IT KNOWS WHERE YOU ARE!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Allow me to obsess about something for a moment.

Have you seen The New York Times' video of Tuesday's democratic debate? It's incredible. And it's not because of the content of the debate. It's because of the PLAYER.

The player. So beautiful, so simple, so user-friendly.

• First column: Two simple tabs. One plays the video, the other analyzes the transcript.
• Second column: The actual transcript of the entire debate. Questions in gray, candidate's answers in black. Best part? The text SCROLLS ALONG as you watch. Without you even picking up a mouse! If you pause, it stops, if you resume, it elegantly joins you.
• Third column: Simple tabs, so that you may jump to any section of the video/transcript you want, should you momentarily get distracted at work, or need to stretch your viewing over multiple days.

So, to Shan Carter, Gabriel Dance, Matt Ericson, Tom Jackson, Jonathan Ellis and Sarah Wheaton of The New York Times, I give you a swift yet gentle head pat and I say thank you, thank you for this wonderful piece of brilliancy.