Zap2it is a TV listings service. I’m not a big TV guy but’s useful for me to look up a few things once and a while such as F1 racing, sailing programs, NFL football and other mindless pursuits.
Here’s a listing for a BBC show tomorrow on Paul Cayard. I have little confidence that this link will still work in a week’s time, let alone a year, but let’s leave that alone for now. Zap2it provides a way of saving it to “My Favorites” but I’m not really interested in signing up just yet.
- why can’t I access this as an iCalendar (or a hCalendar!) so I can add this to my Google Calendar or my Apple iCal program? I can see why Zap2it would like to retain customers as accounts for monetization purposes, but I’m more likely to remain a loyal Zap2it user if it provides functionality I need. Otherwise, some day someone else will do it for me
- Once I’ve made an account, why can’t I access all my favorites as an iCal object or even export it directly into Google Calendar? Because then I could share that calendar with my friends (i.e. the gang I get together with on the weekend to watch football) bring more people to Zap2it!
Another rant on the account creation process:
- Zap2it doesn’t allow you to register valid email addresses in the format myname+zap2it@example.com! Come on guys, get it together. This is especially important because:
- Zap2it makes you check a box to opt out of partner spam; if you’re not a form reader, you could find yourself getting useless information that you had no desire to receive in the first place. Sigh.
- After I create my account, I’m not logged in. I then have to re-find the show I was trying to “Save to Favorites”; try to bookmark that; be forced to login; be brought to my account page; re-find the show again; and then bookmark. High comedy!