CBS “60 Minutes” Launches Website That Only Works In Chrome For Windows

Updated: This works in Chrome/Mac now (30 October) but my balkanization concern remains relevant, especially since this DOES WORK with Safari. Just use that “look …  [at your] own risk” link.

According to TechCrunch, CBS has created a Chrome-specific website [“Chrome App“] for 60 Minutes that “delivers high-quality video of “60 Minutes” program content, starting with the recently aired interview of Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs’s biographer.”

Based upon the screen capture in the Chrome Store compared with the screen capture on my MBP, as well as the fact that no video launches for me, this app only works with Chrome for Windows. TechCrunch says the app uses HTML5 and CSS3 animations.

This balkanization — lack of accessibility — is a problem.

Having news content balkanized in discrete mobile apps is troublesome; having a platform and browser-specific news website is antithetical to the ethic of the web.

Not only is it wrong, it’s antithetical to the spirit of HTML5/CSS as well.

Let me remind everyone of this quote from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, father of the web:

Anyone who slaps a ‘this page is best viewed with Browser X’ label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network.
– Technology Review, July 1996

CBS 60 Minutes: Just say no.

• As you can see from these two screen captures, the contents widget (upper left) does not look the same on the Mac as the PC. On the Mac, it’s empty and the one line that shows up (sometimes) is out of sequence compared to the PC.
• Moreover, clicking the “play” button yields … nothing. No error. No action. Nothing.
• The “home” images are different. There is no obvious way for me to find the image in the promo screen.