It's not that easy to find out. Yes, if you Google "Cosmopolitan Las Vegas" it pops up in the "local business" listing with a map. But that's the ONLY place you'll find the correct link to the resort's site. And if you don't do it that way -- and search engines are used mostly when people are in the ballpark of what they're looking for -- you're screwed. What's more, a Google search for "Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas," which is the actual, formal title of the property thanks to a lawsuit with the magazine of the same name, you also do NOT get the property's website in at least the first several Google pages.
My first try in Google, in fact, was "Cosmopolitan Vegas." Not only did the hotel's site not show up on the first page, it didn't show up in the first six pages, at which point I gave up. Here's what the top of that search looks like now:
Up top are all the news stories about the fact that the resort is taking reservations now, with my Portfolio blog item about the analyst weirdness in there now, too. After that, VegasTodayAndTomorrow.Com and the Wikipedia entry for the place are the top draws.
The site itself, if you can find it, is a little troublesome, too. For some reason in Firefox my totally up-to-date computer doesn't have the right version of Flash:
I tried upgrading my Flash to the version they required, but it still didn't work. It worked fine in Safari, though:
But I'm not real sure why a major hotel-casino would even use Flash, though, knowing that it'll look like this on iPods and iPads:
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Sounds like the Cosmo's web team has some work to do. I'm completely mystified how they don't even show up in any permutations I could arrange except for that local-business listing. The site's been around now for many months, if not years.
3 comments:
Most casino websites identify iThings and display a non-Flash version formatted for mobile screens.
Mike - that screenshot was from my iphone. Cosmo, at least, has not created a viable alternative format.
Flash makes for a much richer experience; dumbing that down for a comparatively small number of rich-media crippled devices isn't a good marketing plan. That said, a well designed site would have a fallback if Flash isn't available. The problem I've had with some Las Vegas hotel sites is all the badly coded javascript on the booking pages that throws errors way too often, making you restart your booking from scratch and losing your discount code.
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