Sunday thoughts
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on January 6th, 2008
Tagged as: Copywriting, Language Is Free
I’ve been giving DreamHost a really hard time of late and apparently they have not been acting without cause. For whatever reason, best left to techies, I’ve been abusing their procwatch program whatever that is - they even explained the way of the world with an emphatic “procwatch kills NG lingolook killed 30846″.
Good Lord. Lingolook was killed?
Tech support says it’s a combination of poor code (probable) and high traffic (improbable) which leaves me with the understanding that I have a duff site that no-one visits. I like to think positively so I’ve replaced that possibility with another opinion and it has something to do with my 2008 online resurgence. I have been murmuring about my projects for long enough and the hard-working Sarah from Blogging Expertise is finally coming up with the goods and her uploading and tweaking has put the cheap but oh-so-very-cheerful DreamHost contract I had under too much strain. So, despite all her hard work, it’s all her fault 
Still at least it brought me to my senses. I’ve upgraded my account to a Virtual Private Server which sounds like the IT equivalent of the Champagne Room and I’m sure will work out just as expensive but at least it should keep things running. If I disappear you now know why.
Don’t know about you but I’m really looking forward to 2008.
For starters I get to see whether my attempt at putting emotion into the Acer brand gets a warm or frosty welcome. Their annual kick-off is due at the end of January and this year it’s going to be totally different as it’s no longer a “one-nation-one-station” event but something more along the lines of “welcome Acer, Gateway and Packard Bell to your new home (Acer Group), allow us to present ourselves and show you that we’re a hip, smart, forward thinking bunch who know what we’re about, where we’re going and how we’re going to get there”.
Acer 2.0? Well that’s the plan…
Of course there’s a lot riding on this. I might be a master wordsmith but if the company doesn’t believe its own hype then the battle’s half lost. My guess is the company believes in itself but doesn’t yet fully understand its own hype and by that I mean the ability to measure the value of what it does beyond profit margins and market share, so anything designed to get it away from its “spreadset” (the habit of looking at the world through a spreadsheet) has got to be good for morale. Good for customers, good for products and, yes, good for Excel.
What else? Well I’ve set my sights on Canon’s latest HD gem, the HV20. In a few weeks I’m going to start filming multiple episodes of my free English language course site and see where it goes.
Allow me to explain a little about my past: like most English-speaking people who end up in Italy, my first job was teaching English. In fact I’ve been involved with my own language ever since just in different measures. Just check out my über glamorous career path:
Teacher –> translator –> creative translator –> copywriter.
That third category is an important moment in the life of any translator. Its like professional puberty and it comes when the translator’s balls suddenly get big enough for him or her to say: “Hey! This sounds crap in English (or whatever the destination language is). Why don’t you re-write the whole thing like this?” More than experience, this moment requires quite a lot of courage and really does separate the men from the boys or whatever the female equivalent to that is. From there on in, you’re good enough to write your own stuff.
Anyway, despite a stellar career as the world’s most invisible copywriter there is nothing like teaching. I think it has something to do with live feedback or something. Whatever. I really miss it so I’ve decided it’s time to get back into it, although in a version more in line with my way of seeing the world and that’s through a blog. I know how it should end up, but not how it should start so I’m just going to start recording and see where it goes.
Things to look out for in 2008?
I think Dell are going to take online conversations to new heights so expect to see Richard on Oprah in 3Q. I think 2008 will see Acer updating its frankly appalling website in tune with the newest kids on its family block. I also think this is the year flash memory notebooks finally go mainstream which means no or very few mechanical parts which means long, long battery life. Expect to see the word “longevity” come back into favour. How about calling it the UHT laptop (Ultra High Transportability)? Well it worked for milk…
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If what goes around comes around, when it comes back, whose is it?
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on May 10th, 2007
Tagged as: Asides, Copywriting
As you can probably tell from my silence, May has so far proven to have been one hell of a month.
I’m not sure what’s more worrying, the fact that I’m still in one piece, or that May’s no where near over yet.
It’s had some interesting twists, a few hiccups and more than the odd surprise, but the result was/is breathtaking. It all started back in mid- April, when we were handed the Gemstone concept to work on. It was quite big move for Acer but, and I stand by this, a very astute one.
In essence, Acer has decided to take its “solutions provider” reputation to the next level by bringing in a subsidiary of BMW AG called BMW DesignworksUSA to review the industrial design of its notebooks. Have a look at the Wikipedia definition and you’ll see why this was a good thing.
With Santarosa not due until the 10th (today) and the products expected at the end of May we had some margin, but not much. Then, HQ brought the launch forward to the 3rd and all hell broke loose.
In little more than 2 weeks I produced an Acer signature design blueprint that would be used to anchor the concepts, wrote “design” brochures for both product lines, got the websites prepared, wrote a 15-page Acer News special design edition, a 30 minute presentation speech for senior management covering all design, product and commercial aspects and support material, press releases, invites, and a host of marketing collateral while the graphics department went to work on the show itself.
If that wasn’t enough, the day after the presentation we set to work on the Santarosa material. This time all that was needed were two generic product brochure body texts and two headlines that were to be used as a basis for the mini-site. Oh, and two press releases. Those were all published today.
Santarosa’s here, so now we’re working on the products themselves. This is endless.
The best part about working with this client is trying to satisfy the demanding needs of the OEMs. Intel, Microsoft, AMD and Ferrari are all very wary about what you can and can’t say about products they’re associated with, and learning how they think is key to getting things approved and published so fast.
Today I got a real kick. When Merom came out, I suggested we link the “Dual” core concept to a message of “more than twice the fun”. Wow! Everyone liked it. Except Intel who rejected it on the grounds that “dual” did not mean “double”.
I insisted (I got the mails to prove it). I lost. Oh well. Tomorrow’s another day.
Then on Monday I opened the Intel Santarosa messaging guidelines for consumer products and what was the first message that leaped out at me? “More than twice the fun”.
Funny that eh?
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Inspired by a Blue Monster
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on April 23rd, 2007
Tagged as: Asides, Copywriting, Gab Gab Gab
I love it when this happens.
Lately I’ve been starting early and finishing waaay too late to be having any fun. My brain is so focused I’ve actually lost my peripheral sense of humour and have noticed I have iTunes playing less often. Productivity? Exhaustion? I don’t know as I don’t have any grey matter left over to give it any thought.
Anyway, like I said I work late. Tonight’s no exception and I’m having a hard time being creative. I’ve been writing almost non-stop for two weeks flat and my inspirations are drying up faster than I can type.
At times like these I usually start doing something I’d more or less given up. This time around I got back on my bike. Ahh, my beautiful Look 486. 8kgs of pure rocket science. 50km a day is enough to clear the mind (and lower the scales).
But not right now. Right now it’s dark and going out on the bike wouldn’t resolve anything as I need to be creative. Which leads me nicely to where this story is going. Click here, click there and I found myself being drip-fed some Hugh MacLeod.
Better yet I found myself watching a video about Hugh’s finest work, The Blue Monster.
Microsoft has a story to tell. My clients have a story to tell. I have a story to tell. This is well worth a watch if you don’t think you do.
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The luck of the Irish
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on April 9th, 2007
Tagged as: Copywriting, Gab Gab Gab, Projects
I have been asked to manage a series of property translations for a major real estate investment company that is going to take a while to set up.
That’s right: set up. I’m no fool. Trados can literally save days on translation projects like this and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone with repeat commissions to trawl through.
As I *officially* no longer do translations, there is the small matter of having to re-install it and set up the fiddly translation dictionaries but it should only take a few hours to get up to speed. Licence permitting…
Note to self: if all else fails I must get my trusty translators in on this as there’s plenty to go around and absolutely no time to waste.
And things could very well fail as there’s a major product launch (or two) coming for another client who should brief me on timing, content and products (minimum 4 brochures) on Tuesday. I fully expect they will have to be completed by no later than Friday.
This is after I’ve finished writing the master copy and headline for their latest 42†Full HD wonder.
And there was me thinking I’d have time to scout out some new clients.
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No going back now
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on March 23rd, 2007
Tagged as: Asides, Copywriting, Gab Gab Gab, Internet Marketing, Problems, Search Engine Marketing
It’s a fascinating moment for me.
On the one hand I’ve got a great job. Copywriting - and in particular freelance copywriting - has given me both the insight and education that lets me put my thoughts and feelings into words as well as the time, freedom and inclination to explore the outer reaches of web life.
At ‘work’ I have been busy drafting the story behind a few upcoming product launches with various success. I have been studying various ways of approaching the thorny subject of internal communication and recruitment. On top of all this, I have also been looking into creating the master content of a series of web strategies so that the text is both easy to translate and effective across 7 key European markets.
Not a dull moment then.
But just like anyone with time management problems, I have also been distracted by what has in the past been called “blind ambition” but now goes by the name of a “challenge”.
You see ever since I stumbled across the letters, S, E and O, I have been drawn to their power - the fact that words, chosen carefully, could actually change the geography and relevancy of search engine results.
Then there was what you could actually do once you had uncovered this secret. White Hat is my natural colour of choice, of course, but nevertheless these three letters have unquestionably permitted some fortunate few to exploit a system to the detriment of the many.
These letters also have a more sinister side: they alienate you from the “real” world around you. I recently brought to my multi-billion dollar client’s attention that there was precious little activity on their site from any of the search engines. I even went as far as to recommend reformulating their web strategies not only to generate new traffic streams from natural search engine results but also to build enough reputation throughout the entire site to change the formula used by my client when linking to its resellers.
I got a big bunch of nods, a number of smiles and quite a few “wow we had no idea”s but never heard from them again about it. Meanwhile my client continues to pour truckloads of money into individual projects which, because they are disjointed from the overall core principles and are void of any shared values, detract from the performance of the site as a whole.
Ugh!
Either SEO (and SEM for that matter) is still in its infancy outside the US or I’m starting to be earn a reputation as a lunatic.
Best thing is to start my own business and boy do I have a few ideas knocking around. Thing is even then when I talk to friends and neighbours about them, even some who have offered to invest, the “big picture”always remains a few feet out of reach, as if what I see happening across the world in blogs, media companies and other online industries is merely a figment of my imagination, or just part of a game I’m playing all by myself.
‘Slow world’ meets the ‘fast world’, as an Italian web specialist once said, is when those living in a world fed by mainstream media have to deal with the lightning fast reactions of those of us who have chosen a more democratic, if slightly more volatile, path online. It’s never a pretty site and we (fasties) always come out worse off.
The question of whether to continue or go back is a rhetorical one. However the answer opens up a whole new debate: Then what?
I have ordered the near future into challenges I have to face:
- I want and need to master the art of RSS as I believe RSS technology is what’s needed to create the world’s most advanced e-learning platform.
- I believe that niche communities and experience aggregators are the key to entrepreneurial success in a Web 2.0 world. Jeremy’s “No Money in Web Advertising” articles have been instrumental in this decision.
- I believe strongly in a healthy relationship between paid content and free services. E-learning, for example, is an ideal platform to experiment with both.
Each of the above is a open project I’d like to see up and running by the end of the year and if there are any talented writers, teachers or programmers reading this, I could probably bring that forward quite some way.
Want to know why I got buzzed today. Because I read this, then watched it here.
Oh and Jeremy, if you’re reading, I’ll be in touch soon - or you will…
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Can Adsense really work?
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on March 19th, 2007
Tagged as: Asides, Copywriting, Gab Gab Gab, Internet Marketing, Long Tail, Search Engine Marketing
The thing about Internet Marketing, and by that I mean businesses set up to take advantage of the Internet’s vast, cash-spending audience is that the only ones that actually seem to make any serious money out of it are the ones selling the dream to others.
Like a 21st Century Ponzi scheme on a mass scale, Internet Marketing fuels the promise of easy money by creating 2nd and even 3rd tier affiliate programs, each getting a “cut†out of the diminishing sales that pass their way.
The problem is that if you work at it (and leave your morals at home) you can actually make affiliate marketing turn a handsome profit. Want to know why those “free†pornography picture sites pop up whenever your 9-year old daughter uses Google for her geography project? Affiliate marketing.
It might not be ethical, but I know a man who knows a man that spends all day putting TGP codes into his various sites, generating an effortless $10,000 a month for himself in the process. No brainer that one.
Apart from subscriptions (we’ll get to that) there are times when I can’t help thinking that info products are the only thing outside the adult industry that actually “workâ€.
Take this article from the New York Times. It’s a fascinating piece about the earnings potential of Adsense sites that really puts things into perspective.
The article asks the question:
Let’s say you wanted to build an advertising-supported online media business that took in $50 million a year in revenue. How many users would you have to attract to get there?
To make $50 million with a big staff-produced content-rich guitar site, sponsored by, say, Fender and Gibson, a site would have to generate more than 200 million page views a month, Mr. Liew estimated.
A site aimed at a specific demographic, like teenagers or Asian-Americans, would need to generate 800 million page views a month, by Mr. Liew’s reckoning.
And for a general-interest site, the ad rates go even lower, so traffic would need to be much higher to generate $50 million — about four billion page views a month, which would put it in the top 10 of all the sites on the Web.
I just had a quick look at B5Media’s (falling) Alexa ratings. Remember this is a project based on advertising revenue with, according to its home page: more than 170 blogs, 14 vertical channels and 2.5 million unique visitors a month.
UPDATE: Jeremy Wright from B5Media correctly pointed out that this graph only describes the visitors to theB5Media homepage and doesn’t reflect page views across all their blogs which are of course hosted on separate domains. Mea culpa.
Even with 2.5 million unique visitors per month, how the hell is B5Media making any money? Even if these “unique†visitors subscribe to more than one of B5Media’s blogs, we’re still a long way off that 200 million per month target. I must be missing something somewhere…
So where does that put me and my opinion? Nowhere new really. I have always been a little suspect of single income channels for online businesses as the numbers just don’t add up. But Jeremy Liew’s results certainly illustrate the daunting battle to remain financially viable faced by content-dependent Long Tail businesses.
I personally think that Adsense only works if combined with other sources of income, for example combining advertisements and affiliate programs within a paid subscription product. Sounds far fetched and you’d have to tone it down to avoid being slapped constantly by Google, but there are plenty of successful marketers doing this already. That way there is subscription revenue from one product and advertising and affiliate revenue from another that is seamlessly integrated into the first. What’s more, as the reader base actually wants to be there, integrating the two might also increase advertising CTR.
Just a thought, or at least it was as it’s the model I am developing for Web-Teach, but I’ll write more on this as I go along.
UPDATE 2: Jeremy also mentions that B5Media is planning to abandon Adsense as it isn’t a business model and I can’t say I blame them. Even with an average RPM like theirs you’re always going to need to be stretching it a bit too far to make any sense (sic) out of Adsense.
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