Fritinancy

How Wowowow.com Got Its Name

What it is: a new website for women over 40. Content includes articles about health, fashion, love, marriage, and politics, as well as "intimate" celebrity interviews. And, naturally, a horoscope.

Who's behind it: five "media live-wire" femmes d'un certain age, according to an article in the Thursday Styles section of the New York Times--former book publisher Joni Evans, veteran gossip columnist Liz Smith, advertising executive Mary Wells, political columnist Peggy Noonan, and TV news reporter Lesley Stahl.

Media live-wires they may be, but cyber-savvy they are wo-wo-woefully not, according to reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom:

Web culture, from the technicalities of uploading content to the verbal nakedness that is blogging, was unfamiliar. Even acquiring a domain name was, as Ms. Smith put it at a gathering of some of the founders the other day, an uphill battle.

“I wanted to call the site AllTheGoodNamesAreTaken.com,” she said. (Actually, she wanted to call it Hot Voodoo, after the Marlene Dietrich song, but the other women shot it down.)

Ms. Stahl suggested adopting a name that incorporated the word “broad,” like broad-minded, but there were objections to that too.

“I went through a period where I really thought ‘After all we have done in our lives and accomplished — to call ourselves broads?’ ” said Ms. Wells, the founder of the advertising and marketing agency Wells Rich Greene.

Somewhere Ms. Evans has a long list of thumbs-down domain names (i.e., HerTube.com). “I remember how innocent we were,” she said. The name they settled on is a play on “Women on the Web.”

“We actually bought out a porn site to get this name,” Ms. Evans said. (Technically, they didn’t buy a porn business, just womenontheweb.com.) Now, “when anyone looks for that porn site, they’re directed to us,” said Ms. Evans, who became chief executive of the site after retiring last year as a senior vice president at the William Morris Agency’s literary department.

One is all for sisters doing it, you know, for themselves, but still. One despairs. One inquires:

1. Did it not occur to these ladies even once to seek the levelheaded counsel of someone with professional naming and domain-acquisition experience? Someone who could, say, mediate the discussion and provide a much-needed reality check?
2. Did anyone consider that the name might be confusing to read and say? (I thought it was pronounced woe-woe-wow until I saw the logo, which looks like Wow O Wow.)
3. Did anyone perform the simple experiment of saying the name aloud? (Consider the poor receptionist, saying "wowowow" 150 times a day.)
4. Did anyone ask, "How does 'Wowowow' advance our brand story? How does it express maturity, media savvy, a different voice? How on earth does it say 'Women on the Web'?"
5. Did anyone raise her hand and say, "Wowowow: this just sounds silly"?
6. About that porn-site redirect: did anyone ask herself and her colleagues, "Could this be a liability?"

And one more thing: a horoscope? Oh. Woe.

The site launches Saturday.

Good News

The New York Times, finally cottoning to the notion that information wants to be free*, has abandoned its pricey TimesSelect program and made all current web content free--including columns by Tom Friedman, David Brooks, and Maureen Dowd--as well as all archived material back to 1987. The change took effect this morning.

If you start noticing more advertising on the site, it's no coincidence.

Now Rupert Murdoch, new owner of the Wall Street Journal, says he's "leaning toward" making WSJ.com free as well. Full online access currently costs $79 a year. Like his counterparts at the Times, Murdoch would expect to make up the difference, and then some, in ad revenue.

* From remarks by Stewart Brand at the first Hackers' Conference in 1984. Brand's full quote: ""On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." Link.

Unmentionable

Laddie mag Maxim was just auctioned off at a fire-sale price to a private equity group, but its spirit lives on in a new Canadian underwear brand:

Dik.

It's for men. Get it?

The corporate web site shamelessly calls Dik an "ingenious name," and adds that the product represents "the ultimate in sophistication."

As evidenced, naturally enough, by the name. I mean, they could have called it something stupid, like Nuts or Shaft or Ballboy.

The company evidently spent its entire marketing budget on moody black-and-white beefcake photography, leaving approximately 20 cents (Canadian) to split between name development and copywriting. A few examples of the latter:

• dik undergarments is taking an established product and turning it on it’s [sic] head.
• with clever advertising and a playful demeanor, dik perfectly blends ultra-modern with the new sexy. [As opposed to the old sexy, which was boring and serious.]
• make no mistake, dik Undergarments is a high-end men’s underwear line. [Thanks for setting us straight!]

And the slam-dunk tagline:

• go ahead, show a little dik!

Um ... wouldn't that be called a product-design failure?

Not that they expect anyone to read any of this: all the copy is set in lower-case reverse type (white on black).

And talk about upscale--get a load of that sophisticated, discerning Web 2.0 logo.

Via Short Takes.

Best FAQ Ever?

John Fluevog is a Canadian designer of shoes for men and women, but really, he's so much more: “I’m an armchair philosopher, and artist and a style monger, my shoes and messages are quite simply a part of me.” (He's also a comma splicer, but we'll forgive him this once.) Those messages appear on the rubber soles of his fanciful yet comfortable footwear: "To love or hate, the choice is yours," "Your sole will direct your future," "Be perfect." (Click on the hubcap to read more.)

But I really want to write about "About." Fluevog's "About" page reveals a fearless creativity the likes of which is in sadly short supply on corporate websites. Yes, the Frequently Asked Questions include the predictable "Where can I find a Fluevog store near me?" and "Can your shoes be resoled?" but they also feature the following:

• What is the capital of Uruguay?
• Are John Fluevog Angels really Satan resistant?
• Do you have special Fluevog elves that do shoe repairs?
• Who played vibes with Benny Goodman's band between 1936 and 1940?

You want to know, don't you? So read the answers.

Pictured: The Lady Ophelia, "a sensible yet edgy slip on pump with the classic 3" Signature Rococo heel and oblique toe shape." (US$269)

What I've Been Up To

I've been working on a long-overdue update of my web site. In the meantime, for those of you who care, here are some of the projects I've recently completed:

• All new content for the Children's Fairyland web site. Fairyland is that rare thing: a relevant anachronism. It opened in 1950 on the shores of Oakland's Lake Merritt as a storybook theme park for young children, and for 57 years has successfully resisted the lure of thrill rides, arcade games, and corporate sponsorship. (Walt Disney visited the park the year it opened and copied many of its features when he created Disneyland.) At Fairyland, admission is only $6 and everything is kid-scale and kid-friendly. It has no roller coasters, but it does have a little library hut and the oldest continuously operating puppet theater in the United States. It has a children's theater program, a pair of rabbits, a llama, and an elderly pony. And it has lots of stuff that adults find corny and little kids absolutely adore--like Magic Keys that operate talking Storybook Boxes and a big elf statue that blows bubbles. Little kids love those bubbles. Fairyland is a wonderful place to visit, but its web site wasn't. It was awkwardly written and confusing to navigate, and it didn't convey the spirit of the place. So I set about creating a new voice, stories, and site architecture. I interviewed more than a dozen people involved with Fairyland, from 79-year-old puppetmaster Lewis Mahlmann, who's worked with the park for 40 years, to 9-year-old Anthony Sung, who played a flying monkey in Fairyland's 2005 production of "The Wizard of Oz." And I spent lots and lots of time with C.J. Hirschfield, Fairyland's dedicated and inspirational executive director. Then I persuaded my friend Susan Bercu, a gifted designer and illustrator, to create templates for the site design. Susan used to teach preschool; she really got the spirit of Fairyland. But I'm biased. See for yourself.
• A new name for a Silicon Valley restart-up (formerly Connex Technology): BrightScale. The company makes the chip arrays that make high-definition TV look good across a range of international standards. The new name plays on the optical term gray scale, a black-to-white spectrum. This was my third naming project with CEO Dave Corbin--he gets around--and as usual, he was a dream client: clear, attentive, and decisive. The BrightScale.com URL was taken but not developed; I helped negotiate a smooth domain transfer. My deep gratitude to genius graphic designer Mark Landkamer, who brought the identity and web site to life.
• Name development for TRIA, the first clinically proven laser hair-removal device for home use. Trademarked as both a medical device and a beauty product, the name had to suggest skin beauty, femininity, strength, freedom, modernity, elegance, and light. The coined word TRIA (pronunced TREE-ah) combines a crisp, efficient-sounding consonant blend with an open, feminine suffix; the word suggests "trim" and "ray" and also hints at the three-point contact area of the device. I also consulted on the tagline, "The Enlightened Solution," and on the URL, TriaBeauty.com.
• Web content for Central Station, a multifaceted new real estate development on the site of a historic West Oakland railroad terminal. My client was Holliday Development, which has worked for years with community and government groups to move the development forward. I wrote all content, including descriptions of projects being developed by companies other than Holliday. Very nice site design by LStudio.
• Name development for New Routes to Community Health, a nonprofit venture that creates multimedia programs to encourage new U.S. immigrants to improve their health status. Among other constraints, the new name couldn't use the words "immigrant," "assimilation," or "new American." I worked with a client team spread across three time zones and presented the names via conference call. The chosen name connects strongly to the team's previous successful project, Sound Partners for Community Health, while also suggesting the immigrant journey and--through homophonic association--the "new roots" immigrants are putting down in their adopted homeland.

More news after it happens.

Writing Matters: Part 1

I'm working on a large, complex web project that--as seems to be the rule--is driven by "the visual experience." Before I joined the project, a huge amount of work had already been generated: spreadsheets, wireframes, design comps. Very little had been said or written about the writing, which nevertheless is a large piece of the puzzle. (Almost the entire existing website must be rewritten.) Instead, I hear repeatedly that "we don't want a lot of words," "we'll design it first and just flow the copy in later," and "we want more charts and graphs, less writing!" I also hear the imagery and design called "the creative"--creative here is a standalone noun--while the writing is called "the text."

The audience for the site? Without violating any confidences, I'll simply say it's highly educated and hungry for information.

This, as the King of Siam said, is a puzzlement.

Now, I tend to harbor the predictable biases on this subject, so I was delighted to stumble upon a well-reasoned defense of web writing written by a self-described "pixel person," San Francisco-based designer Derek Powazek, on the extremely worthwhile blog A List Apart ("for people who make websites"). To my surprise and delight, Derek recommends that designers learn to write. "When it comes to experience on the web," he says, "there’s no better way to create it than to write, and write well." Well, golly!

Derek continues:

Let’s look at everybody’s favorite example of Doing it Right: Flickr. Ask a bunch of people what they think of their experience at Flickr and they’ll use words like “fun” and “friendly” to describe it.

Why? There’s nothing uniquely fun about black text on a white background. There’s nothing friendly about uploading and tagging, no matter how many whiz-bang AJAX tricks you use. Sure, the photographic content lends itself to a personal experience. But nobody ever talked about how much fun Ofoto was. And the community-oriented social networking features lend themselves to an emotional experience, but I think there’s something more going on here.

I say: It’s the writing. The friendliness comes from good old fashioned text. When you visit the site, it welcomes you with a random language. Hola! Salut! Shalom! When you log in, the button says “Get in there” instead of “Submit.” When you upload a photo, join a group, add a contact…all of the associated text is open, encouraging, happy, and excited. And it has a significant impact on the overall user experience.

"Happy, excited" writing can't entirely overcome poor site architecture and ugly design. But a website doesn't stand a chance of reaching its goals without strong writing. Unfortunately, people who create websites often forget that while websites are indeed experiential, corporate websites are rarely if ever "visual experiences," nor should they be. As Derek Powazek makes clear, they are informational experiences, and the lingua franca of information is still, well, lingua: language.

People who design corporate websites often forget that people who use websites are readers. They must read. Many of them even like to read. So let's give them something to reassure them of our intelligence (and our respect for theirs). Let's give them something that expresses our appreciation for their business. Let's give them great writing.

More on the importance of writing tomorrow.

 

Search Me

Jakob Nielsen, who has been called the king, guru, pope, and czar of web usability, as well as "the smartest person on the web," has an excellent article on "findability"--writing for search engine optimization (SEO)--in his August 28 Alertbox column. His pithy summary:

Familiar words spring to mind when users create their search queries. If your writing favors made-up terms over legacy words, users won't find your site.

Nielsen uses one of my favorite quotations to make his point, Winston Churchill's "Short words are best, and the old words when short are best of all." Even better than short words, says Nielsen, are precise and familiar words--the words real people are likely to use when they search.

More Nielsen tips:

• Supplement made-up words with known words--words your customers use in everyday business practice.
• Play down marketese and internal vocabulary. "Call a spade a spade, not a digging implement. Certainly not an excavation solution."
• Supplement brand names with generic terms. Don't abandon the 95% of prospects who are searching for the problem and don't yet know the name of your solution.
• Avoid politically correct terminology--say "blind" or "limited vision" instead of "visually challenged."

Here's my own two cents:

• Don't compromise the integrity of your web content by including intentionally misspelled terms because you expect some users will misspell their search terms. It's simply not worth the damage to your credibility and professional image.
• Writing clear, simple, "findable" prose is a lot tougher than concocting flowery piffle or jargon soup. To cite another great writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Easy reading is damn hard writing." Do your SEO homework, and then hire an experienced web writer who knows how to seed text with search terms so the result seems natural and graceful.

Getting It Wrong about Web Writing

I recently turned down a project because the client--an otherwise smart, experienced businessperson with a terrific idea for a start-up--just didn't get it about writing for the web.

The client had in mind a web site of at least 100 information-rich pages--probably 30,000 to 50,000 words--with lots of internal links and a clear structure that would allow average Joes and Janes to make sense of important content. The client had a decent business plan and exhibited a good understanding of the roles of publicity, search-engine optimization, and design.

I've written content for similarly complex, text-heavy sites, and I know how much work they involve. I based my estimate on that experience and on the special requirements of the new site. It was a very reasonable estimate. Trust me.

The client's response? "But...but...I'm just a start-up! I can't afford to pay this!" And then the client did something that would have astonished me if I weren't beyond astonishment in such matters: the client advertised on Craigslist for a writer or writers to write the content for free. "I know it'll be bad," the client told me, ever so matter-of-factly. "But then maybe I can pay you by the hour to fix it up."

Maybe? I don't think so.

What's sad about my little story is how unexceptional it is. Writing--a k a "content"--is all too often the poor stepchild of web site development, an ill-conceived, underbudgeted line item that inevitably demands three or four times as much time and labor as the client originally imagined.

You don't have to take my word for it. According to this survey by British-based Next Communications, only 10 percent of website projects give top priority to writing, while 75 percent put design in first place. Yet "when asked what caused website launches to be delayed, 55% cited ‘content not ready’ or ‘content not suited to web pages’ as key reasons." (I've added the boldface for emphasis.)

In summing up, Next Communications director Barry Monk made what I'd usually flag as a language-usage error: "It’s easy to underestimate the enormity of the content task for a new website and assume it can simply be ported over from an old site." If Monk meant "huge size and scope," he should have said "enormousness." But perhaps he really did mean "the quality of passing all moral bounds; excessive wickedness or outrageousness"--the definition of "enormity."

Hat tip to Matthew Stibbe at Bad Language, who cites the study and adds his own "web manifesto," which includes:

• Put writing first. "Plan, budget, and resource writing for the site as if it were the most important thing, not a bolt-on, go-faster, last minute extra."
• Writing is a specialized skill. "You don't get a plumber to do your wiring so why get a design firm or a marcomms agency to write?"
• Bad writing is expensive. "If your customers can't find what they are looking for, can't understand it when they do find it, or are so confused or bored they don't read it, you lose."

Read Matthew's entire post for more insights.

Something Wiki'ed This Way Comes

Finally caught up with the July 31 issue of The New Yorker, where Stacy Schiff's engaging article on Wikipedia appears. Until I read the piece, I hadn't known that Wikipedia was responsible for so many neologisms and new definitions. Schiff mentions:

Revert: "to reinstate, as in 'I reverted the edit, but the user has simply re-reverted it'"

WikiGnome: "a user who keeps a low profile, fixing typos, poor grammar, and broken links"

WikiTroll: the antithesis of a WikiGnome--"a user who persistently violates the site's guidelines or otherwise engages in disruptive behavior"

Admin: Any of nearly 1,000 Wikipedians authorized to police the site for abuse.

Checkuser: Any of 14 Wikipedians "authorized to trace I.P. addresses in case of suspected abuse."

N.P.O.V.: "Neutral point of view," the desired tone of Wikipedia articles.

Barnstar: A five-pointed star "which the community has adopted as a symbol of praise."

Inspired by this list, I did a little investigating of my own and discovered WikiLove (defined on Wikipedia as "a general spirit of collegiality"), Wikiquette (the site's code of behavior), and Wiktionary.

("Wikipedia" itself was coined from "wiki"--a collaborative software tool that takes its name for the Hawaiian word for "quick"--and "encyclopedia.")

And now Stephen Colbert, of "The Colbert Report," has added his own neologism to the list: Wikiality ("the reality that exists if you make something up and enough people agree with you"). Not only that: On the July 31 show, Colbert demonstrated wikiality by logging on and changing two articles to include some zany assertions (e.g., "Oregon is Idaho's Portugal"--a statement that is, by the way, a pretty good example of a snowclone). He urged viewers to do the same; enough of them did to cause temporary chaos on the site.

I go to bed way too early to have caught T.C.R. myself; thanks to Freakonomics blog for bringing me up to speed.