Forum Archive Index - December 1999

[Will Bryant <will@sharechat.co.nz>]

> I think we are going to have to agree to
> disagree on this point.    I 
> don't see a benefit in using HTML text for simple text
[..]
> 'Ease of use?'  What could be 'easier' than just plain
text?
The biggest ease-of-use problem with plain text is that the long URLs
wrap around, and so don't work when people click on the top line. 
This is the single biggest reason we decided HTML would be better. 
Next on the list was styling, which does affect usability quite
substantially.

The original intention was to provide users with the same thing they
would get if they went to the main page, but delivered to their
mailbox.  Your point is taken, and I think that the ideal solution
would be to do both an HTML version and a text version, but the really
very small number of people who would take the text option don't justify
the considerable time and effort we would need to implement it.

Regarding the advertising thread, we probably will add advertising to the
email market news, but that wasn't one of the reasons we decided to go
with HTML.

And by the way, HTML didn't bring on 0867, interconnect fees did. 
Clear were being paid thousands of dollars a month in interconnect fees
by Telecom which they immediately passed on to some of their big ISP
users; it's considered common knowledge in the industry that this was the
prime motivator for the 0867 system.  If Telecom reinvested some of
their enormous profit in upgrading their network, they could easily cope
with the demand.

But we digress.  Back to the sharemarket..

_______________________________________________________________________

Will Bryant, will@core-dev.co.nz                    cell +64 21 655 443

http://www.core-dev.co.nz/    Personal: http://www.core-dev.co.nz/will/

ShareChat Ltd. technical manager            http://www.sharechat.co.nz/

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