Loading ...Ever wondered why TV producers have been happy with flashing multiple ‘dot’ ’slash’ interrupted URLs on a TV screen when they can’t be Control+C’d & Control+V’d, let alone remembered by the viewers in time for the next session on Internet Explorer? I have, and I was reminded just last night when the BBC teased me with details on an upcoming show, located at http://url_which_I_cannot_remember_or_navigate_to_using_my_tv_remote.com
Well now there’s a clear ‘best practice’ solution, all thanks to the clever people in Japan (and Cabel Maxfield Sasser for highlighting this international trend to people stranded in Stratford-Upon-Shakespeare): Don’t hand out URLs, hand out search terms. Despite being a navigational technique afforded by the Google robots, this really is the most humane way of directing someone to a site:
That is, of course, asking for evil SEO types to target those phrases that you suggest and push you off the top!
Isn’t this an old idea, pushed by AOL with their “AOL keywords”?
Phil, that was stated in the comments on the original post, too. All the happy happy thoughts in my head haven’t left any room for real-world cynicism, unfortunately. But if the Japanese are using this technique, (they’re pretty advanced with their Internet usage, and their version goes a whole lot faster than ours does…), it must work past that problem to some extent.
It’s great for companies who don’t have platform agnostic URLs (.aspx, .php) etc. Rails has cleaned-up URLs (and even made them RESTful) for many new sites, but obviously there’s many, many more sites built on technologies which are dependent on file extensions in URLs.
Worst case, blackhat SEO-ridden scenario; this technique simply adds the highs of Russian roulette style experience to URL promotion - you never know where the audience will end up! It’s fun for them and for you. Variety is the spice of life!
or… just show a QR Code or similar on screen for the whole of the advert, and/or each station have a site that lists (by show, timeslot etc) what adverts were shown (with click through to relevant campaign etc)
Not that hard to do folks…