dear abc

Note to ABC: Your comments form allows only 500 characters. As a result, I must point you to this post instead of sending you the text below directly.

Dear ABC,

I visit your website to watch a show that I would otherwise illegally download. You are, however, not doing a very good job of convincing me that this is a smart move. At first I hoped that daily visits would desensitize me to the various annoyances of your online viewing experience, but instead I've only grown more agitated over time. I prefer my online TV watching to be a relaxing, pleasurable experience; you are currently failing. Here's why:


"Click to continue"
I don't know how many meetings there were at ABC over this feature, but I am positive Jeff Bezos was not at any one of them. I know this because Jeff Bezos loves a story about what was once a controversial feature of Amazon.com: negative reviews. There was quite the internal struggle at the early-days Amazon on whether or not to allow bad reviews of a product; it seemed counterintuitive for a retail company to promote reviews which would discourage would-be customers from purchasing a product. Mr. Bezos settled the argument by posing a simple question: what is best for the customer? Answering this simple question made the decision blindingly obvious: allow bad reviews.

Take a cue from one of the most successful web businesses of all time and do what's best for the customer: don't make me click on anything to continue watching my show.

"Starter kit"
I've been coming to your site for months to watch one show: Lost. You should know this because I see a million tracking pixels go by every time I visit. I'm not sure how many times I've seen the "starter kit" ad for Desperate Housewives, but by now you should have realized its not working. Worse yet, you insist on showing me the starter kit for Lost. I know how the show works - I'm on Season 3 - but you probably should have avoided showing it to me when I was on season 1 since the ad contains spoilers.

Here's a very simple step you can take that would put you head and shoulders above the rest of the web (not just streaming video): give me a "never show this ad again" button.

Flash
Flash is great for video and animation, making it a natural choice for streaming TV shows and shiny commercials. Flash isn't so great for navigation, however. Conveniently, HTML solved that problem long ago. Please keep the Flash to a minimum and stick to HTML for navigating the site and between episodes of a show. If you need examples, Google Finance and Hulu are sites that blend Flash and HTML well.

In case you were wondering, these complaints are definitely in priority order.

Thanks,
-Anton