New MotoGp site

Faster, less flash... I think it is better.

Wow, I really hate it.

Don't even bother trying to squint so you don't know who has won the race when your not watching it live. It was hard before but impossible now.

Also I can't find where I can watch races from yesteryear, which I have paid for!

easer to navigate. thumbs up from me, so far anyway,

Fine with me. I hated how everything you clicked on the front page seemed to be pay content.

personally i like it. its faster and you can view the everything except videos using the iphone. i'm happy.

I have quite a few issues with the new site, and also tried using the contact button. It comes up with this delightful message "You cannot send more than 3 messages per hour. Please try again later." Needless to say I haven't been able to send any messages, let alone more than 3 in an hour.

So I went looking for another way. In the process I found this Old site, but all links lead to new site. I also found the contact page for Dorna and guessed that Gavin Emmett ([email protected]) would be the person to contact.

The following is my letter to him. If anyone else has other gripes I suggest you do something similar, but try to keep it constructive.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE <div class='quotemain'>Dear Mr Emmett,

I got your email address from the Dorna website and hope that you are indeed the correct person to contact regarding the MotoGP website. If I am mistaken then I would appreciate it if you would take the time to direct this email to the appropriate party.

I am a subscriber to motogp.com, having paid for the high-res package this year after the great experience I had with the low-res version last year. Whilst the new site looks good, I have a few issues regarding content, which was available on the old-look site, now being unavailable.

The parts which are most conspicuous by their absence are:

The Results section, which contained the detailed analysis pdfs from each of the sessions for every race. This was the only place, as far as I know where this information was available.

The Circuit information section which showed the schedules etc. Without this I will find it very hard to work out when each of the sessions will be shown as I am currently in Australia.

The Circuit video section where videos from this and previous years at each circuit could be seen. As this was part of the site which you needed to pay for, I feel that the removal of this is breaking the "agreement" made by paying customers.

In addition, the lack of information below each video now makes it harder to determine which race/interview etc. the video is about.

I am hoping that the site is still under development and that these features will be re-instated. I do feel strongly, however, that if this is the case, it would have made more sense to continue with the both the beta version and the original version being available rather than force everyone to use a development model.

Finally, it is now impossible to enter the site in order to watch a race which you missed when it was live without seeing the result of that race. It was pretty hard on the old site too, but there were ways round that.

I am hoping that, as the original version does exist at http://www2.motogp.com/en/motogp/, with a working next race countdown (although at the moment, selecting any menu item which is not mirrored at the new site sends you to the news page), it may be possible for you to maintain this site fully whilst the new site is developed further.

I hope you will take all of this as constructive criticism and endeavour to address the issues I have raised. I am a member of a motogp forum and others are expressing similar concerns.

I would seriously appreciate a response to this email, as a paying customer.

The old one was completely .....
The new one is just fairly .....

Just my 2p.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (howard @ Apr 16 2008, 07:49 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>The old one was completely .....
The new one is just fairly .....

Just my 2p.
+ 1 - I only go there because I now watch races on the site. Otherwise I have no need or use for the site because it's CRAP!!!

new site sux...it's a mess...

they also need to bring back the full vids from the past GP races...

Great letter Yamakaha.

I agree with all those issues you have raised but I have tried emailing every email address at Dorna before concerning a few issues and no one has ever replied to me. Let us know if you get a resopnse though.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bull Goose @ Apr 16 2008, 11:44 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Well I managed to send a message today and I actually got a reply a few hours later. I asked them to 1) make it possible to watch race videos without having to avoid spoilers 2) put tags on the videos other than the ones that appear when you scroll over them 3) bring back all the old stats 4)Tell Ezy to get rid of traction control.

In their response they said that the stats will be back soon, and they'd take the others into consideration, including #4! There's hope!
top notch mate and i hope the reply's for real

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bull Goose @ Apr 15 2008, 09:49 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Has anyone taken a look at the new motogp.com site? Personally I think it's horrible.

Agreed.

It looks like the corporate looters at Dorna have taken another page out of the F1 book---deliver less will consistently raising prices. This appears to be a ploy to eliminate the expense of archiving old media (so far I can't find the older stuff that I pay 100 bucks to revisit when I'm feeling nostalgic).

The new site discombobulated mess; it looks like it was created by amateur bloggers.

Like most sites created by bloggers the media presentation is excellent and they load quickly. Both are mandatory for any media provider that lacks an ounce of substance. Congrats, Dorna. You've plunged motogp further into the realm of cheap sporting kitsch.

Word of the day: Window-dressing

Phrase of the day: "Put some lipstick on that pig and send it to market"

Interestingly, Mr Emmett replied very promptly.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE <div class='quotemain'>Thank you for your email. I appreciate your concerns about the new motogp.com and will be forwarding your email on to the relevant parties in Dorna. I will however take this moment to answer some of your questions and queries below.
Results: this information is still available by clicking on the Results by event tag below the results themselves. eg. POR, MotoGP QP, etc.
Circuit Schedules : this information will be displayed soon.
Circuit Videos : these videos are still available by entering the Videos section, then Full race videos. However there will soon be a facility to improve finding these videos.
Video tags : if you hover over each video there is an information tag, however soon there will also be a tag alongside each video.
Missed Races : in fact, this is one of the advantages of the new web. Before each race we will be inserting a link direct to the race video prior to the weekend's action, so it can be bookmarked and you can be taken straight to it. This link will also be sent out in our newsletter.

It is normal for customers to not feel comfortable with the new motogp.com, it is a very differently styled website, however we have taken into account responses to our customer survey last year in order to make the changes. Hence the flash content is reduced significantly which enables visitors with lower band connection easier access, as well as mobile phone browsers. The new tagging system links news together to help seek out related information, a search facility soon to be implemented will also help find the information you are looking for. While it would be ideal to be able to have the old site and the new site running concurrently, technically it is not ideal as the two back end systems are very different, which means the sites would have been constantly out of sync and not up to date.

I hope you continue to enjoy the complete experience of MotoGP we hope to offer at the Official Website, and apologise for any inconvenience. The site is of course still in its infancy, and we are aware that there are bugs and areas which need improvement, so we thank you for your comments, and will work to improve on these areas.

Kind Regards

Gavin Emmett

Director, Communications Department

Dorna Sports S.L., Narcis Monturiol 2, 08960 St. Just Desvern, Spain
tel: (+34) 934738494

As you can see, a couple of his answers are incorrect, so here is my reply:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE <div class='quotemain'>I thank you for your swift reply. I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions, and your answers, for the most part, have allayed my fears. As I said, I am quite happy with the look of the new site and appreciate that the reduction of the level of flash is a great improvement. However, I have a couple of clarifications I'd like to make regarding what is actually missing from the new site. Perhaps you could also forward this to the same people.

Firstly, you say that the same results pdfs are available on the new site. This is actually incorrect. On the old site were many additional pdfs other than the simple final classifications for each session which are available elsewhere on the net.

There were analysis pdfs showing all the laps for each rider in each session, detailed down to the four intermediate times. This helped the user to determine who was fast on race tyres rather than qualifiers, who was best in which sector, etc. There were also pdfs of top speed analysis, lap-by-lap position analysis for the race etc. It is this information that is not available elsewhere on the net and that was incredibly interesting to analyse over a weekend, as well as look back at previous events to see trends etc. I would appreciate it if this information was provided once more.

Secondly, the only full race videos which appear to be available at the moment are for the last seven races. It used to be possible to watch videos from previous years.

I appreciate that at some point you had to take the new site live, and I presume that the three week gap in the races was adjudged to be a good time to do so. I hope that many of the improvements will be in place by the time Shanghai comes around.

Finally, you mentioned a news letter. Is this a new concept, as it is not something I know anything about.

.... me side ways, I actually got signed in first time!!

Now if the live feed works on demand I won't care about anything else.

Well I gues it is not all bad if they are going to keep improving it. I don't understand what they have been doing for the last few weeks though as surely the beta stage is where you get rid of the bugs?

I'm with Goatboy though, if the live feed is more reliable then that makes up for everything. Especially if your only chance to watch it is through the website.

My main problem is with the programming. The content isn't too bad though I have only ever looked at the free stuff.
It's not acceptable in 2008 for a commercial website like this to require Internet Explorer to work properly... and why do people insist on using (proprietary) Flash for stuff when (open) html/css would do perfectly well? The last two firefox updates broke the site completely for me.

I guess I'm in the minority in that I use Linux but it still boils my piss.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (howard @ Apr 17 2008, 09:46 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>My main problem is with the programming. The content isn't too bad though I have only ever looked at the free stuff.
It's not acceptable in 2008 for a commercial website like this to require Internet Explorer to work properly... and why do people insist on using (proprietary) Flash for stuff when (open) html/css would do perfectly well? The last two firefox updates broke the site completely for me.

I guess I'm in the minority in that I use Linux but it still boils my piss.


I find it fine with Ubuntu and Firefox on my mates machine. What issues do you have?