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Online writing is
different from offline
Like people, good writing does not differ. No matter what the medium, we always admire a nice turn of phrase, whether we read it, hear it, or see it in a movie. The medium does make the difference, as does the audience. Whenever we write for the Internet, we have to postulate a global village and tailor our text accordingly. Thus terms which may be commonplace in one environment have to be explained, or changed for a wider audience. As Kathy Henning says: "In general, online text should be half as long as printed text, maybe even shorter." While your text may be shorter, you have the advantage of hyper linking with which you can add "depth" to the text, and give a chance for much more material to be available in case people want it. Like software engineers, online writers thought that they would make bundles of cash. They didn’t. Writing articles has never been a lucrative profession, though the description of Websites hiring writers for "slave wages," (often $ 100 or less) would strike Indian readers as particularly amusing. Such figures would be peanuts for Bly, who is the author of 54 books. His The Copywriter’s Handbook was acclaimed by none other than the master advertiser David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy & Mather who said: "I donknow a single copywriter whose work would not be improved by reading this book. And that includes me." He is basically a marketing person, and as someone from the editorial side, one would find fault with his exhortations as "if you make your promotional copy look like editorial matter, you increase both readership and response." At the same time, the stress on basic editorial functions of spellchecking and proofreading copy, ensuring that it is grammatically correct, tightening the copy et al is correctly placed. Pictures are very much a part of publishing and the need is for illustrations to both get the readers’ attention and to express complex data graphically. Bly warns against overdoing graphics since they invariably lead to slowing down of the downloading process that is a major put off. The discussion about home pages and splash pages is relevant for copywriters, since the online copywriter has to be concerned about fundamental issues regarding the look, feel and interactivity of the sight, much more than the techies, as the creative responsibilities lie with him. Websites are modular and logically marked sites in which the needs and habits of the intended audience have been studied are the kind of sites that will result in ‘stickiness’ or visitors coming again and again. Updated content will make them want to visit often. Who wants to read the same book again and again? Bly makes an interesting point about conversational tone not being a transcription of your spoken language, with its awkward pauses, repetition, ums and uhs! Tips about writing conversational copy are also given, as is a list of nonsexist substitutes to replace sexist language on the site. His refrain to stress benefits, not features, is basic advertising, but important nevertheless. The chapter on direct
mailing through the Internet is interesting, and it also quotes the
Warton survey in which 14 per cent of those on such lists consider the
messages annoying. The sections of advertising on |
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PEOPLE
are people. They don’t change when computers are involved. This is a
truism that was forgotten during the heady days of the dotcom boom. As
is pointed out in the book, "People are not fundamentally different
beings when they go online; people remain people. They have the same
fears, needs and desires online as they have offline."