Bretts Marketing Bytes

Posts Tagged ‘Websites’

Wow, I cant tell you how happy i am that I received this email. It’s about time someone said enough is enough of IE6.   This is the email I received today from Google.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010.  After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

I actually have a .png file on my company website that doesn’t render in Internet Explorer 6.0 and I refuse to change it because browsers are free and people should update them when a new one comes out. If you use internet explorer 6.0 or lower and it is your choice, you are not a good fit customer for me. Luckily I am not in web design. LOL!

So why is Google doing this? Most likely to support HTML 5.0 technology in the future. HTML 5.0 provides some really great enhancements to the web. Check out the small list below.

Video Element: My favorite HTML 5 features yet. You can embed video without having to rely on third-party proprietary plug-ins or codec. You can embed video code with the same amount of ease as you now embed an image with the ability to manipulate videos and built-in video controls among other things.

Canvas: Canvas element lets you render graphics and images on the fly. An excellent implementation of this element was done by the developers of Mozilla lab project Bespin. Which is an extensible Web Code Editor using Canvas (among other things). You need to register to try out Bespin. You can see a much simpler implementation of canvas with this drawing board (works with FF 3.5 – Chrome – Opera). All done without having to rely on plug-in, the possibilities are endless.

Application caches: The ability to store web apps like email locally and access it without having to connect to the internet or install an external client like Outlook or Thunderbird. Google gears, which helps you access Gmail offline, is an implementation of HTML 5 specifications for Applications Cache (and much more). If you use Google Gears than you are using already using this feature. You can try out an online demonstration of this feature in the form of sticky notes here, which saves information to your local DB. Works on Safari 4 and Chrome, FF 3.5 is a bit buggy on this demo.

Geolocation: This API defines location information with high-level interface (GPS) associated with the device hosting the API. Sources of location information includes Global Positioning System (GPS) and network signals such as IP address, RFID, WiFi and Bluetooth MAC addresses, and GSM/CDMA cell IDs. Yes, a big brother feature, but it can only be used if the user gives the application permission to use the information. You can try it online here

Of course there are some more features but these are just a few of my favorites.

Website page copy is an important element of your website. However,  I find that most companies spend way too much time crafting their  message and way too little time focusing on what truly makes a difference to readers.

I put together a list of some important aspects of writing web page copy. Enjoy!

• Companies love to talk about themselves so naturally they ramble on and on. Don’t ramble. Keep it short and sweet.
• Your message should be about the reader not your company. People don’t really want to read about how great you think your company is. They want the WIIFM(Whats in it for me?) factor.
• You have less than 8 seconds to catch a persons attention. Make your page easy for someone to scan by using white space, heading tags, and bold fonts when necessary.
• Welcome… For some reason some organizations think that their home page should welcome their visitors. Why, it’s not a house, its a website. Give them the information that they want..Information about what you do, or your products or services.
• Thank you…Companies also feel the need to thank visitors for coming to their site. Why, is your site so bad that you have to be thankful that someone came to visit it? Okay, that might be a little harsh. But seriously, if you do this you are wasting prime real estate on your web page for more important page copy. Don’t thank people until after they have made a purchase.
• Bad grammar – It is fascinating how many companies use  grammar improperly in their page copy. You should always have someone read over what you write. Even if you are good at writing. A second eye is always a good idea.
• Make sure to use a call to action where it is  necessary. Don’t be afraid to ask someone to contact you or make a purchase.
• Use blurbs that have a read more link on your home pages. Blurbs are easy to scan.
• When writing page copy, try to identify with the reader. What are the important pieces of information that they would want to read?

I hope this was useful . Good luck and happy page copy writing.