Some of Alan's views on this digital marketing malarkey ... there's more on: AlanCharlesworth.com

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

login or signup to download your identity

I was looking to access a report and was presented with this option. Now, I have read how this facility has increased access to password-protected sites because folk don't have to register on the site but 'sign in' using their Facebook membership. But take a look at what I would have to give up for that convenience:
1 Access my basic information. Well, no biggy you might say, this is all available on a personal Facebook page - errr, yes but mainly only to 'friends'.

2 Access to my profile information. Yep, all the stuff  folk can make private from 'non-friends'. 

3 Post to Facebook as me. I'll say that again: Post to Facebook as me. Yes, these folk can go to any Facebook page they like and say things and they will be attributed to me. 

Needless to say; I didn't 'login with Facebook'.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

no news is bad news

Here's another entry where I am criticising an organization that does some good work - but lets itself down on its website. This is their 'media center' page:
I tell my students [and I say so in my book] that you should not have any element of your website that depends on being frequently updating if you do not have either the news or the commitment / resources to keep it up-to-date [the same applies to any and all aspects of social media]. 

What makes this worse is that it is the media page of a media company.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

bad language?

In my book I advise against using flags to denote languages - but this one is a doozy. This is on the website of a university in the UK - but the US flag is used for 'English'. If you are about to say it refers to 'American English' ... don't. My colour and behaviour both have Us in them. Similarly, French is spoken as a first language in many other places that don't fly the French Tricolour. And are these six the most-spoken languages in the world? I would have thought Spanish would be in there somewhere [it is close to be the most spoken language in the USA].

In addition - around this time of year I am always on the lookout for out-dated copyright notices - I was going to use Tesco as an example this year [their notice still says 2011] - but I'll use this one instead ... only five years out.