Mmm... yummy words

Having been the least patient Radio New Zealand website visitor, now that it's here I have to say it looks like it might have been worth the wait.

While I haven't spent a great deal digging through it as yet - I received the email alerting me to its presence just 6 minutes ago (thanks, Hugh) - credit where credit's due... Richard Hulse and the crew seem to have done a magnificent job. It looks good, the navigation is intuitive, the consideration of accessibility in the design is impeccable, the directory structure and naming conventions are entirely sensible and, happily, there is even a link on the front page that reads 'RSS'.

I'm sure I'll have complaints. I'm a grumpy sod when it comes to this sort of thing. Two things that immediately spring to mind are the Windows Media only restriction for audio (which brings with it that "Firefox bug" problem I mentioned earlier)

UPDATE: You can change to a lower quality streaming mp3 (actually a .pls file) if you're irrationally biased against proprietary DRM-crippled formats. Just go to the audio preferences page to make the switch.

- and this little line on the RSS page:

These feeds are updated each hour if there is new material. If you poll these files more often we reserve the right to ban your IP address for accessing them.

...which just seems a bit unnecessarily harsh. I don't know how often my RSS aggregator goes and fetches headlines. I'd hope it was more often than once an hour.

UPDATE: The webmaster has now agreed that this was kind of harsh and has removed it. Bonus points for the RNZ team.

But for now, let my assessment of the site simply reflect the pleasure of having my expectations exceeded. Well done.