Update (6/07/2011): Gawker has apparently corrected the problem for both the desktop Canadian sites and the mobile sites! You can now get the link you wanted without having to resort to workarounds!
Update (4/20/2011): See the bottom of the post for Gawker’s response to my inquiry.
When Gawker launched a new layout for their various sites, I said ‘Meh’. When their database was hacked and account details stolen, I said ‘Meh’ again, as I wasn’t an avid reader and didn’t have an account. I’d open the occasional link to an article on Life Hacker, or Gizmondo, but that was it.
Now, I won’t even go that far, mainly because most of the time, the links don’t work.
Let me explain – if you live in the U.S. and/or don’t own a mobile device, you probably won’t notice an issue. However, being from the Great White North and owning an Android phone, getting to a specific article on a Gawker-run site is next to impossible without employing workarounds.
When someone from the U.S. links something from, say Life Hacker, the link will look like this:
http://lifehacker.com/#!5757510/feednu-makes-an-android-app-for-your-blog
However, if you’re in Canada and click on that link, it will take you to this instead:
http://ca.lifehacker.com/
Yes, that’s right. Instead of taking you to the article that you want to read, it says “Oh, hey! You’re Canadian! Look at our other layout. What do you mean you wanted to read a specific article?” (Sometimes it will leave the full URL intact, but still bring you directly to the front page instead of the article you wanted).
And if you use a smart phone, or any other device Gawker things deserves the mobile site, you’ll get this:
http://m.lifehacker.com/#!5757510/feednu-makes-an-android-app-for-your-blog
Which, depending on how the site feels, will either give you their mobile homepage, or just a 404 error.
Kind of reminds me of this XKCD strip. Either way, bye bye Gawker Media. You won’t be missed.
Addendum: After emailing Gawker’s support team a few times, I finally got this reply:
The tech team is still trying to figure out how integrate the hashtags with the redirect– they’re making some progress,but not enough to roll out with the fix just yet. All we can ask is that you continue to be patient until that fix is ready. Sorry for the inconvenience this is causing, but I promise, a fix is coming.
–Steve Climaco
Gawker Media Help Desk
So basically, they’ve over-engineered their post system and have no idea where the screw-up is. Given their overall history, this isn’t surprising.
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