Over and over I get complaints
about the limits we impose on certain programs.
So I thought I would take a
couple of minutes to talk to you about why we impose limits and
where we have limits.
The most common complaint I
get is for uploading images.
We have, and this varies based
on the individual program, but in most cases you cannot upload an
image over 1MB in size.
The problem is, the new
digital cameras can take huge pictures often 10 or 20 times that
size.
So when people go to upload
those pictures they get an error message telling them it is just
too big an needs to be resized before uploading.
Well, why wouldn't we just let
people upload huge photos if they want to?
First what most people don't
understand is that their computer screen is only between 800 and
1600 pixels wide. But that 20mb image might be 10,000 pixels wide.
Great for printing but way too big for digital display.
So they only need a very small
version of that picture even to display it full screen.
Secondly, if a person is
uploading a 20mb photo on an average connection lets say, 128
Kbps that would take approximately 1 hour and 18 minutes.
Now many of you have high
speed connections with 10mb download times but the upload speed
is usually a fraction of that.
Further more, when traveling
long distances and crossing 30 networks by the time you reach the
site, that makes it even slower.
So even with your super high
speed connection it can take upwards of 5 or 10 minutes just to
upload one photo.
Well, after waiting 5 minutes
people usually call us and complain that the site is not working,
they are trying to upload a file and it is just sitting there
doing nothing.
Hey, guess what, it is still
uploading. And it will be for a while.
Here is an even bigger problem.
Some isps will break long
connections after 5 minutes.
Not our network, but your ISP.
The one you pay big dollars for that high speed connection.
Now with some protocols like
FTP or Secure shell the software can recover after those breaks,
but when using site builders and http connections though web
browsers, it is just not as versatile.
So you lose the connection and
then nothing happens.
Again, we get the blame. We
get the calls telling us they can't upload the photos to their
website.
So the limit we have is not to
punish you. It is not to make you do extra work resizing photos,
it is to make your life less stressful.
So you don't have to call us
and get our long winded explanation as to why you are having
trouble uploading files.
And on the flip side, the
users that are visiting your website, well they have to download
that 20mb image.
Unless they are tethered to a
high speed network, they could be waiting several minutes or more
for that picture to load.
Are people going to wait 5
minutes for your website to load?
Will they wait several minutes
to get to each page?
Not likely.
Users will just assume your
website sucks and it is just not working.
They you call me and tell me
our network sucks and I suck and you are losing business and so
on and on....
So the limits we impose are
there to make the pages faster, to make the website more
functional.
I can't teach everyone
everything I have learned in the last 15 years. But I can place
limits on programs that will prevent people from making the most
common mistakes.
Another example is the 50
categories we limit you to with the shopping cart.
The reason we do that is
because most sites have automated navigation menus and having 50
buttons or links is just as much as any visitor can take.
No one is going to read
through hundreds of buttons to find what they want.
So we put limits in place to
keep the sites, neat, manageable and usable on the front end and
for your users.
Could we lift all the limits?
Sure we could.
But part of our responsibility
is to make sure your website has value to you and your business.
If I give you enough rope to
hang yourself, you probably will.
So why go there? I want to
keep you as a customer and you building a website that is
dysfunctional won't give you any incentive to stay with pageBuzz.com.
If you make a page that wont
load on mobile devices because of the bandwidth limits over cell
towers, well, what good is that to either of us?
Or maybe you want to make a
page that fits all the way across your screen.
But then the users with
smaller screens have to scroll side to side to read each sentence,
ultimately making their experience with your business a dreadful
one.
So the next time you feel like
we are holding you back by limiting a sideshow to 10 photos, or
pages to 2000 pixels long, consider why we did it and understand
if you stay within those limits, you site will work better, load
faster and get you more customers.
