SoundExchange is an independent, nonprofit performance rights organization that is designated by the U.S. Copyright Office to collect and distribute digital performance royalties for featured recording artists and sound recording copyright owners (usually a record label) when their sound recordings are performed on digital cable and satellite television music, internet and satellite radio.
That quote is from SX’s web site. The normal way you refer people to another site on the web is by linking to it. It is trivial for a web writer to link to other sites, one simple command usually. You simply copy the page’s URL, and paste it into your editor. Then when you publish your article, your reader can click on the link to read the information being referenced. Unfortunately, SoundExchange uses Flash technology to publish their entire site. So instead of each page on the site having one URL, their entire site has one URL. This means:
- Others can’t link to their site directly.
- Search engines have a more difficult time spidering their site. For example, use your favorite search engine to look for the phrase”independent, nonprofit performance rights organization” (include the quotes” and you’ll get many web sites that quote SX’s we site, but not SX’s own web site.
- Users can’t navigate the site with their browser’s back and forward buttons.
- User’s can’t bookmark pages on the site.
- To send someone to specific info on the site, a writer has to give instructions (About half way down on the right menu, click on “About”, then click on “Background.”)
There is no reason for a company with more than thirteen million dollars a year ($13,668,006 in 2007) of income to have a ridiculous monstrosity of a web site. If I were a recording artist or label, I’d have to be wondering why their agents’ web site sucks so badly.
As Rusty Hodge wrote earlier today, SoundExchange: Please make your website usable!.
If SX thinks the expense of revamping their web site is holding them back, I’d be willing to bet I could roll out a new site for them, with all of their current content, for well under $25 grand, including importing their existing textual content currently held inside of Flash pages.
