Posted by Chris Tomlinson on 07/07/06 14:10

"Jonathan N. Little" <lws4art@centralva.net> wrote in message
news:e900f$44ae5e4d$40cba7bf$638@NAXS.COM...

>> The site is currently in beta and the entire reason we started this
>> thread was to learn ways to make the page loading more convenient, so we
>> don't really understand your comments that we do not want answers.
>
> It is obvious that you have settled upon your conclusions before doing
> your research. You are not respecting your medium or your potential

Sorry you feel that way. What we decided on was a niche in the market.
Sadly one cannot create niches, they are either there or they are not. The
only question we had was whether or not to fill it. We are rising to that
challenge...

> customers. Do you really know how many of your potential customers have
> access to broadband? Also even 3D gaming on the Internet does not push

At least 50%.

> bandwidth as your site. Firstly they don't push whole images but use
> compressed texture samples and build their environments. Second most of
> the work is done client-side on a compiled, optimized application (the
> game) and the interactive communication is optimized and coded to be as
> minimal as possible, many even use speculative routines to help with
> bandwidth problems. HTML is not problem and a web browser is not at all
> like a game.

Perhaps we could add aliens and laser fire to the streets ;)

> Now the suggestion was made that your project might be possible with
> Flash. I'd say much better that the way you are attempting. If you reduced
> your images to smaller texture bits and reused to build the scenes Flash
> has the advantage reusing a images so that each would only have to be
> downloaded once but with scaling, inverting and clever recombining can
> give the appearance of large scene of unique object at a faction of the
> bandwidth. The multimedia events handling is also superior to want can be
> done with plain markup.

We researched Flash thoroughly, however sadly recreating Oxford Street in
photo-quality as you will see in our site over the next month would simply
be close to impossible, and incredibly painstaking using texture bits. And
that's just one street! We wish to add dozens. So, we looked at the
evidence, the fact that broadband continues to grow and is now in many cases
free for life, and that our site will grow into that market. This was a
decision made intentionally and knowingly, to preserve the ease of building
new streets using photo-realism instead of Flash simulations. Remember, we
are aiming this at people who love real high streets but have not yet delved
into web-shopping. They do not want computer game visuals, they want the
real thing. You can trust us as we did the market research :)

> Another possibility would be a downloadable application, like a game,
> where everything is specifically programed to do what you wish. Downside,
> upfront development investment, OS specific, and requires user trust for
> installation.

Sadly downloading it as a game would be much worse than the current 12
seconds it takes to load at the very slowest broadband speeds. Next time
you install a game, or drive into town, time how many seconds that takes
you. Could you fly to 5th Avenue in 12 seconds? Or even 1 minute
(dial-up)? For this reason, whilst we appreciate your input, we are not
seeing any faster suggestions here than the one we chose for that very
reason.

> I am not being negative, but realistic.

The realism of the situation is 12 seconds on a site designed for broadband
is not at all bad, and we are here to try to speed that up even further by
controlling image loading. We have some great ideas from other contributors
here, so thanks to them for their can-do attitude.

>> But we don't accept that waiting a minute for a page to load would be
>> quicker for people than getting in the car and driving into town,
>> parking, maybe getting out the umbrella, pushing through crowds, carrying
>> heavy bags, etc. We hope you appreciate our point. But we agree, we
>> need to make the page loading better and more acceptable to the user,
>> which is the entire reason for our question.
>
> 1 minute, hell it is not even possible with dialup. And it better be
> *good* fat pipes.

By controlling image loading, you will see the first part of the street
faster. The rest will load in the background before you need to scroll or
cross to it. That is the idea - to present the start of the street to the
user quicker.

>> You have speakers on the library computer? Strange thing to do. But
>> yes, obviously we considered many factors which is why we made it 25% as
>> quiet as normal sounds, and put a clear 'sound off' speaker button right
>> there on the page.
>
> Yep, little games, Reader Rabbit and Pooh's Adventure type educational
> games for the wee ones.

Very sweet :) But if there are speakers on a computer, that means you are
accepting sound in the library. Our sound is 25% the volume of those games,
and can be turned off in an instant. But market research and testing showed
that the user is more likely to stay and have their interest 'caught' if
they 'arrive' at a full sensoral version of a high street, with the senses
they would normally experience, namely the photo-realistic visuals, and the
sound of being there. Silent streets did not impact on them as greatly.
We're sure you understand, although we are still toying with the idea of
starting with the sound off. It is a dilemma as we could lose visitors
either way.

> Good luck!

Thanks. We are already getting great reviews from those in the Google Maps
communities, and commercial interest from other 'local info' web sites.
Sorry you thought it was so awful, but you can't please all the people...
--
Thanks,
Me

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