Figured I’d see what PureTracks was all about during lunch today. For those who haven’t heard of it, it’s basically a Canadian (only) online music store. This means nothing to those in the states, who have things like iTunes to purchase their legal online music from, but as a Canuck who wants to buy legal online music, this is important. Read on for my review.
Based on initial impressions, PureTracks gets 0/10. Why? Well, when I went to the site I got the following message:
Thank you for visiting Puretracks.com
Our website is available to Canadian residents only and requires
Windows Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.
feedback@puretracks.com
Hmm….. I am a Canadian resident, coming from a Canadian IP address, so that can’t be it. I’m using a Mozilla based browser which is as good or higher than IE 5.0, so that can’t be it. Must be something wrong with their site then.
Nope, I fired up IE under wine and got the site. Hmm…. that’s interesting. I then went to a sub-page and got the URL and copied it into my Mozilla based browser. It worked, and go figure, looked the same as it did under IE. What a shock!
So they get 0/10 for flatly denying access based purely on the users browser. If I can’t see the site I can’t see what they have to offer, and I can’t tell my friends anything good about it, or even find things I want to buy when I get home and have a Windows system in front of me.
Now since I could get in I can give a second rating, based purely on a very non-scientific way I have of testing any online music stores. I simply do a couple of searches for common but not “top 40” artists and see if there are any hits. In this case PureTracks gets 5/10 based on my search for Johnny Cash (hits) and U2 (no hits).
However, their score is affected by not having Great Big Sea (no hits) or Spirit of the West (no hits). For a Canadian music site that’s pretty lacking for Canadian content. They do have Matthew Good Band (who I’m told are Canadian but I haven’t heard them before) and Barenaked Ladies.
So their selection isn’t complete, but has 3 out of 6 of the Canadian weighted searches I did. Not great, but not terrible, as they are a new site. So once I got in they stay at 5/10.
I’m still pretty pissed off about the lack of being allowed to see the site, so I threw off an email to their feedback email.
To: PureTracks Feedback <feedback@puretracks.com>
From: Alan
Subject: denying non-IE users from your site
Hi there. I was quite when I heard about your site, as services such as
iTunes are not available in canada. I was very dissapointed when I
went to your site from work where I am using a Mozilla based browser,
and was told:
Our website is available to Canadian residents only and requires
Windows Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.
I understand that Windows is required to play the music, and that’s
fine, but I find it offensive that people who simply choose not to use
internet explorer are stopped from even viewing your site.
This means I can’t browse or view any of the selection that you have to
perhaps go and tell people about it or purchase the music when I get
home and have a system with windows and internet explorer available.
Even though IE has something like 90% of the market, flat out denying
10% of your potential customers may not be a good idea, especially when
you are catering to people in Canada who cannot access a lot of the
other online music purchase sites.
I don’t mind if there is a “you need windows, IE and WMP9” notice on the
frontpage, or a “this site might not display properly” message to non-IE
users (see note below), but please do not stop people from viewing the
site.
I did a bit of exploring and discovered that if I go to a specific page
(ie: http://www.puretracks.com/BrowseSummary.aspx) with my browser
(mozilla under linux) the page displays perfectly fine, exactly as it
does on IE.
Please consider changing this policy.
Regards,
Alan, potential customer