On Writing posts show interesting copy from around the web.
Ambrosia Shaving Cream
Ambrosia Shaving Cream has some smooth copy:
This is the cream for sensitive faces, those that get so red and sore after shaving that it almost makes you want to grow a beard (well, almost!). Don’t expect it to lather; leaving out the soap is one way that we make it so mild. Don’t use it to shave by sight; it’s transparent. DO expect it to give you a smooth, close shave by softening the bristles with linseed and coca butter. Do expect it to leave your skin calm and smooth because of the honey, chamomile and marigold oil. This stuff makes mornings bearable; it changes lives.
Mosquito Trap Kit
The Mosquito Trap Kit provides a low-tech solution (a box fan plus a net) to a common problem (mosquitos).
Sid McCarty, the inventor of Skeeterbag, was a box fan virtuoso regulating the temperatures for every plant, animal, and dwelling the farm had to offer. Ventilating the puppy nursery one morning Sid suddenly noticed that all the mosquitoes had disappeared. He figured out that the fans were sucking the mosquitoes out of the building. Then he had an idea. That night he fashioned a simple mosquito net bag to the blowing end of a box fan and set it on the porch by the dogs to see what would happen. He and the kids counted out over 2,300 dead and dying mosquitoes in the bag the very next morning and rediscovered the porch for the first time since mosquito season started. My name is Mark Valentine and I came to Florida to test, develop, and turn my cousin’s idea into Skeeterbag. I couldn’t stand the thought of such a good idea not being shared with the world.
The site’s old description explained that “catching Mosquitoes is a lot easier than catching customers.”
I have learned that having a product that actually works 100% of the time is not believable. I have learned that the average customer would rather have a product that looks super cool, costs a ton of money, and doesn’t come close to doing what it says it will do more than a product that actually works and doesn’t look like much at all.
Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This
Elvis Costello once said writing about music is like dancing about architecture. In that case, Wayne Wadhams tangos nicely in his analysis of Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This”, bringing the reader/listener deep inside the song. Even if you don’t get the music jargon, you know what he means.
Lennox’s rich, soulful voice enters, dry and sibilant. In eight terse lines, she surveys mankind’s dark, perverted motives. Like Martha in Edward Albee’s play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” or Philip Marlowe, the protagonist of Joseph Conrad’s novella, “The Heart of Darkness,” Lennox pronounces that we are all jungle creatures, terrified by the eyes staring at us from the void.
The dual choruses are totally dry, stark, and devoid of emotion. In contrast, each release paints a pitiful, highly stylized picture of mankind’s lot. A whiplike snare drum drives the beat while the synths prowl over a variant of the original progression.
Two soulful voices harmonize plaintive “ooh’s” in deep reverb on the left, while a catlike lead vocal writhes and shouts from the depths of hell on the right. Chills creep up my spine as images of subterranean torture and abuse flash across my mind.
The bridge, announced by a momentary swish of preverb, is suddenly charged with energy. A constant sixteenth-note hi-hat spins a brittle web of tension on the left as the kick and whip-snare continue, stepping up to double-time in the final bars.
Synth chords rise through inversions of 1-minor and 4-minor chords, thicker and more harsh in each subsequent phrase. A bright, compressed piano enters on the right as a metallic, bell-like percussion jars our nerves, clanging on the left.
Over all this, two pairs of voices harmonize desperate advice from right and left. Lennox wails “Hold your head up” in breathy two-part soprano, then answers each repeat with a gravelly, baritone reading of “moving on.” The track grows denser and more threatening, depicting the confusion and adversity of the world. Meanwhile the combined vocals offer their grimly positive message: persevere!
Generic Footprint
Footprint Software = exhibit A of mindless buzzword usage.
Footprint Software are an e-business solution provider drawing on several years of experience in this cutting edge market.
As your business needs grow in complexity, you need simplicity and agility in your software.
Our technical knowledge and process lead initiatives enable us to deliver high quality products to our clients, enabling them to concentrate on the business and drive costs down.
We are dynamic, flexible and highly experienced providing scalable solutions regardless of process constraints.
We specialise in Rapid solution development and prototyping with a high emphasis on customer involvement to ensure the solution meets requirements and that requirements meet the clients’ initial vision.
Crazy how you can write five paragraphs yet still say next to nothing.
Got an interesting link, story, or screenshot for Signal vs. Noise? Contact svn [at] 37signals [dot] com.
Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/471-on-writing-ambrosia-skeeter-bag-eurythmics-and-footprint
Optimizing your website can be tough business since you can’t “see” your customers online. Analytics packages like Google analytics do a good job letting you see how many visitors are coming and going on your site by tracking every page request. However, another breed of analytics focuses on optimizing how they’re using it, by tracking where visitors click. Crazy Egg, one of these optimization services, now has a new feature “Confetti” that lets you easily see where every visitor clicked on your site and what brought them there. We’ve covered their previous overlay and heatmap features here.
Crazy Egg has been implemented on over 250,000 sites and is free if you just want to track up to 5,000 clicks on 4 pages at a time each month. But if you upgrade to a paid account, you can track more clicks over more pages with real time data. The limited number of clicks tracked may seem restrictive, but analytics from Crazy Egg are meant to run for a short period of time on a specific url to grab a sample of how your users react to design changes.
