Performance enhancements and LiveScore for challenges!

I put in some pretty cool stuff (i think) this evening. Because we link out to external web services, if the performance of those services goes down, our site can suffer. This has been very true with the presence feed that we get from Microsoft to show your online status (in the upper right of your blog). Sure, there is a time-out on there, but if the page has to wait for the time-out to hit, that slows everything down.

I was messing around with some stuff, and it was too easy to get the presence feed, as well as other external requests to all happen on their own time. So now you will often see the page appear, and then the status will pop-up. Things already feel snappier!

Using the same technology, if you are participating in an Old Spice Experience Challenge, you will now see a LiveScore listed in the progress grid. This gives you the ability to size up your opponents through out the day and know if that gain you stacked up is really going to be enough! No surprises now, just pure strategery!! (they really should make strategery a real world). Also, let me know if it looks like the LiveScore is slowing down the page... it shouldn't... but it might... so if you see that, let me know.

(click the title of this post to leave a comment and let me know if you see a speed increase, and what you think of the LiveScore)

Comments

[Fshguy]

This is awesome... I wasn't expecting to see it this soon... Save me some work on kludgy pages with awkward links. ;)

[Snookrt]

I think it could use a typical ajax processing graphic on the presence feed and a notice if there is no data so people know if they should wait for something to appear or not. Keep up the great work.

[ArcSphere]

I counter your "strategery" with "lockbox."

[Trapper Markelz]

@Snookrt - I thought about this when I put it in, but I sort of like the idea that if it fails, no one knows it should be there... it is an invisible failure... But if it works, it is like a little bonus!