Yes, ladies and gentlemen: it may look glossy, but the all-new ‘web2′ msnbc.com doesn’t have a doctype declaration, among other problems.
This is what happens when Microsoft tries to make a website.
It was quite a sad reality to discover. My friend and coworker, Sean, told me about the MSNBC.com site redesign tonight on IM, and at first I was blown away – visually they can give themselves a high five. I noticed that the load-time was a bit top-heavy, but it soon turned out to be the least of this site’s problems.
As soon as I clicked ‘View Source’, I wished that I hadn’t. If the Doctype wasn’t disappointing enough, the 200+ lines of inline JavaScript and CSS put the final nail in the coffin. Oh, and Colin? Great edits there, buddy.
Overall, it’s failing HTML4 Transitional with 43 errors, which to be honest isn’t quite that bad considering the basic fundamentals it’s missing.
Better luck next time, MSNBC.
This blog belongs to Jade Rauenzahn, a 25 year-old web developer who lives in Santa Clara, CA.
*laughs out loud*
It’s sad, but their failure makes me so giddy.
Jade, hi, thanks for writing, I’m an editorial concepts producer at msnbc.com, I wrote a fairly substantial chunk of the markup that’s powering the new site. I’ve just published a post over on our blog, Alpha Channel, which I hope addresses some of the points you’ve brought up.
As for “this is what happens when Microsoft tries to build a website” – well, I appreciate a good “Micro$oft sux!” snark as much as the next geek, but you might want to check your facts. We don’t work for Microsoft, we’re an independent news organization, I’m not a Microsoft employee, most of the people I work with aren’t Microsoft employees. I wrote the early drafts of the HTML and CSS on my 17″ Macbook Pro, using TextMate. Our CMS and backend are built on Microsoft technologies (SQL Server, Windows Server, .Net) but none of the concerns you brought up here have anything to do with that.