Do we need a code of conduct for writing blogs?

According to DLA Piper, only 5% of Internet users know the legal rights and wrongs of posting online. It also found that 77% of bloggers were unaware of the law surrounding publication and journalism.

The same study found that 42% of Internet users believe that bloggers should be made to follow the same legal standards as journalists. 46% like the idea of a voluntary code of conduct. Bloggers however, don’t agree, only 32% support the idea with 34% directly opposed.

According to a spokesman from DLA Piper, there is potential for bloggers to end up in court. Beyond defamation and employment law, there are plenty of other issues which bloggers could trip up on. Issues such as, but not limited to: Libel, Contempt of court, the Telecommunications act, Protection from harassment act, even the anti-terrorist legislation.

Given that nobody reads website Terms and Conditions (and many still do not have them!) wouldn’t a code of conduct be pointless? Essentially, a code of conduct is not a set of laws, followers of this conduct will however protect themselves against some potential legal surprises if UK companies and individuals do decide to clamp down. A court may even look more favourably on them for following the voluntary code if the matter does reach a court.

Who would sign up for a voluntary code of conduct? Would it be those who are already careful in what they publish? or would it be the trouble makers inspiring this discussion in the first place?

Joomla is a great web developer package, it is online software aimed to help users update the content on their website. It’s open source so all the website development is essentially done. It’s easily skinnable, that is we can apply a custom website design to the software and clients can run with it. Contributors around the world have all chipped in to make the software and modules so we can add shopping carts, blogs, forums, polls and many more!

So why don’t I like Joomla?

First and foremost, the source code is available to anyone. This means that although security problems are found quickly, they’re not always found by the right people! When they are found, another update needs to be performed to keep client’s websites completely bulletproof. These updates take time and cost money which you never expect to spend. We have and will continue to implement Joomla sites when it is the best solution but we give clients the chance to decide for themselves whether to keep updated for an ongoing fee or let their website slip and risk being attacked.

Finally Joomla’s power is another weak point. For large complex sites, Joomla does a great job at making things updatable and flexible, but unfortunately this makes it too complicated for simpler websites and/or less technically minded users. It also becomes difficult to keep updated if we change things to make it easier and better for a particular website.

These are really the only two down points to using Joomla over a custom solution, but I feel they’re quite big ones. If you don’t know how to use it and it’s insecure, it makes a really terrible website… The latter is rare, but it does happen.

An Alternative?

There are plenty of alternatives, but few really do the job, so we designed our own CMS around simplicity and security. Zako CMS is much easier to use, and aimed at your average informative website, it is focussed it at doing one thing so we feel it does it much better than any other (that we’ve seen and tested). Besides fading images and image upload, we also have a simple shopping cart module for 1-10 products (beyond this and a full ecommerce package is recommended) payments can be taken through Paypal, news can be updated, text can be changed in three steps (click text, edit, save) and audio/video can be embedded without ever having to look at code or use third party sites like youtube. 90% of our clients use this software and to date, noone has had any complaints (apart from one who had a tiny screen due to all sorts of browser add-ons so we had to adapt her version to fit in a letterbox of a browser) This, we could never have done with out-of-the-box Joomla!

Like Joomla, our software is open-source but not available to anyone. This means if you decide to leave Zako Media for any reason you can take your website, design and software to another web design company. It’s all written in PHP so any good web developer will be able to amend and make changes to the code. I want happy clients so we don’t lock anyone in just because they’re using our software, that would be like removing the engine of your car for choosing another service garage!

Conclusion

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to web design software which is why we have a variety of solutions mainly built in-house but with some tried and tested open source or commercial products. This gives us the flexibility to find the best solution and not try to hack our way through one to perform a task it was never designed to do. People approach us from all over Europe with one thing in common; they want to make more money. It’s my job to work out how best to achieve this goal online. To do this job properly, I need a variety of tools and not limit myself to just one or two and shrug when things go wrong.

Twitter, the popular social networking applet which allows users to answer ‘What are you doing now?’ in 140 characters or less has stopped sending SMS messages to UK users. Unable to find a mobile partner to offer better rates, they have been forced with escalating costs to stop the service all together. Twitter already capped the messages at 250 per month, but this still costs around £500 per user per year outside the US, India and Canada.

The following alternatives are available:

• m.twitter.com works on browser-enabled phones
• m.slandr.net works on browser-enabled phones
• TwitterMail works on email-enabled phones
• Cellity works on java-enabled phones
• TwitterBerry works on BlackBerry brand phones
• Twitterific works on iPhones

In the meantime, you can still update your twitter status by sending an SMS to +44 7624 801 423 as many times as your credit will allow.

Do you know the head of any mobile network in the UK? If they are interested in becoming a saviour, and gain plenty of extra publicity, put them in touch with Twitter to get things moving again!

Twitter is used by a number of companies wishing to keep in touch with each other, one SMS to the system will forward out to all ‘followers’ keeping each other up to date with what’s going on. Business collaborations have also been using it to keep the teams updated with current developments, and Joe Public to keep in touch with friends. We’ve yet to see any paid advertising on the platform, but the potential revenue for this would be immense, especially if the SMS service could be resumed.

Besides keeping in contact with other users, strengthening relationships and promoting themselves and their brand, users can also use Twitter to keep up to date with BBC News, what’s going on in the Big Brother house and even London Underground service updates. Twitter can be used to update status’ on several other platforms like Ecademy, Facebook and can be set to update automatically using other APIs, RSS feeds from blogs etc.

This article will hopefully clear up some misconceptions about copywriting. Basically it is sales writing – that’s it in a nut shell. It is primarily about selling, the actual writing is almost secondary. Below are some key ideas that you should always keep in mind when writing.

It’s not about you 

Sorry, but as a writer you come at the back of the queue. You must focus on the reader; it is them that will be doing the buying. What are they like? Are they male or female? What is their age group? What are their likes and dislikes? These are the questions you need to think about. Take an interest in them, find out what makes them tick.

All good things come in small packages 

That’s what my mum always told me and she wasn’t wrong. Many people seem to be under the misconception that sales writing, in any form, has to be impressively high-brow, be full of ridiculously long and complicated words and sentences. Well it doesn’t and in fact, shouldn’t.  Keep it simple. It doesn’t matter who you are writing for or how educated they may be; your audience will be turned off if they are faced with unfathomable words and rambling sentences. The best writing is clear, simple and concise - and don’t use jargon!

B2B or B2C? 

Whether your audience is Joe Public or another company your style should be the same. Many people think that selling to another business requires a different approach. But at the end of the day it is still a person who will be reading your sales letter or brochure.

Forget the F-word

No I haven’t gone barking mad. By the F-word I am referring to features. Your audience aren’t going to be impressed if you write about a list of features. By doing that the only reaction you will get is ‘so what?’ You must show your audience why the product is for them.

You have to sell them the benefits. If a guy wants to be a better football player, and you sell him your latest top of the range football boots on the basis that they’ll make that happen, he’ll buy them. OK, daft example, but you get the idea. It is all about tapping into the buyer’s emotional need.

Whatever you write you must grab the readers attention (a killer headline), get their interest in what you are selling (that’s where the benefits come in), create a desire (if they want something they’ll convince themselves they need it) and finally get them to act (buy, sign up etc).

Sally Ormond

Freelance Copywriter 

Let me take your business to new heights by making every word count.

Microsoft have relaunched windowslive as a social networking platform. For some time they seemed to be desperately trying to buy Yahoo!, then [allegedly] tried AOL, they’ve got nowhere with Facebook, Bebo and the likes and seem to have given up hitting an existing, popular market. Even their most popular platform;  Hotmail has been falling behind as other webmail systems moved into the realms of AJAX programming (the ability to load web content without reloading the entire page), their Spam filter also leaves much to be desired, certainly compared to Gmail who’s spam filter is virtually flawless!

Microsoft have tried giving away free templated websites with Office Live (which they are still doing) but the uptake seems slow and promotion scarce (for which I’m certainly thankful for), the software itself is flexible but a little over-complicated. The bonus is that they provide the hosting and domain name for free which you can take with you if and when you upgrade. For small websites with few followers, this is an excellent solution.

So what are Microsoft doing now? They seem to have gone back to their corner muttering insanities under their breaths and started work on their own products again. I fear this is too little too late as they attempt to copy the best bits from other sites rather than being inspired and moving the web forward.

Microsoft should ideally stick to offline software and continue developing it’s own products rather than trying to hit the online market. As their web efforts increase, their software side seems to be diminishing, allowing open source equivilents and indeed Apple to take the limelight. Windows is, and always has been a great product, most complainers are complaining using this platform so they must be doing something right even though it’s not quite perfect for everyone. The online side of Microsoft, that is their email exchange software and various others should be opened up to avoid the need for specific Microsoft exchange servers. This way they can compete with Google documents (which is not 100% Word compatible, and certainly far from perfect) then they will continue to dominate the office and avoid loss of marketshare to these free services. Unfortunately as more and more people are storing documents online and slowly coming to terms with editing them online, Microsoft are losing out to online office solutions.

The moral of this story is really to stick to what you’re good at. In a previous employment, I worked initially on design, development, hosting, web, print, seo, stationary, and promotional products. Between two people it became impossible to do anything with 100% quality. We attempted to project manage printers etc. but this too impacted on what we were best at. Only when we removed these ’sidelines’ were we able to concentrate entirely on web design and development and spend time making things run efficiently with the quality we, and the clients were happy with. External products we could work with but were not seen as supplied by us, so once we sent clients out to a printer, we didn’t have to worry about how things were moving. This is a lesson I’ve brought into Zako Media and until we have the skillset and staff to offer a particular product or service, we won’t offer it. I only want Zako Media to give out work which we and the client are happy with, we will not dilute our efforts, attention, knowledge, time, or profits on external activities just to try and help make a sale.