I wrote last month about Yahoo!’s use of titillating and unnecessarily obfuscating story teasers. Looks like CNN has decided to get in on the action. Today’s home page had this story line:
Clicking this link confirms it. Rock icon and recovered drug addict Steven Tyler is indeed in rehab. But not due to a drug relapse. He’s recovering from foot surgery.
This is the news equivalent of that timeless “Shirt’s on fire! Now it’s not!” gag. Oh, CNN, you’re such a kidder!
I get that the business model for Yahoo! and their ilk is based—in part—on providing content to their users, serving ads along with that content, and charging advertisers for access to their users’ eyeballs. It’s no mystery, and I prefer it work this way than the alternative (the one where I pay directly).
Naturally, this model also means Yahoo! can make more money if their users visit more pages.
About a year ago I met a girl who worked for a site I won’t name and she discussed the site’s practice of revising news headlines on the fly in order to increase click-through rates. Maybe you’ve seen this yourself, when an article’s headline changes subtly to something potentially more compelling. No big deal, really.
That being said, this Pacman Jones teaser from yesterday’s Yahoo! main page is kinda ridiculous.
The “To which team?” link is such a blatant “click here” tactic. But this teaser is ridiculous mostly in that it so obviously helps them AT MY EXPENSE.
Sure, it’s a small expense. All they’ve asked me to do is click through and load the article, along with its ads. But the way they’ve handled it makes me feel like a piece of meat, present only to drive advertising revenue.
Why would a company purposely design interactions to make its customers feel this way?
The smaller teaser “Former NFL MVP released by team” is similarly annoying. Why not “Seahawks cut former MVP Alexander”? With both teasers, Yahoo! is intentionally withholding information—very basic information—that might allow users to make informed decisions about whether or not they want to click through to read the articles.
It probably doesn’t help that I’m growing increasingly fatigued with my Yahoo! mail account. The functionality of the latest version seems clunkier than ever. So perhaps I was already annoyed with them when this caught my eye.
Incidentally, I refused to click on the Pacman Jones teaser, assuming it was the Cowboys (it was) and knowing I’d get all the details from SportsCenter later anyway. And without feeling like somebody’s bitch.
The Muxtape home page has been updated to list a random selection of muxtapes (muxes?) that have been created to-date. Reload the page for a different set to choose from.
Google went black today. The search monolith known for altering its logo for holidays and such switched to black this morning in honor of Earth Hour.
According to Google: “We think the 'lights out' idea's individual-centered nature is something that millions of people worldwide can participate in. In short, we really like it. So we did something about it.”
Interesting to think how this seems “so Google,” and how if it were Ford or Chevron or Verizon or McDonald’s it would come off as disingenuous.
Join the fun by turning off all lights for an hour tonight, beginning at 8pm.
Let’s say you need to create a website for your agency. This site must have some basic information about the agency, of course. It also needs to be able to show your work—print, TV and web. And don’t forget about all those mentions in the press.
In addition, you want the experience to say something about who you are. To show, not tell, that you’re part of the move toward more transparency in business. No secrets. Open kimono.
At some point you might realize that all the stuff you need to have on your website already exists elsewhere on the web. That being the case, if you’re Modernista your new site simply accesses this pre-existing stuff in a simple, elegant way.
I’m pretty blown away by the coolness of this “site.” The interface is great and totally minimal.
Go to the work section and select TV and you’re redirected to YouTube. Select Print and suddenly you’re on Flickr. Web, del.icio.us.
As the Denver Egotist said, it must be visited to be fully appreciated.
Two cool videos making the rounds lately with an interesting thing in common.
The first is an awesome music video for Shitdisco’s song “OK.”
The second is a short film from Job & Roel Wouters out of Amsterdam called “abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz” (which I either don’t get or think is just OK).
The technology to create either video was available decades ago. Further, the performances themselves would have been possible centuries ago. And yet the Internet is the only reason we’re seeing them and may be the only reason we care.
There’s obviously some cool stuff in the world that, because of the limitations of technology, media or audience haven’t been distributed in the past. There simply was no feasible distribution model. Web 2.0 (and the Long Tail) changes that, obviously, but it seems like it’s taking us a while to realize it and take advantage of it.
As we’re exposed more and more to high-resolution imagery, 3D modeling and virtual worlds, these things become more familiar, more expected, but also more boring. At the same time, handcrafted objects seem to be becoming more and more eye-catching.
But I would argue they only hold this power while on the Internet. I’m no more interested in crafts today than I was two years ago. No more likely to stop at the farmer’s market to browse handmade items. But there’s often something magical about the collision of craft-y stuff and the Internet.
This reminded me of something my friend Brandon Geary said in his presentation at last year's Avenue A | Razorfish Client Summit, concerning his observations of flipbook activity on Conde Nast’s flip.com: “The flipbooks that seem to be getting the most views are the ones that look the most analog. Sketches, simple designs, simple photos...”
Perhaps this gets back to authenticity. By which I mean original-ness. One-of-a-kind-ness. With the increased power of digital animation, and the increased ability to create things that look amazing with less effort, comes an understanding that there’s less special-ness to these things.
When I find cool things on the web that I want to share, I often stop to consider if it’s better to give some explanation as to what it is and why I like it, or just to post the link and let you, my faithful readers, explore and discover it yourselves as I did.
This site is kinda blowing my mind because it’s awesome and ludicrous and real all at the same time.
Cool campaign (from TDA in Boulder) for Bot Beverages, which makes flavored water for kids. The work features the adventures and mishaps of three characters (corresponding to Bot’s three flavors).
The TV is simple yet mesmerizing to watch, in part because the characters speak a playful gibberish language, not unlike that of the Teletubbies. The print is similarly simple and fun. All finish with the tagline “Bot is good.”
The best part might be the website, which allows for plenty of simple but surprisingly fun interaction. You can drag and drop the characters, click on the clouds to make it rain (and bring out a rainbow), and send a character airborne by lifting and dropping his corresponding bottle. On deeper pages, the characters appear on a header bar where you can drag them and even send them sliding across the “ground” as if they were on ice.
The web copy is surprisingly direct and simple as well, even though it’s obviously written for the parent.
I’d love to know how this campaign is working for them. Some of the comments I’ve seen online complain that there’s not enough information to know what it is and who its for. I guess I feel that when the creative is this interesting and engaging, the better part of the job is done.
More and more, advertising doesn’t need to provide all the answers. With the ubiquity of the web, advertising can be effective even if it just motivates someone to search, to learn and (most rewardingly) to discover.
At some point you might realize that all the stuff you need to have on your website already exists elsewhere on the web. That being the case, if you’re Modernista your new site simply accesses this pre-existing stuff in a simple, elegant way.
This reminded me of something my friend Brandon Geary said in his presentation at last year's Avenue A | Razorfish Client Summit, concerning his observations of flipbook activity on Conde Nast’s flip.com: “The flipbooks that seem to be getting the most views are the ones that look the most analog. Sketches, simple designs, simple photos...”
