Archive for January, 2008

The tallest in my
NYC will always be
The Chrysler Building

My view is that it’s not enough to be tallest in meters alone, but a building must earn that stature with great design. The Empire State building certainly has more going for it than the WTC ever did, but I don’t think it holds a candle to the Chrysler. It’s a bit like the comparison of Boston’s Prudential Center and John Hancock Tower, (I favor the taller Hancock this time) or China’s Jin Mao Tower and Taiwan’s Taipei 101. For me, 101’s additional height doesn’t give it sufficient edge over Jin Mao’s unity of design. Plus, the top floor of Taipei 101 has a touristy observation deck, and Jin Mao has a swanky bar at its summit. Those in search of way too much unpoetic and literal information on the topic of the tallestness of various buildings may wish to consult the Wikipedia article on same.

I’ve been doodling with Illustrator lately, and have been making some spurious maps and other odds and ends to sharpen my skills. Fortunately for you, dear readers, there’s only about 3 weeks left on my trial software.

This bogus transit-style map of places in my personal orbit is definitely derivative of the Boston system where it’s more or less located but I also owe gratitude and apology to the fine folks at the Strange Maps blog, who brought to my attention the Kabbalah system map and Mark Ovenden’s Transit Maps of the World book.

Your downfall is at hand.

It’s not really that baconny, but I do love the crunchy sea salt in the chocolate. See also
Where Seinfeld met Elvis and Salty Chocolate.

I am back on the system. Please clean up your act.

But seriously folks, I took a bus to work and a train back today, and despite all the petty annoyances, it felt great. I’m sure I’ll fall back into rail rage sooner or later, but if I can find that article I once read that indicated that a big part of transit system delays could be traced to passengers on the platform crowding the doors before people could get off, and people in the train not clearing the doors for people to get on, I’ll be sure to blog about that here.

I was starting to worry that the market for paid search was getting as crowded and overheated as email marketing has become. People were subjected to my “reaching out vs. being found” lecture (PPT slides available on request) several times per week. When new budgets were approved, I saw the price of many keywords jump up on the first of the year. Then I saw these ads, and my faith in the mediocrity of most marketing was restored.

Nothing sets my teath on edge like lousy writing, especially marketing writing. It’s not just any word they got wrong, it’s the thing their product works on! I should go back and click on that ad to make them pay. In fact, I encourage all limeduck readers to click on bad search ads whenever possible. Just make sure you don’t buy anything or fill in any forms.

In any case, my point, such as it is, is this: even if the search market is overheated and the click prices inflated, nobody’s going to get much out of this if the ads are not appealing, and if the user experience after clicking delivers on the promise that the ad made. Short ads like these are like email subject lines, conversation hearts, magic 8-ball answers, fortune cookies and haiku — they have to get a lot across with very few words. As this turgid post affirms, it’s easier to write a lot at low quality than to write a little at high quality.

In semi-unrelated fortune cookie news, it turns out that the Japanese invented them.  Who knew?  (For extra credit, note the reporter’s middle name)