BlogBloghttp://www.petermccormack.co.uk/blog/2010-02-05T12:57:32ZSquarespaceDisgusting use of languagehttp://www.petermccormack.co.uk/blog/2010/2/5/disgusting-use-of-language.htmlPeter McCormack2010-02-05T12:56:58Z2010-02-05T12:56:58Z

]]>This is how to waste your PPC budgethttp://www.petermccormack.co.uk/blog/2009/10/24/this-is-how-to-waste-your-ppc-budget.htmlPeter McCormack2009-10-24T20:33:15Z2009-10-24T20:33:15ZIf you are going to run a PPC campaign you really need to make sure that you write custom creative and you send users to a dedicated landing page. What you don't want to do is use a generic creative and you certainly don't want to send people to a page which says "Sorry, we are currently updating our section. If there is a particular product you are looking for then please contact us", seriously This Is How To Waste Your PPC Budget.

Check out the two screengrabs below for Blue Fish.

]]>Why don't Apple change the record?http://www.petermccormack.co.uk/blog/2009/10/24/why-dont-apple-change-the-record.htmlPeter McCormack2009-10-24T09:02:40Z2009-10-24T09:02:40ZThe latest version of Windows has been launched by Microsoft and has received some pretty positive reviews. Everyone knows that Vista was a disaster but it appears that Windows 7 is actually a good operating system.

I am a Mac convert, I love everything they make apart from their adverts, all they seem to do is talk about how rubbish Windows is, Why Don't Apple Change The Record?

Macs are not perfect, my latest laptop has had a whole bunch of problems including my email account stopping working, preview breaking etc...

Apple run the risk of becoming that arrogant kid at school who thought he was the best at everything.

]]>If Yahoo wanted Twitter so much they should have bought ithttp://www.petermccormack.co.uk/blog/2009/9/10/if-yahoo-wanted-twitter-so-much-they-should-have-bought-it.htmlPeter McCormack2009-09-10T08:59:52Z2009-09-10T08:59:52ZI received my login this morning for Yahoo's new social media site Meme 'It is your place to share with the world whatever you find interesting.' Their words not mine.

So basically is is their cutesy (probably Nintendo Wii inspired) Twitter/Facebook etc... ripoff. Is it any good, yes, it has a nice clean layout and is easy to use. Will it take off, no! Why would it, what possible reason would anyone use it? Where is the innovation? What does it offer that Twitter and Facebook does not?

If Yahoo Wanted Twitter So Much They Should Have Bought It. And that is what surprises me about the whole strategy, when they wanted a photo sharing application they bought Flickr.

Meme will fail - innovate please Yahoo.

]]>I can't view the Stella websitehttp://www.petermccormack.co.uk/blog/2009/8/17/i-cant-view-the-stella-website.htmlPeter McCormack2009-08-17T15:42:18Z2009-08-17T15:42:18ZI love the new Stella campaign 'recyclage de luxe' by Mother and I wanted to see how they had changed the website to reflect this campaign but couldn't get in.

I noticed three problems (I am using Firefox on a Mac):

Problem 1: can't enter date of birth
See the image below, when trying to select my month and year of birth so I can enter the site the drop downs have not been populated with any data.

 


Problem 2: can't select country
I thought maybe the reason I could not select my date was because I had not selected my country so I tried this and got a runtime error, see below.

Problem 3: Google links are broken
My last option was to click on the advertising link within the Google result for 'Stella" and this just links to a dead page with no redirect or 404

Come on, these are basic faults.

]]>Why didn't ASOS make it easier for me?http://www.petermccormack.co.uk/blog/2009/8/5/why-didnt-asos-make-it-easier-for-me.htmlPeter McCormack2009-08-05T11:49:10Z2009-08-05T11:49:10ZI ordered a couple of pairs of jeans from ASOS this morning and they gave me a confusing offer which I failed to get working. It was only when I started writing this article that I realised my mistake, still Why Didn't ASOS Make It Easier For Me?

Here is the problem, and you can track the progress through the pictures below. I bought two pairs of Diesal jeans totalling £130, when I moved to the basket there was a nice big alert notifying me of two offers I was entitled to, Free UK Standard Delivery and Free UK Nextday delivery. I obviously chose the free nextday option and followed the instructions 'Don't forget to insert the code NEXTDAY below'. Which I did, but look at the final screen:

'Sorry, discount code NEXTDAY code is not valid for the delivery method selected. Please select correct delivery method and try again.'

Being a typical bloke I half read the message and then assumed that the code was not working so gave up. What I have realised now is that I needed to change the delivery method and then put in my code. Seriously though, why doesn't ASOS automatically update the delivery method when the code is entered?

]]>Next and their stupid unsubscribe processhttp://www.petermccormack.co.uk/blog/2009/7/31/next-and-their-stupid-unsubscribe-process.htmlPeter McCormack2009-07-31T09:56:03Z2009-07-31T09:56:03ZAfter receiving a horrible image heavy email from Next this morning I decided to unsubscribe from their service. As with most emails they have an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the page.

Unsubscribing does not need to be difficult, and there are three common approachs:

  1. You click on the link and a web page opens where you confirm you no longer want to subscribe by either clicking on a button or entering your email address into a field. This is the way it should be.
  2. Logging into a site and updating your communication preferences. This is the slightly annoying way.
  3. Next And Their Stupid Unsubscribe Process.

When clicking on the unsubscribe link in the email you are taken to this page where there is no mention of unsubscribing from emails. All there is is a login where you need your customer number, what customer number? I didn't know I was a customer, I didn't know I had a customer number.

The reason companies make their forms difficult to unsubcribe from is so that they can keep their mailing list as large as possible. The reality though is that it just ends up leaving a sour taste.

]]>Why doesn't Kerrang make it easy for people to submit their information?http://www.petermccormack.co.uk/blog/2009/7/29/why-doesnt-kerrang-make-it-easy-for-people-to-submit-their-i.htmlPeter McCormack2009-07-29T06:48:58Z2009-07-29T06:48:58ZThere is a very simple rule when you want to get people to sign up to your email database, only force them to enter their email address. The reason for this very simple rule is that as you force people to enter more information they are less likely to sign up, why? Some people can't be bothered to fill in long forms and some people do not want to give you personal information.

It is surprising how many websites ignore this simple rule, take the Kerrang website for example, I went to sign up this morning for their newsletter and the experience is a mess.

  1. I started my signup process my entering my email address into the 'noiseletter' box and the top and clicking go. I expected to then be taken to a confirmation screen and signed up but was instead I was taken to another screen where I had to fill in more information.
  2. The form is not clear on what is required information.
  3. My email address was not encoded correctly, rather than me@petermccormack.co.uk as I entered it it is now me%40petermccormack.co.uk. Surely basic testing would have found this?
  4. It appears that I am required to enter my name, sex, title, date of birth and postcode to receive the newsletter. 
  5. The absolute classic ending though is within the terms, read this 'Part of the deal is that Kerrang.com will from time to time send you communications regarding the promotions, products and services of other carefully selected organisations. Don't worry - you can unsubscribe from these communications at any time.' Is this even legal?

Why Doesn't Kerrang Make It Easy For People To Submit Their Information?

Anyway I continued to submit my form and received the page below, again what? I don't even know if my subscription submitted, there is no confirmation message, no error message and no confirmation email, just the same page refreshed but the fields cleared.

 

]]>There is no good reason for the Sky cancellation form to broken?http://www.petermccormack.co.uk/blog/2009/7/22/there-is-no-good-reason-for-the-sky-cancellation-form-to-bro.htmlPeter McCormack2009-07-22T07:58:35Z2009-07-22T07:58:35ZAfter 6 months of poor service from Sky I decided to cancel my service with them and move to Virgin Media. Due to a lack of reception I have twice had engineers out to the house and neither has managed to fix the issue, I can excuse the first chap but I specifically told the call centre in Bangalore that they need to send someone out to reposition the dish only for the young lad to tell me he didn't have the right equipment to do such a job.

After not receiving a follow up call from either visit I decided Sky had taken enough of my hard earned cash for such a poor service and went online to cancel.

Simple enough? You would have thought so, forms are not the most complex items on the Internet right? Well after spending a good half an hour filling out the Sky cancellation form with a the lengthy reason for me dropping their service I received the following message "Sorry, but the form you requested is unavailable, please try again later" (see graphic below). There Is No Good Reason For The Sky Cancellation Form To Be Broken? The annoying thing was when I clicked back on the browser the majority of the fields had been wiped.

Click to enlarge

You can make your own mind up on this but it is an easy thing to monitor and fix.

]]>How much income has Sony missed out on?http://www.petermccormack.co.uk/blog/2009/7/16/how-much-income-has-sony-missed-out-on.htmlPeter McCormack2009-07-16T13:27:12Z2009-07-16T13:27:12ZI had a problem this week with the PSN store on the Playstation 3, I wanted to download a game for all the family to play but I needed to update my card details and received the following message

"The credit card information is not valid. Please check your entries carefully."

If you now put this in Google you get lots of results, page after page of forum and message board discussions, what is the problem? Why have Sony not fixed this? How Much Income Has Sony Missed Out On?

Surely something as important as being able to take payments from customers deserves some attention?

See below for some of these example forum posts:

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