Max just found one of the best examples I’ve ever seen that you don’t need to be wordy in order to convey a complete and powerful message, something it’s always worth remembering when writing web content.
Ernest Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words:
"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
Wired.com asked other authors to do the same – Margaret Atwood wrote:
Longed for him. Got him. Shit.
See other entries on the wired.com website.
If you’re not a fan of IKEA, the two mile walk past cut-price cafetieres, flat pack bunk beds and plastic lampshades to find the one thing you came for is enough to drive you nuts.
Their hope is that without a clear route to your destination, you’ll pick up a trolley-load of things you never planned on buying but for many of us, ten minutes in and we’ve had enough.
Michael Steltzner, author of whitepapers for companies such as Microsoft, HP and FedEx, makes a nice analogy between this type of shopping experience and web content.
If you don’t get straight to the point, or at least show readers where to look, they’ll decide they’ve had enough too – except they won’t have to negotiate dining furniture to get away.
Read the full article
1. The little dot on top of the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle.
2. The symbol most people call ‘hash’ (#) is actually called an octothorpe.
3. The English word with the most different meanings is ‘set’.
4. ‘Screeched’ is the longest one syllable word in English.
5. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
Getting a message across isn’t just about the right copy, a point deftly illustrated by the latest news item on the Tory party homepage (below).
Whoever wrote the piece was probably pleased with the powerful headline lambasting Labour over the latest Commons fracas but clearly didn’t put as much thought into the accompanying image.
The result? The first thing visitors to the site see are the words ‘broken promises’ and ‘incompetence’ next to a big picture of the party leader. Genius.
The first in our series of knowledge articles around online communities is now live on our website.
Written by our very own Emma Hamilton, the series will discuss the merits and problems with managing online communities, forums and blogs.
First up, she’s wondering whether anyone should bother with it at all…
Gerry McGovern has some interesting things to say about how our perception and use of words changes when we search.
Search is a form of ‘mental behaviour’, says McGovern, and there are many ways of saying the same thing.
While we may be searching for a ‘dirt cheap hotel’, when we
arrive at the page, those same words may be unlikely to inspire confidence because, as marketing material, they leave a lot to be desired.
So
that’s the conundrum for search marketeers. What your customers search for isn’t always exactly what they want to find.
Some
people love blogging, they do it just because they can. Or because they
like the sound of their own voices (well, fingers tapping, but you get
our gist).
The point is, we’re not really like that at Qube – we thought long
and hard before deciding to have a company blog. What if it stagnates?
What if nobody’s interested?
In the end, we decided to go for it – we have to have somewhere to
share our wisdom on the latest industry news. We have to have somewhere
to let you know what’s new with us – why not a blog?
So here it is.
We’re going to start recruiting again in the next few weeks and we wondered if anyone out there had any advice on where is best to advertise for new media staff with web communication experience?
We’ll use Wired Sussex, of course, but we’ve previously not had much luck with things like Total Jobs… any ideas are welcome. Oh, and no, we don’t want any agencies.
Our MD, Andrew, delivers an email makeover for the Email Marketing Manual each month. Catch his latest advice here:
Finally, our new website is ready. It seems like it’s taken years, but it’s finally live. If you’ve got a second, let us know what you think.
> Qube Media homepage.
Twitter: @qubemedia