information age – Page 5 – don't confuse the narrator

the value of good writing

There’s a story up on the BBC website at the moment that quotes Charles Duncombe, “an online entrepreneur”, as saying that a single spelling mistake on a website can cut online sales in half. (For Spanish readers of the blog, there’s a Spanish version of the article available on “BBC Mundo”.)

Duncombe is apparently “shocked” at the poor quality of written English of staff recruited by his companies.

Spelling is important to the credibility of a website, he says. When there are underlying concerns about fraud and safety, then getting the basics right is essential.

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mod comms

I guess most readers know I’m based in Spain and although I try and keep this blog politically neutral, I suspect some might be wondering why I haven’t commented on the “No les votes” protests, which have been going on since last Sunday.

Or perhaps not.

I’ve had a look at the Guardian website and the news page for Spain seems to be stuck several days ago and make no mention whatsoever of the protests.

I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. But it’s got me wondering again about the world of modern communications.
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“an even better blog”

Checking my blog comments, I found this in the spam file:

It clearly is spam, but I wondered how many people had received something similar and let it be published.

So I googled the phrase “I couldn’t have asked for an even better blog” and wasn’t really surprised when the search returned over a million hits.
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debt and ruin

WordPress blogs use Akismet to deal with spam, and it seems to work quite well. Even so, I usually check all the comments, just to see that nothing has been caught up in the filter by mistake.

I am wary of any ‘hobby photographer’ who wants me to check out their ‘amateur artwork’ with a view to using it on DCTN, but I do love the badly written false praise:

It is rather interesting for me to read that blog. Thanks for it. I like such topics and anything that is connected to them. I would like to read a bit more soon.

Clearly spamming isn’t a lucrative enough activity to warrant paying decent copy writers.

The latest comment on the fine feathers three post amuses me as it’s from a debt consolidation company: “Eliminate debt working at home.”

I don’t think what ‘Melia – the Ruined Maid – was doing counted as ‘working from home’, but she certainly seemed to have found a way to escape the poverty trap.