Grow up, Google
Among the top five companies I trusted and respected was Google.
That is, until last week.
NatGeo (the magazine. the online part.) decided to launch an advertising campaign for a puzzle generator we have on the Web site for MyShot/YourShot.
And so I, being the Design/Development Assistant (aka office programming b*tch, apparently), was graced with the task of making banner and tower ads for the Web site. Originally they were designed for internal use, and I made them in AS3. A week into development (when they were done), I was told they were to be used through Google flash ads
That was ok. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. Just add in a few lines of code and it would be done, right?
Little did I know...
these "few" lines of code would haunt me for 2 months.
For 2 months (possible hyperbole), I tried to fit those lines of code in. And it works. On our server. And possibly with every server in existence. Except Google.
Sure Google is one of the leading pioneers in internet innovations. Sure working for Google must be a dream come true for our generation.
But tell me, why would such a company say that they supported ads built in AS3 when the reality is otherwise. (I was specifically emailed that there was a problem from the "back-end" programmers. Yes, ambiguously named "tech" person. When you don't have an answer, push the responsibility to someone else.)
Why would you, a forward thinking (I hope) company, want me to go back and redo my work in an older language, using older technology? This is like asking me to convert my mp3 track of MIA's "Paper Planes" so that you can play it on your 8-track player thingie (what are they called, anyway?).
I mean, really? Google? You're killing me, smalls.
So yeah, Google just fell out of my top five. Maybe 6, right now.
Lessons learned:
1.) Never work with marketing folks again.
2.) Do not trust people over the phone who have ambiguously gendered names as well as voices.
That is, until last week.
NatGeo (the magazine. the online part.) decided to launch an advertising campaign for a puzzle generator we have on the Web site for MyShot/YourShot.
And so I, being the Design/Development Assistant (aka office programming b*tch, apparently), was graced with the task of making banner and tower ads for the Web site. Originally they were designed for internal use, and I made them in AS3. A week into development (when they were done), I was told they were to be used through Google flash ads
That was ok. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. Just add in a few lines of code and it would be done, right?
Little did I know...
these "few" lines of code would haunt me for 2 months.
For 2 months (possible hyperbole), I tried to fit those lines of code in. And it works. On our server. And possibly with every server in existence. Except Google.
Sure Google is one of the leading pioneers in internet innovations. Sure working for Google must be a dream come true for our generation.
But tell me, why would such a company say that they supported ads built in AS3 when the reality is otherwise. (I was specifically emailed that there was a problem from the "back-end" programmers. Yes, ambiguously named "tech" person. When you don't have an answer, push the responsibility to someone else.)
Why would you, a forward thinking (I hope) company, want me to go back and redo my work in an older language, using older technology? This is like asking me to convert my mp3 track of MIA's "Paper Planes" so that you can play it on your 8-track player thingie (what are they called, anyway?).
I mean, really? Google? You're killing me, smalls.
So yeah, Google just fell out of my top five. Maybe 6, right now.
Lessons learned:
1.) Never work with marketing folks again.
2.) Do not trust people over the phone who have ambiguously gendered names as well as voices.
Labels: actionscript, adobe, advertising, coding, design, flash, google, marketing, mccain, national geographic, paper planes, photography, programming
posted by Rick at
11:55 PM
2 Comments:
Rick,
I saw your comment on Andy's blog, and I think I fixed commenting, so you should be able to comment on mine now :) Let me know...
Thanks so much for the kudos for the particle avoiding thing. I'm just starting out with learning flash, so I LOVE the encouragement. It's so rewarding to hear someone say: "hey, that's cool."
Embedding swfs into html: I think you're totally right! I will put that on my implementations list :) For now, I'm trying to focus on learning actionscript3, and I really just put my things online so people can see what I'm up to.
Kirupa and Senocular: haha I've already seen quite a bit of them through just searching different stuff I didn't quite understand. Their forums are always in my search results. However, I haven't gone through their tutorials (nor did I realize they had tutorials). I will definitely plan on that! Thanks for the heads up.
Tweener: I'll definitely look into that as I dig deeper into more complicated things. I'm pretty new right now, and I'm not really sure where I'm taking this whole flash thing. I'm certainly enjoying learning it though!
Lastly, I'm not sure if you've heard of it or not, but I was playing around with Box2D a little bit in C++ and I hear they have an AS3 version. I'd love to start playing around with that in flash :)
Thanks for the tips,
Belinda
By
BelindaMarie, at 12:35 PM
So what sort of job do you do exactly? I'm taking the year off, and trying to decide if I want into the coding computer scene, teaching scene, or back to more school...so part of that is finding out about what sorts of jobs people do :)
your mom's books? So cool! does your mom program? Among other things, my interests are also in increasing confidence levels for women in science, math, computers, etc.
Myself: I probably should've been comp sci, but I ended up with a math degree instead...I didn't really think of comp sci as an option until I took a computer science class and discovered I loved it (MATLAB), but by then it was a little late for a switch :(
However, I've heard it told that a math major who can code will fare just fine :)
By
BelindaMarie, at 10:58 PM
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