Tag Archives: Marketing

Dumb People and Technology

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According to Wikipedia:

Dumb may refer to:

  • Stupidity, the state of
  • Dumbing down, a term referring to over-simplification

I recently wrote about the fact that sometimes technology and the use thereof, may be too complicated for some “slower” people to grasp, therefore what they might use their computer for, might not neccessarily be what others use it for. Is that ok?

In creating web apps and websites, we always try to dumb down what we are creating, in the hopes that its simplicity will push it over the top in terms of the broadest possible audience grasping what we are trying to convey. In lieu of words sometimes we create icons. Yet other large manufacturers choose to assume that people will “get it” and if they have problems just call the help desk. Can you say focus group? Or lack thereof?

Maybe Dumb people shouldn’t operate computers? Maybe we underestimate the dumb person; Or perhaps they use it to go to YouTube? Do dumb people use email? Has anyone or any company actually looked at that sector of the public to see, just what they use the computer for? Is it a group that we should market to? Are we missing out on this demographic? Or do we just assume that they will get it? Isn’t it the goal of all technology innovations that they are accessible to all? If so, doesn’t that mean regardless of your mental capacity, that that person will be able to grasp it? That you, the slow one, will get it?

Is technology biased towards people who are educated? If it is, do they leave the dumb people in their wake? What are dumb people supposed to do? Rely on smarter people? Or the Geek Squad? Do dumb people want a  crack at technology and what it has to offer?  Does technology provide a fair shake to people who want to learn but just are really really challenged?

A dumb person might have the grandest of intentions when buying a computer, but what are they to do when they have to install software, get an internet connection, download updates, install security software, burn a disc, download some music from itunes, buy some porn, etc etc etc…?

You see the world is moving more and more towards a paperless virtual high speed electronic environment. But it moves at a speed that not a lot of people are comfortable with. And you know what? Technology could not care less! Social networking sites are great but I’m willing to bet the affluency of the users is solid middle class and up. Educationally, we provide our 1st graders with a solid foundation for technology, but we’ve forgotten about the boomers and some gen X’ers even, and those who may have slipped through the cracks and those that it just passed right over. For whatever reason, those people are missing out on what technology can do for them. But now that I think about it, maybe they don’t care. Maybe to them, playing FreeCell, Bejeweled and watching Videos on YouTube, is just fine…

Google Envy

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 GE…  Google Envy. We all have it. Even if you don’t admit it because you are above that, deep down you know you have it.

In contemporary times, GE is the term used metaphorically to refer to the idea that we all wish  we worked for Google, had Google stock. or were bought by Google. In more subtler terms it refers to the anxieties we as marketers and site owners and SEO folks feel about our impact in Google’s search engine.

Think about our world and how Google has managed to work its  way into our lexicon.   Lik Pez, Google is a proper noun.  Pez is a candy and Google is…. Google. But where they differ is that I can’t “Pez you” but I can “Google you”.  You know this conversation happens a half million times a day… “Hey I Googled Thomas/Cynthia last night, and you won’t believe what I found!”

So alas, Pez is not a verb and Google has become one. How many companies can become a verb? Not Microsoft, Nike, Coke, McDonalds, Toyota, NBC, Rolling Stone, The Rolling Stones, Yahoo, The NFL, The NBA, Nintendo, Sony, The World Cup, The Olympics, Not even…. Microsoft-cue the reveal music.

I wonder if Microsoft has Google envy? I used to have Microsoft envy. In fact right after the bubble burst in my dot com world, I still had Microsoft envy. I wanted Microsoft to buy my company. Didn’t they buy anything that was cool and had a pulse back then? They were the big dog and I think we all worked for small start-ups with the hope that Microsoft would notice us and decide to buy us. It’s at this juncture that we should bring in Andy Rooney from 60 Minutes.

Andy: “Do you ever wonder if Microsoft has GE? or Google Envy? I bet they do. I know I do. I think we all have Google Envy. Even my dog has Google Envy.

As a world that now uses technology in every day life in every way possible, we now measure things by our ability to search for them on Google. It’s almost as if it’s the great judge of legitimacy. However, from the perspective of the marketer and the SEO’r, it’s also the gold standard by which one is measured. If you rank #1 in Google, then you must be good. Because Google said so. 

So it just goes without saying that Yahoo and MSN, the other 2 search engine’s, should have major GE. They fight over the scraps of what is left in Google’s vapor trail. And like it.  I envision Shaq going up against Herbie the wannabe dentist destined for Misfit Island, and The Keebler Elf. All fighting over the gold and girl, and it really not being much of a fight. It’s just not fair. But I like Shaq, he’s a likeable guy. I even think Herbie and the Keebler Elf are cool, but in the end, you know they wish they could trade places with the big man. Even if they don’t admit it.

Emerson Direct and Smoke Away and the art of Typosquatting

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Recently I was doing some searches on one of the products that Emerson Direct owns and markets,  Smoke Away. I was intrigued to find that I could do a search on some variations of the term “smoke away” i.e. “smok away” “smokesaway” and was able to come up with a) quite a few companies/competitors that use mispellings of that search term in the hopes that they can lure folks in to a completely different site via ppc and organci rankings and b) people who bought variations of the url www.smokeaway.com in the hopes of luring folks into a site that sells a completely different type of smoking cessation product. One of the worst examples of this is a company that ranks #2 and #1 organically in some of the SE’s for the term “Smoke Away” but doesn’t even have a product remotely similar with Smoke Away and…the term isn’t even in their URL! An underhanded but great job of SEO. But that’s a topic for another day. 

The above mentioned examples of URL hijacking are called Typosquatting. I’m sure you have read recently about some companies that were forced to give up the URL’s that they purchased because of rights violations in regard to the usage of these bad URL’s for profit. 

Typosquatting  is a form of cybersquatting which relies on mistakes such as typographical errors made by users when typing in the address into the browser. We have all done it. You think you have typed in an address properly, and something completely different pops up. What appears is generally a page full of  Google ad sense ads or some faux directory that looks like a directory but in reality are again, ad links and bogus content.

Generally, the victim site of typosquatting will be a frequently visited website.  An example of this would be typing in Goggle.com instead of Google. Try it right now and see for yourself.  The variations of this range from a common mispelling to adding a different extension onto the domain. i.e. adding .org when it should have been .com

Once on the typosquatter’s site, the user may also be tricked into thinking that they are in fact on the real site; through the use of copied or similar logos, website layouts or content. Sometimes competitors of the victim site will do this. I would be even more concerned about a site that resorts to this because this is a border line example of phishing.

Sometimes, the typosquatters will use the domains to distribute viruses, adware, spyware or other malware.  But generally these bottom feeders are either selling advertising to firms based on keywords similar to the misspelled word in the domain or are using it to run Google adsense.

The line between typosquatting and registering a brandable variant of a generic domain name blurs dependent on the circumstance of each situation but as I tell children, if you think it is wrong, then chances are, it is. A brandable variant of a branded term would seem to me like starting a company called Fored Cars or Fordcars when it so closely resemble the Ford Motor Company.

I suppose that’s what lawyers are there for, to sort through all of this. What  you really need to be made aware of though is, who is using your name and for what purpose, and are they making money off of it? As a marketer and a brand owner, you need to protect your brand all the time.