It’s high time I jotted down my latest bunch of random marketing, copywriting and marcomms-related snippets. Here goes.
Google content length rumours?
I heard a rumour the other day about Google giving advice on the length of posts, articles and web pages. Someone thought they’d heard that ‘content’ should be at least 600 words long these days, longer than the search engine giant had, allegedly, previously recommended. Hm. I’m sceptical, since the Big G isn’t usually in the habit of prescribing how long or otherwise content should be.
If anything less should be more, rather than wittering on unnecessarily just for the sake of adding more words. I write enough copy to do a proper job, no longer and no shorter. Anything else smacks of manipulation, a bad idea when content creators should be doing the decent thing and putting readers first.
I’ve had a good look for the news but can’t find anything. Unless we hear different, it’s safe to assume that Google has recommended no such thing.
Google Glass database marketing fail
I want Google Glass. Six months ago I signed up for email updates about it. I keep reading thrilling stuff about how scientists and geeks worldwide are playing with Glass code to create remarkable new applications, but I haven’t heard a peep out of Google. No emails, no newsletters, no news, no teasers or tasters… nowt.
I rarely hand over my contact details but when I do, I actually expect to be contacted. Poor show, Google. You could be building anticipation through your presumably vast opted-in database of hot prospects. But instead you leave us dangling. Come on Google, blow my mind.
Bling, bling… meet the projector necklace
If you find the idea of Google Glass a bit too close to the Borg for comfort, how about accessing smartphone content through a necklace or brooch? Such gadgets could one day revolutionise the way we consume data by projecting stuff like emails, tweets and text alerts onto nearby surfaces, to be opened using hand gestures. Along with smartwatches, they represent yet another reason why Google Glass marketers need to get their skates on before another revolutionary gadget grabs the new technology crown.
‘Cheap software’ used by whistleblowers?
The NSA says Edward Snowden used ‘cheap’ software to access and scrape data from its websites. In their words, “We do not believe this was an individual sitting at a machine and downloading this much material in sequence”. Presumably the software, being cheap, should also have been easy to detect? Whoops.
Can you ‘speak to’ that?
Ouch. When I first heard someone on TV say , “I can speak to that”, it hurt. It’s awful hearing your language so badly mangled. A short time later it started popping up everywhere as Americans gleefully spread the habit. That was six months ago. Now, although it’s butt ugly and downright wrong, it’s fast becoming common parlance. And it’s starting to sound OK. So yes, I can speak to that, although until it goes totally mainstream in Britain I would never include it in content.
Permissive plague
Here’s another one that’s escaped into the wild. If I see one more sign advertising a Permissive Footpath, I shall fall to the ground and start foaming at the mouth. Because footpaths are permissive by nature, all you need to say is Footpath. If there’s no footpath, you don’t need a sign. If it’s private you just put up a sign saying Private Footpath or No Entry. Simple.
