Thirst for content can, from time to time, expose a lot of bland nonsense. There are sites/content authors that mistake lists of obvious blurb for content. We all know who they are, I don’t need to name and shame (the list would be too long). A large part of the reason for this is the democracy of access. Many sites make it very easy for people to become content authors, which is a good thing. Except when the content purports to solve an issue but instead, to quote Mr. Cleese, is ‘Specialist subject – the bleeding obvious‘.

They look like they might be trying to help you do something but instead barely scrape the surface of the issue. You go looking for help with something and you end up trawling through pages and pages of the same banal crap and platitudes.



Photo credit: me from morguefile.com
Image added with new Crop and Post on MorgueFile.

It seems that, rather having any genuine insight into a problem or issue, many people settle for skipping over the top of a problem by regurgitating self-evident tripe.* It doesn’t help that there appears to be an army of uber-idiots who go about commenting on these lists/articles saying “hey – that’s great”. Stop it. You’re just encouraging them.

As an over-the-top example of what I mean (and to stop ManicMorff of accusing me of too many ‘serious’ blog posts), here’s my Web 2.0 style, ‘look at me I’m a content provider’…

Top Ten Tips for Learning to Drive

  1. Buy a car, you’ll need this. Recommend getting one with four wheels.
  2. Petrol is important, try to get a good price, look online for cheap garages near you.
  3. Sitting nearer the windscreen may help you see more of what is going on but it will make pushing the pedals harder so don’t do it.
  4. If you see the Google StreetView car follow it to make sure you get snapped but don’t crash or you’ll end up on the @gsightseeing website. Alternatively crash into the StreetView car as part of your holistic marketing plan.
  5. Make sure you find the biting point of the clutch before pulling away. There is no way I can communicate what this means to you through text but I’m going to tell you anyway.
  6. If you’re going to hit a pedestrian, try not to hit a pedestrian.**
  7. Get a driving instructor who has the same first language as you. Translation adds to thinking time which will make it difficult when also using your iPhone.
  8. Don’t drive with a sheep or any other livestock in the back seat.
  9. Nothing the A-Team ever did to a van is appropriate to most road going cars.
  10. And finally… the smell of lavender is calming, try to drive by fields of lavender on your route.

( I love this, “Perhaps the first necessary thing to do when trying to learn to drive stick [shift] is to simply sit in your car.” & “Remember to use the right gear!” Genius.)

I promise you, you could publish Viz Top Tips as a set of serious articles and some Muppet*** in the US would say “wow, that’s great, you have a unique way of looking at the world“.

So, in an attempt to drive more pointless traffic to my blog…

Top 10 tips for getting more Web Traffic

  1. Submit your site to search engines.
  2. etc…

You get my point…

I’ve nothing against people having their day in the sun and having some articles on the web****. The big issue that it all gets in the way of genuinely useful content when searching for answers. A lot of these big content sites have, not surprisingly, high page ranks so you invariably you get them first and have to trawl through the nonsense before you finally alight on something useful. With the amount of content being generated each day, it won’t be long before the shit will drown the fan with no hope of a re-emergence. Unless we all learn to go straight to page 2 of the search results. Top tip, position 11 will soon be king!

* “Self Evident Tripe” is a great name for a band.
** © Vic and Bob
*** you MUST watch this… it’s still great.
**** although a post on not using the Internet in relation to self-worth is looming