Monthly Archive for April, 2007

Microgoogle?

Published
by
John
on April 18, 2007
in Websites
. 0 Comments

Google - MicrosoftAround 5pm it usually feels like it’s time for a rest. Today wasn’t much of an exception.

I was trying to get to the Microsoft website and for some reason I typed www.google.co.uk/microsoft into my browser. I was surprised by what I saw.

I’ve hardly looked at it, but it appears to return search results relevant to Microsoft. There’s a similar page for www.google.co.uk/linux. www.google.co.uk/mac gives you a “Search Mac Sites” box as well as some handy Google downloads for Apple.

Google: are you having a bit of fun or providing a useful service? I reckon it’s a bit of both.

Spot the difference

Published
by
John
on April 17, 2007
in Spotted
. 1 Comment

F or NF?The number 17’s one of the major bus routes in Reading, and actually the service isn’t usually too bad. The way the timetables are presented is pretty good as well: instead of posting the full timetable everywhere, each bus stop has an individual printout listing only the times buses arrive there.

Makes sense really; showing just the relevant information makes it easier to find what you’re looking for.

But there’s still room for improvement. I noticed this at a bus stop this evening. Two buses are listed at 2000 hours. One has NF by it, one F.

No, it’s not a reference to the National Front. The NF stands for “not Fridays”. The F means “Fridays only”. The difference between the two? There isn’t one. They leave at the same time and run to the same destination, with the same interim stops.

Extra lines, extra numbers - and there’s no reason for them. It just creates uncertainty and confusion. Sure, it’s a minor thing, but I bet it’s confused someone, at some point. And it would be easy to rectify. So why haven’t they?

It’s the same with websites. Is everything there for a reason? Because if it’s not, it’s just noise.

Another day, another blog

Published
by
John
on April 11, 2007
in Technology
. 4 Comments

I got a new phone in January. It’s a SonyEricsson K800i on Vodafone, and while it’s not exactly the best handset can buy, it is pretty good.

I was playing about with the camera the other day when I found an addictive new feature. One-click blogging. Well, almost one-click blogging.

I pulled the menu up by accident when I pressed the wrong button. ‘Blog this’ it said. And it really did. All I had to do was enter a title and some text for the post, and it published it. Straight away.

Sure, blogging while on the move is nothing new. But it was the easy setup that got me. I didn’t have to do anything complicated or set anything up in advance. My new blog was created on the fly when I pressed ‘Publish’.

Just to make it a nice experience all round, I was texted some login details for www.blogger.com. These let me choose an address for the blog, change the design and everything.

I’ve no idea what it’s costing me in data charges, but it’s really addictive. I imagine I’ll keep it up at least until I get my next bill. See it for yourself.

I’ve never really had a decent reason to use data on my mobile before. It’s always been a bit of a novelty. But now 3G means everything loads nice and quickly. Between the blogging, National Rail’s live train departures and Gmail’s handy mobile email client, I really can do useful things on a tiny screen.

Virgin on the confusing

Published
by
John
on April 10, 2007
in Spotted
. 0 Comments

I spent some of today heading south from Crewe on a Virgin train. Their trains are pretty new, and seat reservations aren’t indicated by a bit of paper on the seat. Instead, there’s a little screen on the luggage rack that says whether the seat’s free (’This seat is not reserved’) or taken.

If it’s taken then it says the stations the seat has been reserved between. This is handy - if the display says ‘Birmingham to Reading’ but you’re already well out of Birmingham, it’s safe to assume that the person meant to be in the seat hasn’t turned up, so you can take it yourself.

The benefits to the train company are obvious; there’ s no need to send staff through the train to put the right reservation cards on the right seats. One button and (presumably) it’s done.

Unfortunately it was all a bit too confusing for one of my fellow passengers today. At first he didn’t spot the screen. And then when he did, he assumed the seat was free because nowhere did it use the word ‘reserved’.

It was a busy train, and I’m honestly not sure if he was telling the truth or just pleading ignorance in the hope he’d be allowed to keep the seat. But either way, Virgin could make things clearer. It got me wondering whether a copywriter had written the text, or if they’d just gone with whatever the person who wrote the software put there.

A couple of small changes is all they’d need. They could add ‘Reserved from…’ to the copy on each screen. And some well-placed notices explaining how reserved seats are indicated would make it crystal clear. The displays aren’t that obvious, unless you’re particularly tall or know where to look.

Little changes like this can make a big difference when you’re trying to get a message across. The principle applies to websites as well - and one of the great things about working online is that it’s usually easy to make the edits.

The Facebook phenomenon

Published
by
John
on April 9, 2007
in Websites
. 1 Comment

I’ve not really got into the social networking thing. Sure - I’ve been on MySpace a bit, but only ever to listen to new bands. There always seemed to be far too many 14-year-olds using it to actually be worth signing up to.

But over the last couple of weeks it feels like another site has suddenly reached critical mass: Facebook. Loads of my friends have been talking about it - even in the pub, when they should be talking about football, music or making rubbish jokes. And it seems like they’ve all been using it.

I signed up yesterday. It’s a bit of a MySpace for grownups. You can tell people what you’re up to, share photos, and generally exchange banter and gossip. I can see why some of my friends say it’s addictive.

It’s all about building networks. You start by adding the people you know as friends on Facebook. It’s really easy, because the website can read your Hotmail / Yahoo / Gmail address book and automatically add anyone in that to your list of friends.

Be careful - I nearly emailed 107 contacts from my Google address book, including former and current colleagues and clients. Could be embarrassing if all you meant to do was contact a few selected people.

Then you can see their friends, and add them to your friends list, and so on. I haven’t quite worked out the etiquette yet, but it’s clear that you don’t have to have met in person to be friends on Facebook.

It’ll put you in touch with former colleagues, schoolmates and all sorts. Which is fine if you want to talk to them all. I just can’t help thinking that sometimes you lose touch with people for a reason. And it’s a pretty open network - so I’d definitely be concerned about making too much personal information too public.

Having said that, I’ve hardly scratched the surface. I’ll stick with it and report back. My plan is to stay fairly low-key for the next week or so and see what happens. Then I might go crazy adding friends, just because I want to be popular.

Wanted: one apostrophe

Published
by
John
on April 7, 2007
in Spotted
. 2 Comments

Spotted in Friar Street, Reading, last night: a black cab covered in advertising for local radio station 2Ten FM.

Apparently they play “Todays music”. That’s debatable. But you’d have thought they’d check the punctuation before slapping it on the side of a taxi in foot-high letters.

Festival fever

Published
by
John
on April 5, 2007
in Websites
. 0 Comments

One of the big success stories for the web has got to be online ticketing. It’s probably fair to say that the majority of tickets for gigs, festivals, sporting events and even the theatre are sold online.

I reckon the big companies like Ticketmaster and See Tickets are cleaning up - though many people (including myself) still have a gripe with their ludicrous booking fees, which can be over 10% of face value.

And it’s good to see smaller operators like We Got Tickets selling tickets for smaller venues and being a bit more innovative - like by not issuing paper tickets at all, and instead relying on a “give your name and reference number at the door” approach.

I imagine the people behind See Tickets were crossing their fingers last Sunday when tickets for Glastonbury went on sale. It’s always a busy day when this happens - already this year the Reading and V Festivals had sold out in a matter of hours.

People trying to buy tickets have to go through all the frustration of hitting the refresh button again and again to try and buy tickets from a website that’s struggling to deal with the whole world trying to access it at once.

This system’s more efficient, in that the tickets sell out more quickly. But you could say it’s less fair. Unlike a telephone queueing system, or standing at a box office, there’s no waiting in line. It’s a free for all, and priority goes to the lucky ones who get on the site first.

This year’s Glastonbury sale was a case in point. In a bid to eliminate ticket touts, you had to pre-register, sending a photo that they’ll print on your personalised ticket.

Then on Sunday morning, anyone who’d registered could try and get onto See Tickets to buy tickets. I spent almost two hours pressing refresh. I didn’t see the ‘buy’ page once. But a friend got on fairly quickly and was able to pick up tickets for all of us, by the simple means of completing one transaction, then pressing the back button to fill in the order form again.

The site didn’t seem to time out. If I’m right (and I don’t pretend to know the technical side of this very well), it means that once someone got onto the page once, they could go through the buy process again and again, picking up tickets for their friends as well as themselves.

With a network of friends on MSN Messenger, it was easy to keep track of who had tickets and who didn’t, and try and get them for everyone.

That was fine for us. But it seems a trifle unfair to anyone not so clued up on these things. We played the game, and won. But anyone who didn’t realise what the rules were is perhaps entitled to feel a little upset.

There’s no perfect solution, of course. And things have moved on a lot from when online ticketing was in its infancy. I really admire the people behind Glastonbury for taking such steps to stop the touts at all. But next year, maybe they can do something to make it even fairer.

Working in a big company

Published
by
John
on April 2, 2007
in Working
. 0 Comments

I spent some time contracting in a large company that wasn’t really geared to having copywriters working in-house. Previously they’d farmed all the work out to agencies; I was the only copywriter in the whole of the business.

If you’re used to freelancing, or working with lots of other ‘creative types’ in an agency, going into a company like this can be a real challenge. The people there probably aren’t used to working directly with copywriters. They’re probably all technical people, or accountants, or engineers - or experts in whatever the company does. They’re not writers.

I’ve done it. To anyone in a similar position, here’s the advice I’d offer:

Get stuck in at the start. You’ve probably been brought in to write about the company’s products or services. So you need to learn as much as you can. Talk to people. Get to know them; get to know what the company stands for. And maybe most importantly, make sure people know who you are, so when you (inevitably) have to ask their help, they don’t mind.

Get the training. Assuming you’re a competent writer, you should be able to get up to speed and ‘on brand’ pretty quickly. But make sure you get all the documents and training you can. Don’t forget to check you have the latest information. It’s not unusual for old style guides to float around on company intranets for years.

Find some space, but don’t cut yourself off. Once you’ve established yourself in the office a bit and know you’re on the right track, back off a little. I work best at home, at my desk, with my music playing and few distractions. An open plan office and all the associated noise is not a good working environment. Maybe you can work in a meeting room for a few hours each day. Or perhaps you can negotiate two or three days a week at home. Either way, it’s better for you, and better the company you’re working in. At the very least, load your iPod up and get some good headphones.

Get answers early. Not sure whether your style’s right? Spend the time finding out who the best person to give you feedback is rather than writing more stuff. It’ll save you effort in the long-term.

Make sure you’re on the right lines. Nobody’s perfect, so nobody at the company will expect you to know everything straight away. Make sure you’re going in the right direction by asking the right preople. And remember that in modern corporations - especially big ones - bureacracy is king, and whoever shouts loudest often wins. So to get answers, brush up your diplomatic skills and be ready to raise your voice.

Get used to talking figures. I’m a copywriter. I hate my creativity being measured in raw numbers. But that’s what big companies do. Everything’s measured, checked, timed or calculated. You’ll be expected to produce a certain number of articles each day, week or month, regardless of the relative complexities, other demands on your time or anything else. So get used to it. When someone asks “how many articles have we finished?”, make sure you know the answer. Or at least sound like you do.

Get comfortable with bureaucracy. If you don’t have access to the right folders on your computer then be prepared for a long wait. Getting your copy signed off will probably be tortuous. So do whatever you can to speed things up, but don’t let it get to you. It’s just the way things are. Given time, you can probably learn some shortcuts, but you’re never going to tame the beast completely.

Remember that you’re the expert. In a team of non-creatives, you’re the expert on how to produce good copy. If you’ve proved yourself competent then people will listen, so don’t be afraid to say what you think.

Finally, remember that working in a big company can be real fun. You’ll meet lots of people - most of them dead clever. You’ll be in a nice office, and maybe even enjoy some perks. And (this is the bit I really enjoy) as a copywriter in a team of techies, you’ll be a novelty. Enjoy it while it lasts.