Author Archives: Tom McKay

Want to lose an intelligent, discerning, afffluent audience? Just indulge in hype. Overblown claims, breathless tone, unsupported superlatives, hyperbolic adjectives. These are approaches you’d never see in Internet marketing materials, ads, Web site content, and the like from well-known and prominent companies. Why not? All of them are telltale signs of hype, explains copywriter and […]

Copywriter John Forde recently wrote an article called “11 Things You Can Do Right Now to ‘Fix’ a Business Website.” I’ll take the liberty of paraphrasing a few of his best points: Define your site’s purpose in five words or less. (What are you trying to accomplish? Keep it simple.) Put a great headline at […]

Gay Talese’s long-awaited memoir, A Writer’s Life, comes out this week. A pioneer of the New Journalism, Talese has his roots “deep in the old-fashioned, no-nonsense ground of the newsroom, where he spent the early part of his career,” according to a NY Times preview. The author of The Kingdom and the Power and Honor […]

Lisa Belkin, in the NY Times, has more great new geek words — something we blogged about the other day. Belkin quotes Eve Fox, an electronic campaign guru in Washington, DC, who suggests a whole new language she calls ‘Blang,’ as in ‘Web language.’ “Blang is spoken by ‘Web wraiths’ — Tolkienesque creatures (i.e., most […]

Often I get emails from people asking for help with their Internet marketing. Or they’re starting a home based business and they want me to write and/or design their business card, brochure and Web site. But today I got an email from Jim, a West Point grad, former airborne infantryman, with a Bronze Star from […]

As if viewers didn’t resent commercials enough already… Phillips is working on a way to actually prevent you from changing the channel during commercial breaks, or fast-forwarding through them on programs you’ve recorded. In their patent application, the company admits that their gizmo may be “greatly resented by viewers.” Gee, you think so? If it’s […]

English is a living, breathing language, constantly adding new words to express new ideas. At least that’s what my high school Latin teacher told me. (Or was it Father Reid, my Greek teacher?) Here are some new words, coined for a Valleywag contest. I’m not sure how many you’ll be able to use in your […]