Vongo Says I Have An OS Failure
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 by MR
I was watching TV tonight and kept seeing funny ads for a service called Vongo. The ads were pretty nebulous, so after the movie I tried visiting their website:
Not a browser failure, but an OS FAILURE! Kinda odd too, considering they stuck “Mac OS X” in the right hand “Minimum System Requirements” column. There’s a little red circle next to Mac OS X though, but still, the name of the column shouldn’t be contradictory to what their error message is saying. I’m guessing that Vongo uses ActiveX…. any Windows Vongo users out there know what’s up?
Reader Comments
20 Responses to “Vongo Says I Have An OS Failure”
Runs fine on Firefox/win.
Just a big ol’ flash application, sitting inside a table which is sitting inside a frame.
Mind you, both the flash and frame are written out dynamically with javascript. Maybe that’s why you had an OS failure.
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:09 am
Shows me “Located in the US”, “100 kbs+ connection”, “Windows XP”, “IE 6.0+” and “Flash 8″ for minimum requirements. I’m guessing it depends on IE for something, possibly ActiveX like you said, or some other windows specific code.
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:12 am
Apparently, this insightful error message points to Vongo’s all-too-keen understanding of the realms of “failure.”
All this nice free press from you and their URL currently reads:
We’re sorry.
We’re experiencing high volumes of traffic, please check back later.
Or maybe this is the ugly PC version of the pretty Mac error message you received.
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:48 am
I had a Geographic Failure. :(
These error messages cut a little too close to home.
February 22nd, 2006 at 6:31 am
Not sure what it’s for - but the fact that I receive that message is lame - and I wont ever go back to check it out (or give them my email to notify me). If it was a solid product or service, they would have made sure to have it built right the FIRST time around.
lame….
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:03 am
Heck, I first got a Geographic Failure - Canada is not allowed. I feel a tremor! Is that the ground shaking?
While these warning messages are cute and kinda funny, they’re way too dramatic. Tone it down a bit. The whole “failure” notion is a little over the top.
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:03 am
I think the Requirements column is showing which ones you matched (green) and which one(s) you failed (red, MacOS X). I think it’d be clearer if it was a red circle and said “Windows OS”.
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:29 am
I’m not inside the US, and get a similar error message about my whereabouts :(. What’s the service?
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:03 pm
Well as far as your incompatibility is concerned, Microsoft and Starz Entertainment Group (the owner of Vongo) are in pretty tight with each other.
As far the error itself, it’s bad information design. You and others are right. It should have the minimum requirements listed, and then flag those requirements the browser sniffer didn’t pick up, instead of presenting how they did.
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:08 pm
Since their software won’t run on anything but windows and they probably have country limitations as well, they just hide the site completely from those folks.
Like Mark said, bad information design.
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Wow, that’s pretty hillarious. I checked it out in Firefox on Windows, and was able to view the site just fine, even though the list “IE6.0″ in their requirements. From what I can tell, the site itself is just a frameset and Flash-based, so there’s absolutely no reason for them to be turning away Mac users at that juncture. Their warning should appear at the download screen instead. Very poor interaction design, if you ask me.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Gotta chime in again - I don’t think it depends on ActiveX, or the site wouldn’t load in Firefox, or other non-Microsoft browsers. I think that Vongo is just run by a buncha lamers.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Yeh, perhaps it’s bad interaction design, but all the links on the page are pretty much directed to getting you to sign up for the service, download the player, cancel your netflix account and use their service instead.
Good, bad, or otherwise, I kinda seeing the choice they made as being similiar to being pre-qualified in a sales type situation - just like walking into a high-priced custom home builder or auto dealership (or blog network ;)). Why try to sell you on something they no you’re not equipped for?
Ignore them or stop them at the door, so you can focus on those that can afford (use) your product or service.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:20 pm
First Google result for “vongo” says it’s not mac compatible because of the DRM they are using:
http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/01/03/vongomac/index.php
so, obviously - no ipod support either.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:40 pm
How about this. Apparently I don’t have Macromedia Flash Player 8 installed on this machine. Instead of downloading the newest version for me or even taking me to the download page, I get an ugly error when I attempt to run the installation. AND they mention twice that I have to make sure I’m using Internet Explorer when I attempt to install Flash. Not a very crisp experience.
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Oh dear…
http://www.vongo.com/geo_check/failure/pages/GeoCheckFailure.html
February 22nd, 2006 at 5:49 pm
I’m using FF on Suse10 and it doesn’t like me either.
February 23rd, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Vongo is waiting on Apple to settle on some kind of DRM agreement.
I can’t imagine that Apple will go for it, considering they are alledgedly planning full movie downloads from itunes in the near future.
March 8th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
I tryed using it and it failed to work. This is strange because i have the windows 98, the connection,and i am in the United States. Anybody have any idea what’s up?
March 14th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
Vongo is a service that offers OLD movies on a subscription basis and at low quality resolution and without any real portability. It is so riddled with holes you gotta wonder why they even launched the service. Except to use their Starz content and try to trick people into believing it is a full online video service. They have over 1000 movies…that are decades old…and would not be worth watching even on regular cable. Just a bunch of marketing hype trying to get unsuspecting consumers to pay for what they do not truly understand…and dangling a few newer titles to make it appear like a real video service.
May 31st, 2006 at 6:42 pm
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