I'm pretty sure there's nothing I need to add here.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
For the love of god
This just in from the esteemed ABC news service.
I'm pretty sure there's nothing I need to add here.
I'm pretty sure there's nothing I need to add here.
Monday, March 28, 2011
An Internet peculiarity
Today I noticed on Twitter that a friend had signed up to Dabble.in. Here's the tweet:
I just reserved my Dabble.in username. Gets yours here -
The link lead to http://dabble.in/
The website proffers a tagline ("What do you Dabble?"—capital D because, you know, it's a brand), and a form that invites you to reserve your dabble.in username. A message at the top of the screen reads:
That's it.
This site exemplifies an Internet peculiarity that I wanted to discuss with you. No, it's not the use of brands as an excuse to misappropriate grammar. It is: new services inviting you to hand over your personal details without even doing you the courtesy of telling you what it is you're signing up for.
This approach seems peculiar to the Web. I've never seen anyone succeed with it—or expect to—offline.
Okay, okay, okay. Let's be reasonable. "Dabble", according to the Oxford, means "to take part in an activity in a casual or superficial way." The little video that materialised when I pressed P on my keyboard had no words, but a lot of pictures of people doing stuff—skateboarding, cutting hair, making cheese, drawing cars.
Also, the vast majority of the people in the video seemed to be men. A small point, perhaps, but when that's literally all I have to use to form some comprehension of what I'm signing up for, an overrepresentation of one group of potential users does actually matter.
From all this we might conclude that Dabble will be a site that somehow allows you to opine about, or somehow share your experiences of, a hobby or interest that you have. Although that guy looked like he was cutting hair professionally. Whatever.
The real question here is not, "Was he a professional barber?" but, "Really, seriously, guys, what the fuck does this site do?" Dabble spent all this time putting together a neat little video and licensing some nifty music to dub over the shots they must have sourced from some kind of footage library, and they still couldn't manage to tell me what my affiliation with Dabble will mean? Really?
No benefits? No features? No usecase? No nothing?
The username I'll get if I sign up in the next 30 seconds looks a lot like my Twitter URL (dabble.in/username) so (thinks a person who has prior experience with such services—others are simply bewildered) perhaps it's like a social network for people with personal and professional interests. But that sounds a lot like Twitter to me. There must be some difference. Am I even on the right track here? Maybe it's nothing like Twitter. Maybe it's something else altogether!
Who knows?
In the offline world, you could never market like this. Imagine some dude rocks up to your door with a subscription form for Dabble, and no information about it. What do you do? Slam the door in his face, of course. Just because I've accessed Dabble.in through a link my friend tweeted (or had tweeted on his behalf—who knows?) shouldn't mean I'll suck it down like manna from heaven. Personal referral means zilch if I have no idea what I'm signing up to. Right?
Wrong. Dabble.in probably has bazillions of subscribers already. Why? We don't know what it is, people. We don't know! For a moment I thought perhaps they'd implemented an enormous, world-beating media campaign, and were being written about everywhere, but Google, who also market their services on this no-information-rely-on-brand-only basis, has no results for Dabble other than the cutesy homepage.
Why is it that web users will sign up for services without any idea of even a benefit? Why is it that online marketers don't perceive that they could potentially broaden their audience if they identified the service benefit, or bothered actually addressing the people they are supposedly marketing to? Wouldn't it be better if they did?
Have we reached a point where less actual information implies a big and reliable brand, and is all (along with a "personal referral" auto-tweet) that's needed for me to feel compelled to sign up?
Call me a late adopter if you will, but between security and privacy hoo ha, the seven million username-and-password combinations I already own and have forgotten, and an interest in filtering the crap—even the crap my friends tweet—I think a little more information wouldn't go astray. I think I'll need it before I "Reserve [my] spot".
I just reserved my Dabble.in username. Gets yours here -
The link lead to http://dabble.in/
The website proffers a tagline ("What do you Dabble?"—capital D because, you know, it's a brand), and a form that invites you to reserve your dabble.in username. A message at the top of the screen reads:
That's it.This site exemplifies an Internet peculiarity that I wanted to discuss with you. No, it's not the use of brands as an excuse to misappropriate grammar. It is: new services inviting you to hand over your personal details without even doing you the courtesy of telling you what it is you're signing up for.
This approach seems peculiar to the Web. I've never seen anyone succeed with it—or expect to—offline.
Okay, okay, okay. Let's be reasonable. "Dabble", according to the Oxford, means "to take part in an activity in a casual or superficial way." The little video that materialised when I pressed P on my keyboard had no words, but a lot of pictures of people doing stuff—skateboarding, cutting hair, making cheese, drawing cars.
Also, the vast majority of the people in the video seemed to be men. A small point, perhaps, but when that's literally all I have to use to form some comprehension of what I'm signing up for, an overrepresentation of one group of potential users does actually matter.
From all this we might conclude that Dabble will be a site that somehow allows you to opine about, or somehow share your experiences of, a hobby or interest that you have. Although that guy looked like he was cutting hair professionally. Whatever.
The real question here is not, "Was he a professional barber?" but, "Really, seriously, guys, what the fuck does this site do?" Dabble spent all this time putting together a neat little video and licensing some nifty music to dub over the shots they must have sourced from some kind of footage library, and they still couldn't manage to tell me what my affiliation with Dabble will mean? Really?
No benefits? No features? No usecase? No nothing?
The username I'll get if I sign up in the next 30 seconds looks a lot like my Twitter URL (dabble.in/username) so (thinks a person who has prior experience with such services—others are simply bewildered) perhaps it's like a social network for people with personal and professional interests. But that sounds a lot like Twitter to me. There must be some difference. Am I even on the right track here? Maybe it's nothing like Twitter. Maybe it's something else altogether!
Who knows?
In the offline world, you could never market like this. Imagine some dude rocks up to your door with a subscription form for Dabble, and no information about it. What do you do? Slam the door in his face, of course. Just because I've accessed Dabble.in through a link my friend tweeted (or had tweeted on his behalf—who knows?) shouldn't mean I'll suck it down like manna from heaven. Personal referral means zilch if I have no idea what I'm signing up to. Right?
Wrong. Dabble.in probably has bazillions of subscribers already. Why? We don't know what it is, people. We don't know! For a moment I thought perhaps they'd implemented an enormous, world-beating media campaign, and were being written about everywhere, but Google, who also market their services on this no-information-rely-on-brand-only basis, has no results for Dabble other than the cutesy homepage.
Why is it that web users will sign up for services without any idea of even a benefit? Why is it that online marketers don't perceive that they could potentially broaden their audience if they identified the service benefit, or bothered actually addressing the people they are supposedly marketing to? Wouldn't it be better if they did?
Have we reached a point where less actual information implies a big and reliable brand, and is all (along with a "personal referral" auto-tweet) that's needed for me to feel compelled to sign up?
Call me a late adopter if you will, but between security and privacy hoo ha, the seven million username-and-password combinations I already own and have forgotten, and an interest in filtering the crap—even the crap my friends tweet—I think a little more information wouldn't go astray. I think I'll need it before I "Reserve [my] spot".
Sunday, March 27, 2011
[a long way]
[It had been a long summer. He wouldn't come to the house any more; he wouldn't phone. The days disintegrated into one another, hot and dry, and she excused him. It was a long way to come, she told herself, looking at the hard, blue sky. As for herself, there was an eternity to go.
The frogs that lived in the pond beneath the eucalyptus died one after the other. Their dessicated corpses were impossibly light, and had holes where the eyes should have been. She left them in the grass. There didn't seem much else to do.
It was a very long way to come, she thought. After all, he must be busy, and the country wasn't to everyone's taste. In many weathers, the road could be treacherous. His car was old. Really, it was a very long way to come just for an hour or two of conversation, even if she made something for lunch, even if they could sit in the shade and look out at the too-bright landscape and sip iced tank water and simply enjoy being there. Together.
The truth was something else. The truth was that she couldn't matter—that was the rule. The more he hurt her, the more he hurt himself; the less she appeared to matter, the less discomfort he could justify. She knew this. But in the heat and the slowness of the brittle, humming afternoons, the truth became impossible. It was too black to be real, too anguishing to comprehend.
Instead, she let the wilderness convince her of her own distance, and sipped the cool water alone.]
The frogs that lived in the pond beneath the eucalyptus died one after the other. Their dessicated corpses were impossibly light, and had holes where the eyes should have been. She left them in the grass. There didn't seem much else to do.
It was a very long way to come, she thought. After all, he must be busy, and the country wasn't to everyone's taste. In many weathers, the road could be treacherous. His car was old. Really, it was a very long way to come just for an hour or two of conversation, even if she made something for lunch, even if they could sit in the shade and look out at the too-bright landscape and sip iced tank water and simply enjoy being there. Together.
The truth was something else. The truth was that she couldn't matter—that was the rule. The more he hurt her, the more he hurt himself; the less she appeared to matter, the less discomfort he could justify. She knew this. But in the heat and the slowness of the brittle, humming afternoons, the truth became impossible. It was too black to be real, too anguishing to comprehend.
Instead, she let the wilderness convince her of her own distance, and sipped the cool water alone.]
Monday, March 21, 2011
Workstyle
The latest bullshit term to surface like congealed flotsam on the grimy meniscus of the modern media is workstyle. If you haven't heard it, I'm sorry to bring it to your attention. If it's been around for ages, well, it's new to me, so stop your whining.
In honour of this new piece of linguistic detritus (I'm beginning to think the "evolution" of language is a lot like the "evolution" of entertainment [into reality tv], but that's a topic for another time), I'd like to present my own workstyle for your consideration.
In honour of this new piece of linguistic detritus (I'm beginning to think the "evolution" of language is a lot like the "evolution" of entertainment [into reality tv], but that's a topic for another time), I'd like to present my own workstyle for your consideration.
- Awaken from dream-addled slumber.
- Steel self for hours ahead. Gird loins, sharpen knives, crack bullet chambers open and closed on handguns, etc.
- Approach desk to mental strains of Rocky theme music.
- Open iTunes and switch theme to that from Taxi Driver.
- Lift hands, which are for some reason like lead, to keyboard.
- Consume coffee.
- Become awash with dread. Lie and tell yourself you only have to do an hour's work.
- Commence typing.
- Get caught up.
- Get carried away.
- As you start a new piece of content (article, sentence, chapter, paragraph, what-have-you), have it dawn on you how brilliant this thing is.
- Tell yourself you're amazing.
- Believe it.
- Three hours and as many thousand words later, eat chocolate. And more coffee.
- Cleave to the revelation that this thing you're writing is groundbreaking.
- Hum We Are the Champions to self.
- Run.
- More writing. More chocolate.
- Cry "Booya, suckahs!" as you type final full stop of the day with keyboard-shattering profundity.
- Save.
- Champagne. Or red. Or a mojito. Whatever's to hand.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
[running]
[beat meets beat:
my feet hit the street
shadows pool
in pooling leaves
colour drifts
in drifting leaves
butterflies crush
beneath my feet
hiding on the road—
on the drift-coloured
street
(it's always faster
when you're running from something
always faster
when you're trying to hide)]
my feet hit the street
shadows pool
in pooling leaves
colour drifts
in drifting leaves
butterflies crush
beneath my feet
hiding on the road—
on the drift-coloured
street
(it's always faster
when you're running from something
always faster
when you're trying to hide)]
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tried and tested (read: overused)
In copywriting, we have to capture attention and hang onto it. One of the greatest criticisms of marketing is that it tells people what they want to hear, rather than the truth. Here's a case in point.
I'm writing copy for a product that provides "unique professional insights."
How hackneyed is that? These days, everything's unique. In the world of self-publishing, personal branding, reality TV, make-your-own, and social media, unique is no longer a selling point. Well, it's not much of a selling point.
What is? Things that are communicated with less overused terms. Terms like:
And sometimes, you have to shape the truth.
The product I'm writing about actually has unique professional insights, but instead I'm calling them "rare" (a misnomer, I think), and talking about the creator's "unique perspective". It's a bit of a mashup, and it's a bit hazy on the accuracy front, but it's better than the same old, same old.
I'm writing copy for a product that provides "unique professional insights."
How hackneyed is that? These days, everything's unique. In the world of self-publishing, personal branding, reality TV, make-your-own, and social media, unique is no longer a selling point. Well, it's not much of a selling point.
What is? Things that are communicated with less overused terms. Terms like:
- rare
- glowing
- compelling
- striking
- intuition
- ability
- listening
- vision
And sometimes, you have to shape the truth.
The product I'm writing about actually has unique professional insights, but instead I'm calling them "rare" (a misnomer, I think), and talking about the creator's "unique perspective". It's a bit of a mashup, and it's a bit hazy on the accuracy front, but it's better than the same old, same old.
Monday, March 14, 2011
The roundup
Remember this? My Twitter experiment?
The roundup, friend, was that I quite enjoyed it. How nice to be able to rely on entertainment in my Twitter stream. How entertaining. It was a bit of a giveaway that I a) knew when to expect tweets and b) knew the plot and characters. But still, I enjoyed its execution as much as its composition.
On the downside, I felt the characterisation to be a bit thin, and timing of tweets to be a bit dubious. It was tough timing the tweets to work with the plot—and the likely schedules of human beings—in real time. But you know. Something to work on and all.
Why don't more people write little Twitter stories to entertain us? I know there are people out there who use the service simply to identify trends (yawn), but who cares? There are others out there -- people who long for a glimmer of fun and a few thrills, who would love to have a good story injected at unpredictable intervals into their everyday lives. These people would love to follow a Twitter story, wouldn't they?
Well? Wouldn't they?
Yeah, maybe it's just me.
The roundup, friend, was that I quite enjoyed it. How nice to be able to rely on entertainment in my Twitter stream. How entertaining. It was a bit of a giveaway that I a) knew when to expect tweets and b) knew the plot and characters. But still, I enjoyed its execution as much as its composition.
On the downside, I felt the characterisation to be a bit thin, and timing of tweets to be a bit dubious. It was tough timing the tweets to work with the plot—and the likely schedules of human beings—in real time. But you know. Something to work on and all.
Why don't more people write little Twitter stories to entertain us? I know there are people out there who use the service simply to identify trends (yawn), but who cares? There are others out there -- people who long for a glimmer of fun and a few thrills, who would love to have a good story injected at unpredictable intervals into their everyday lives. These people would love to follow a Twitter story, wouldn't they?
Well? Wouldn't they?
Yeah, maybe it's just me.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Not the big talk
A small oratory. One to remind us that it's not the fanfare and big talk that matter, it's not the glamour—often it's not even the glittering intellect.
It's being there.
Yes, life presents unexpected circumstances, it throws up roadblocks and leaves us scrambling for solutions. That's why, if you can be there, you should: because next time you may face a roadblock that prevents your presence.
Too many roadblocks and, well, it begins to look like you're not there. It begins to look a lot like you're not there. It becomes clear that, actually, you're somewhere else entirely.
If your intention is to be somewhere else entirely, that's fine. But if it's not, then I have just two words for you:
Be there.
Most of the time, that's all that matters.
It's being there.
Yes, life presents unexpected circumstances, it throws up roadblocks and leaves us scrambling for solutions. That's why, if you can be there, you should: because next time you may face a roadblock that prevents your presence.
Too many roadblocks and, well, it begins to look like you're not there. It begins to look a lot like you're not there. It becomes clear that, actually, you're somewhere else entirely.
If your intention is to be somewhere else entirely, that's fine. But if it's not, then I have just two words for you:
Be there.
Most of the time, that's all that matters.
Hello, buttons
Button text I would like to see online. A few ideas. Nothing special.
Next alternatives:
Next alternatives:
- More please
- Hit me
- Giddyup
- Tally Ho
- Onward!
- WTF?!
- Uh oh.
- Woah Nellie
- This ain't right
- Copy that, chief
- Gotcha
- Gimme
- Hit me*
- Yeeehaa
- Affirmative
Monday, March 7, 2011
[the afternoon]
[but this time, something was different. There was no sense of desperation, just a spiralling sadness that filled the room, filled every pore of the face, every damp lungful of breath, every slow-ticking moment of the grey afternoon.
It seemed that something was incubating in that sadness. Something small scratched at the walls, tapped the window panes. The house was topsy turvy. The sky above was the colour of ashes and the air smelt of fire. Yet something grew firmer in that space. Small bones formed, blind eyes, world-weary limbs. It took time. It took stock. It took its own pace. It couldn't be rushed, just as]
It seemed that something was incubating in that sadness. Something small scratched at the walls, tapped the window panes. The house was topsy turvy. The sky above was the colour of ashes and the air smelt of fire. Yet something grew firmer in that space. Small bones formed, blind eyes, world-weary limbs. It took time. It took stock. It took its own pace. It couldn't be rushed, just as]
International Women's Day vexations
Is there an International Men's Day? Yes, but I'd never heard of it. Read into that what you will. And into this, a selection of bits and pieces from around the web...
Avon launches digital romance imprint. Yawn. On the right of that page, you may see these lovely ladies...
(Both images from the same sidebar at fastcompany.com)
Sophie Monk splits with 50-something fiancee. Which, incidentally, I just typed as "financee". And this pic appears on the same page:
Yeah! Legs. Makeup. And a woman clutching her own chest. Getting tired? Me too.
Ho hum from the Hun. (That's right, kids: sex is never a path to revenge. Whatever that means. Thanks Suzie, or whoever subbed that headline with such mordant perspicacity.)
On what is ostensibly the plus side, the PM stands firm on carbon, but that's only really interesting from the point of view of broken election promises, poll terror, and bureaucracy moving more slowly than molasses. Oh, and the recurring thought, "I can't believe people thought she'd govern differently because she's a woman."
Yeah, so, whatever. Don't say I don't look after you. Or something.*
*Oh alright, so I don't get this shit at all. These examples are all targeted at women or a combination of women and men, and the fact that a) I am a woman and b) I don't want to read any of it only further reinforces my disbelief not only in gender targeting, but that gender actually matters at all.
Avon launches digital romance imprint. Yawn. On the right of that page, you may see these lovely ladies...
(Both images from the same sidebar at fastcompany.com)Sophie Monk splits with 50-something fiancee. Which, incidentally, I just typed as "financee". And this pic appears on the same page:
Yeah! Legs. Makeup. And a woman clutching her own chest. Getting tired? Me too.
Ho hum from the Hun. (That's right, kids: sex is never a path to revenge. Whatever that means. Thanks Suzie, or whoever subbed that headline with such mordant perspicacity.)On what is ostensibly the plus side, the PM stands firm on carbon, but that's only really interesting from the point of view of broken election promises, poll terror, and bureaucracy moving more slowly than molasses. Oh, and the recurring thought, "I can't believe people thought she'd govern differently because she's a woman."
Yeah, so, whatever. Don't say I don't look after you. Or something.*
*Oh alright, so I don't get this shit at all. These examples are all targeted at women or a combination of women and men, and the fact that a) I am a woman and b) I don't want to read any of it only further reinforces my disbelief not only in gender targeting, but that gender actually matters at all.
Love this
Yes, a directive I'm afraid. But you will.
Recently I saw two billboards side by side at the station. On the left, a picture of a female child slave with the caption "Employee of the month"—an ad for charity. On the right, a picture of an actress wearing denim with the caption "G Star Raw".*
Side by side. It was glorious.
Two females, two advertising campaigns, two purposes, one objective: dollar$.
The marketing angle, almost unconscionably, and certainly incomprehensibly, aside for just a moment, there was something weirdly unifying about these two images, shot from the waist up.
Young women. Hope, love, long hair, dark hair, dark eyes, men, futures of a sort, death. And the futility of an optimism supposedly sated by consumption. Because we need Exhibit A in order to enjoy Exhibit B.
I'm not insinuating that G Star denim products are anything other than legitimate, of course—I'm talking about a bigger picture in which the rich and fortunate of the world are rich and fortunate precisely because they're not the poor child slaves, and must rely on those people to remain in slavery if the rich fortune is to continue.
By the rich and fortunate I mean, of course, you and I. Looking around the lifts of the glassy, glossy city office blocks, you see women in flimsy new season's $20 Sportsgirl tops and bad makeup, men in boat shoes and shiny trousers, all chatting gaily about the weekend and the office party and the broken copier on level 13.
They're all pretending that this shit matters, when what matters is that glamorous Gemma would be hauling buckets in a tin mine but for the grace of good fortune, and that we're kidding ourselves if we believe that the raise, the Audi, Lancome and the Cleo beauties, Zoo, a long board, diet beverages, Crocs, Kumfs, smartphones, the designer bike, the designer dog, the CEO's invitation to speak, the CEO's wife's outfit, manicures, hairdos, Holden Special Vehicles, a diamond, diamantes, etc. are where it's at.
Where is it at?
People. Just people. End of story.
That's what to love: that the conflicting billboards with the same objective cancelled one another out, and all that was left were two people from different continents, different circumstances, regarding me through paper eyes at Southern Cross. They and me.
They and me.
The sun shone through the architect-designed roof. I continued on my way.
*Oh, the waggery that clearly prevails at JCDecaux.
Recently I saw two billboards side by side at the station. On the left, a picture of a female child slave with the caption "Employee of the month"—an ad for charity. On the right, a picture of an actress wearing denim with the caption "G Star Raw".*
Side by side. It was glorious.
Two females, two advertising campaigns, two purposes, one objective: dollar$.
The marketing angle, almost unconscionably, and certainly incomprehensibly, aside for just a moment, there was something weirdly unifying about these two images, shot from the waist up.
Young women. Hope, love, long hair, dark hair, dark eyes, men, futures of a sort, death. And the futility of an optimism supposedly sated by consumption. Because we need Exhibit A in order to enjoy Exhibit B.
I'm not insinuating that G Star denim products are anything other than legitimate, of course—I'm talking about a bigger picture in which the rich and fortunate of the world are rich and fortunate precisely because they're not the poor child slaves, and must rely on those people to remain in slavery if the rich fortune is to continue.
By the rich and fortunate I mean, of course, you and I. Looking around the lifts of the glassy, glossy city office blocks, you see women in flimsy new season's $20 Sportsgirl tops and bad makeup, men in boat shoes and shiny trousers, all chatting gaily about the weekend and the office party and the broken copier on level 13.
They're all pretending that this shit matters, when what matters is that glamorous Gemma would be hauling buckets in a tin mine but for the grace of good fortune, and that we're kidding ourselves if we believe that the raise, the Audi, Lancome and the Cleo beauties, Zoo, a long board, diet beverages, Crocs, Kumfs, smartphones, the designer bike, the designer dog, the CEO's invitation to speak, the CEO's wife's outfit, manicures, hairdos, Holden Special Vehicles, a diamond, diamantes, etc. are where it's at.
Where is it at?
People. Just people. End of story.
That's what to love: that the conflicting billboards with the same objective cancelled one another out, and all that was left were two people from different continents, different circumstances, regarding me through paper eyes at Southern Cross. They and me.
They and me.
The sun shone through the architect-designed roof. I continued on my way.
*Oh, the waggery that clearly prevails at JCDecaux.
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