exactly the kind of thing that I talked about at IAAPA a couple of years ago. There's no conversation taking place. They haven't enabled anything but static resources that might get a few links from coaster dorks, but there's no reason to converse about it. It's a carefully crafted message that offers no opportunity for discovery or ownership by the public. It's boring and static.

It's a carefully crafted message that offers no opportunity for discovery or ownership by the public. It's boring and static.

Hmmm. You might be on to something there.

Maybe this bizzaroishere.com contest might change that a little.