Jon says you are a real blogger (I wonder if the pun was intended) and if you are you will know this.

All that is happening is that you are having the valuable experience of direct contact with the people you should always have been talking to in the first place.

RealPlayer has, ahem, a reputation for making people turn green. I totally get that. There were some old versions that were completely crappy and full of unnecessary “extras”- though at the time were thought of as experimental. Failed experiments, to be sure, but boy did we learn what not to do! Regardless, I think “malicious” is grasping at straws.

We think media players are a vital part of a computing experience, straight up. Is it useless? We wouldn’t have made it if we really felt that way. And yes, it IS installed by millions of users every week. I know, crazy right?

Seriously though, people are angry about RP’s history. We learned that a long time ago. We read your posts. We really did try to improve our latest version a lot. It is not chock-full of extra features you do not need on your system. The message center (a major issue for a lot of people) is now opt-in, instead of opt-out. And coolest of all, anyone can download DRM free videos to their hard drive. It’s a cool way to get your video collection going strong. There is no spying going on, and to be clear, there never was. What you watch is yours, and yours alone.

RealPlayer 11 has been out for just over a year and it’s gotten a lot of great reviews. We are trying to learn from our mistakes and we tried to make RP11 the best product possible. Take it or leave it, that’s where we are today.

E-mail from consultant who worked for RealNetworks:

Hi there,

In 2000, I was a consultant involved in a major re-design effort at Real Networks, which in a roundabout way led to the RealOne player and changes on Real.com.

All of the issues you mention with regard to ease-of-use (or the lack thereof), super commercialism, and downright misleading customers were things that we addressed during this design program.

Real spent $2.5M in design fees and over a year and a half with my company. When the relationship ended we had produced detailed design documents that were about a foot high when stacked on top of one another. While we had designed solutions to all of these problems, Real ultimately chose to ignore them. Only some of the graphic design changes we recommended ever saw the light of day.

In my experience with Real, I found a company that had absolutely no respect for the user, that was supremely arrogant, and completely mismanaged by Rob Glazer and his team.

Consumer Friendliness in RealPlayer 10

– The player install screens show all set-up preferences in a clear, easy to use format
– The player provides users with even more control over how/when the player claims file types (like MP3)
– The player Message center can be completely turned off
– The “Product Updates” category for messaging can be turned off
– The player provides improved ‘uninstall’ functionality that provides users with more control

I think it’s pretty obvious that whoever is in charge of the invasive, user hostile features of Real Player, is very aware of the fact that it is not just badly or ignorantly designed, but blatantly designed for maximum hostility. Due to what “John” refers to as “much internal and external complaining”, they’ve softened their tone and are now pulling their punches a bit.

Otherwise, Real remains just obnoxious, to the point that I completely forgot about the existence of their player.

http://jogin.com/weblog/archives/2004/02/29/real_obnoxious

“Unfortunately, playing video streams is only a very small aspect of what Real Player does; Real Player, most prominently, is a small bastard with inferiority complex and delusions of grandeur, not too different from Napoleon. Although Real Player’s task is simple and limited to a certain timeframe, Real Player defaults to running at all times, whether its limited functionality is needed or not, and claims a seat for itself in the throne commonly called the systray.”