or just use google?

 

is time standing still?

Nigh on 30 years ago when I was standing in front of business folk extolling the benefits of this new thing called the Internet, one big positive was that, unlike printed literature, web pages could be updated in real time. Ho hum.

 

more cookie-consent woes

This one filled half the page - and that's about all I can say because it was impossible to scroll down to see the 173 [yep, one hundred and seventy three] third parties and click on the 'icon on the bottom left'. I wasn't desperate to read the content, so left the site.

snappy urls ...

nope, never seen you before

 What do you do to log in if you're already a member?

And yes, I realise the site might have dropped a cookie on my PC last time I was there ... but what if I'm using a different device?

worth considering?

 

Ad spend well spent?

 Does anyone know what this means? I don't - and it appeared on my X page.

hard to switch when you're already there

This one of those 'intrusive' ads [the ones that block the website it is shown over] you must click on - somewhere - to close it. That is bad enough for me to feature hers, but it's not the reason ... 

... no, the reason is that I was surfing on Google Chrome. Ho hum 😏

oh dear, who could have seen that coming?

 

scary ... or stupid?

 

incredible/incredable

How credible is an organization that can't spell credibility?*

* This was part of a post/ad on X by Kwasi Kwarteng. 

better than @noreply I suppose

This is a strange one to me. Why not monitor replies to this email? if nothing else, if someone replies it tell you they've received and read the thing. And why bother setting up the third level domain for 'emails' and then not using it. 

marketoonist - always funny because they're true

 

e-commerce is not 'direct to consumer'

It's a bug bear of mine, but DtC is when a manufacturer/producer sell direct [ie no one else is involved] to the end user.

I read this in an article about a successful clothes designer ...

' ... her direct-to-consumer fashion brand, designs and produces female apparel and accessories. Referring to the company’s launch, she told me, “I had no idea how to make clothes.”

She does now, impressively, with multiple manufacturers, a thriving community, staff, and eager customers. She shared her story in our recent conversation.'

Note: 'with multiple manufacturers'. If you buy something from a manufacturer [even if you had the items made-to-order exclusively for you] and then sell it to the end user, by whatever means [eg online or physical shop], you are a retailer. Selling purely online does not make you direct to consumer - your website is the link between the manufacturer and the customer. If you want to be pedantic; you are the manufacturer's customer.

Note: I do not mean to decry the success of this business or its founder - my objection is to the term used in the article to describe the nature of her business. Indeed, her business started by her selling items that she had made [manufactured] on Instagram - that was DtC ... but as soon as she bought in stock she became a retailer.

So why do so many companies declare themselves DtC? Well, partly because it sounds sexier than ‘retail’, but mainly because DtC is considered to be a ‘tech’ business (don’t ask) by investors - so you’re more likely to get ridiculous amounts of funding from the 'tech bros' if you identify as DtC. The irony - amongst other things - is that DtC is nigh on impossible to scale up, so creating sufficient profit to pay off investors is pretty much zero.

how long?

I'm going to assume this is accurate [though I would like to see the research methodology], in which case I find the results somewhat alarming ... yep, that's nearly seven hours a day watching video 😱

Footnote: for some attempt at objectivity, I considered my own time watching videos online. Even at my maximum use [eg watching a film, researching something on YouTube, some news, 'funny' video links from X] I couldn't get close to seven hours for one day, let alone every day. Most days I weigh in at under an hour.
 

reviewing the review process ...

 As a rule, I do not give feedback or reviews. So when I got this email I was about to delete it when I thought 'what product s that?' So  I clicked on the link and got this:

Well, that was the end of the road for me. But - and here is the reason I've included it here - I think that would be the end of the road for most folk. 

The lesson? If you want reviews, make it easy for folk to give them - the more barriers, the less chance of success.

effective ad spend?

Platforms such as Spotify and YouTube offer subscription access which includes no ads. So - pretty much by definition - folks who access these sites 'for free' are either mean or they can't really afford the subscriptions. 

And yet the majority of ads I see on such platforms [I don't pay for subscriptions as I do not use them enough] are for luxury brands or expensive products that are way - and I mean way - beyond my budget. 

I raise this issue because I'd like to know how marketers buying these ads are identifying and/or selecting [or even if] their target markets when spending their ad budgets.

the way things were

This design style is what most websites looked like 1996 - 99ish. 

This one was live as of the date of this post. The content was last updated in 2024 [but not the design 😏]

marketoonist - always funny because they're true

 

up to date? errrrrr ...

 I took this screenshot from a website's homepage on the date of this post. Oh dear. Even worse is that other aspects of the site have been updated in 2026.

 

google picture search ...

 Close, but no cigar.

I haven't been an academic for five years.

The first picture isn't me. 

I'm no longer a Senior lecturer - and I never worked at Teesside University.

[Note that my up-to-date employment history is readily available on the web]

Other than these, not too bad. But AI has a reputation for making errors and/or guesses.

In this example the errors aren't a disaster. But what if it was a health or medical enquiry? Or flight details? Or car repair advice? Or an assignment or dissertation? Shall I go on? 

making easy things hard ...

 When I tried to open my gmail account this morning I got this: 

Now, let me make this clear: not only do I not wish to have AI-powered email, but I would be unlikely to ever communicate with someone who has an AI-powered email - so I started clicking to get my gmail home page. After going round in several circles I finally got this message ...

  

To me, that reads like it's my fault. It wasn't, it was Google's. I wonder what part AI might have played in this shambles? 

inbox inefficiency

 OK, this was in the 'from' and 'subject' line of an email. What do you think it is all about?

I doubt that any of you - or, indeed anyone - would realise it is a promotion from a hotel.

I stay there several times a year. When I first actually read one of their emails [how many did I simply delete as spam before then?] I did have a quick word with the manager the next time I was there. He dismissed it as 'that's the marketing department'.  I bit my tongue and just said 'they're costing you customers' as I left. 

I'd have given him 10 minutes for nowt over a cup of their excellent coffee. For a night's stay I'd have talked with the marketing department for a morning or afternoon. Or sold them a copy of my book. Or they could simply have typed something like "tips on effective email marketing" into a search engine.

The irony is that it is a very good hotel in a very good location with reasonable prices, ie that have three of the 4Ps right ... but without the right promotion, they are wasted.

ooooops ...

 From FT.com ...

an ai question

Q. If you use an LLM to - for example - transcribe a meeting, can that LLM [legally] use any information in that transcription in its 'training' ie make it available to anyone who might look for it?

A.  Most probably, yes.

Oh ... and the same goes for any information and/or data anyone puts into an 'open' LLM. And I don't just mean your personal stuff - anything about the organization that any employee might put in also goes into the ai's memory, and so is available to anyone. Including competitors.

NB Most large organizations I have come across have some kind of tech support that acts as administrator for the systems they run. If an individual wants to put any kind of software on their employer's PC/laptop it needs to be signed off by tech support ... and they're usually - correctly - very protective of their system.    

my, how things have changed

 

make your mind up ...

Premier Inn are happy for users to reject unnecessary cookies on their website, but there's no option on their app. I'm a regular customer of Premier Inn, but I'll not be using the app for future bookings.

 

not so secure security ... thanks to ai

 From @HedgieMarkets on X, February 2026 [always good stuff]

Thoughtful email message ...

 

From X ... and funny because it's [probably] true

 

money for nothing ...

Just 'helped out' a friend of a friend who was concerned about how much he was spending on network advertising without any signs of success. 

I'll not bore you with all the details, but when [prompted by me] he asked the company he was paying to manage his advertising for some kind of report on the websites his ads were being delivered they told him 'that's not possible'. Hmmmmmmm 🤔

Effectively, 'we're taking your money but we're not going to tell you how we're spending it'. 

ai 'poisoning' search results

 From @HedgieMarkets on X, February 2026 [always good stuff]

Not funny but true ...

Sorry, I don't know the origin of this ... 

How many? Or is that how few?

This research is from 2024 - but I suspect things haven't changed much ...  Research reveals YouTube’s most secret stats

ancient history repeating itself ?

ai can only look back ...

Just saying 😏

well durr ...

This isn't e-commerce only, but I thought it worth including here for all those marketers who might be involved in direct sales promotion. 

d'oh

 

nice ...

 But not really ... 

... because when I went to the site, the number of products where the discount code could be used were not only very limited ... but none were suitable for me.

you either click on 'accept all', or ...

 ... you have to click on all of these. Or, of course, you leave the site.

money well spent for the UK tax payers?

In every edition of the book I try to find an example of an over-priced website ... here's an example. A few weeks ago the UK government launched a new AI Skills website. Costing - apparently - £4.1m [that is; four point one million pounds] the site was created by PwC. 

Welllllll ... I reckon it would have taken me a couple of hours to find the sites that it links to, and another couple of hours to knock up the site. Apart from the obvious [though subjective] look of the site, that many of the linked-to sites were, errr, iffy - there is the objective issue of the site not meeting the UK government's own usability rules.

Furthermore, the site has no obvious backend [eg an e-commerce provision], being little more than a list of links [rather like my own site alancharlesworth.com].

I'm not going to go all political on this ... but who signed off on this procurement deal?

just what is ai?

Anything from Tom Goodwin is worth reading - even if you do not agree with his opinion. In response to the research shown in the image below, he asked; 'Could there be a more useless term than "using AI"?'. Did it mean:

• Autonomous Robots in factory?
• CoPilot is on 1 laptop?
• HR use for writing reviews?
• There's a drone in a cupboard somewhere?
• Dallas office tried it?

For more on Tom's view on AI [which is kind-of similar to mine] see his Nowism - Edition 35.

not-so-joined-up-thinking ...

Apparently Genspark spent around $16m on last night's Superbowl ads ... and this was their landing page at the time. Note it's their home page, but as it was the URL used on the ad, I'll count it as being the landing page to the advert.

NB the red circle and arrow were added by me 😏.

virtually useless

 I'm booked in for two nights at a Premier Inn next week. I have both booking confirmations but on my 'upcoming bookings' on the website only one is listed. So I've just rung the reception at the hotel. I've stayed there many times - the receptionists are very good. 

The problem is that I couldn't get past the 'virtual receptionist' which couldn't understand the problem ... or just put me through to a real person who, I have no doubt, will have answered it in seconds.

Ho hum.

is google going downhill?

 I've never seen a web page download on a tilt before. Can't have been deliberate ... could it?

OOOOOOf

 

irony ...

 From Google:

Is vibe coding good or bad?

AI Overview

Vibe coding (using AI for code via natural language prompts) is considered good for rapid prototyping, brainstorming, and getting quick results but bad for building complex, scalable, and secure production applications because it often lacks structure, deep understanding, and maintainability, creating technical debt and security risks without strong underlying code knowledge. 

i live in the north of england ...

 ... which isn't Scotland. An ad on my twitter feed ...

more data please ...

 For this chart I would like to see the methodology, in particular what the research considered 'shopping' to be. Bear in mind that online still only represents around 25% of all retail sales, so for around 13% of folk to shop everyday seems a bit high. Unless, that is, delivered take-a-way food is included - which, particularly in the US - would move the numbers up. The once a week/month numbers seem representative of the '25% of all retail sales stats'.

As always, never take any data at face value.

It's a retailer ...

 ... but it takes 14 clicks to get in. Would anything like that ever happen offline?

nothing new to see here ...

I'm assuming a couple of things here: 

1 The research is about when shoppers abandon purchases when they have put something in a basket/cart, and 

2 The 'extra costs' in the most popular reason are predominantly shipping costs. 

That said, these have been the main reasons, in much the same order,  since online shopping began around 30 years ago. Which reflects rather badly on e-commerce folk - in my opinion.

 

That's a lot of 'views' ...

 ... but very little engagement [which is probably from staff at the advertised company]. Why not get your calculator out and work out the percentages?

Oh dear ... might have done better with a crystal ball?

 

Just saying ...

From Private Eye #1667, January 2026: 

In 2023 TikTok was fine £12.7 million in the UK for illegally processing the data of 1.4 million children under 13 who were using its platform without parental consent. Later that year an Amnesty International report showed how TikTok‘s relentless pursuit of young users' attention “risks exacerbating mental health concerns such as depression, anxiety and self harm".

find your own way

I'm in Nottingham regularly, and I've been to this place couple of times, but I've not walked around it. So, I thought a map would be good, preferably with some identified walks with distance included. Sadly, no such thing on the website. Not even a map.😕

what you don't want to see on a web page ...

 

OK, maybe the page's contents are rather static - but really, over ten years? 

What is it telling visitors/readers? Could it be; 'don't trust anything you read here because it might have changed'?

truth or lie?

I just saw an ad on X which said: '

'We get your brand ranked #1 by ChatGPT and every leading AI'.

That would be a good trick seeing as there is no rank on GenAI. 

Naturally, I'm not going to publicise the organization by naming it here.

You know those likes you got on social media ...

 

https://x.com/i/status/2015091616663351313