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

Friday, February 15, 2013

hardly a seemless connection from BT

OK ... I will start by making it clear that I have only praise for my home's BT Infinity connection to the Internet. However ...
 
I got an email which started:


And ended with:

And when I clicked on that link, and was taken to a page that started:




... and ended with:



So here's the thing. BT know whether or not I have Infinity. They know how long I have had the contract - so they know if I am eligible or not. They know where I live and so they know how fast my upgrade could be.
 
So why was I taken to a generic landing page that is [obviously] used for other promotions?
 
Why not send me an email that says 'we can improve your Internet access' with a link to a web page which tells me exactly what I will gain and how much it will cost?
 
The answer to all this is that when I followed the links I found out that my download speeds cannot be improved. My upload capacity can be improved - but BT will know I upload so very little I am nowhere close to my existing limits.
 
All in all, they have wasted their time and mine - and achieved no more than provide an entry for this blog. Ho hum.

Friday, February 1, 2013

quid quoddam pondus rudera

Go back 10 years and I used to warn against a practice common amongst techie website developers whereby they would design the site and because they had no textual content to work with they would fill the space with Latin text. The idea is that before the site goes 'live' the Latin text is replaced by the 'proper' content. I didn't even include this in my 2009 book because I thought no one lets a website go live without being proof read properly. Big mistake ...
 
Note that I have removed the name of this university to save embarrassment. Oh, one thing I do say in the book is that the textual content should be written first and the website designed around it.
 
BTW Google will translate 'quid quoddam pondus rudera' for you.