I don't think they do it to upsell on the phone. I think they do it because: 1. They want investors more than they want customers, and they think investors like "media intelligence" better than "list of contacts". 2. They prefer talking about "media intelligence" when they go to parties. 3. They like talking about values and communities and making the world a better place, just like those guys on Silicon Valley.
> I’m confident that most people in the day-to-day of business will agree — the more expensive the service a B2B company provides, the more incomprehensible its website.
This is 100% accurate. There was a thread on here a few days ago about the 10 most valuable startups, and I was surprised to find that I wasn't at all familiar with several of them. I started googling and was shocked at how difficult it was to understand what the fuck their business is from their home page. It is much easier to just go on wikipedia or read a press release of some sort.
I have to wonder if the conclusion in this article is valid -- the more obscure the web marketing, the more phone calls they will get, and the easier they can do the hard-sale. I feel like most of these businesses are so cryptic and generic that it pushes people away.
> the more phone calls they will get, and the easier they can do the hard-sale
A couple of reasons:
1. It lets them be flexible with what solutions they can offer.
2. For companies that do a few things, it can be really difficult to be clear and concise
Example: You own a company that makes consumer facing apps with a focus on QR codes. A potential customer who wants a website for an internal use may not choose you so you end up with garbage like "we create dynamic and flexible end to end solutions to enable your core competencies"
For some companies the point of such a web site is prospect qualification: If you are in the market for the product/service you'll understand what the company does; if not you won't waste the company's (or your) time contacting them. This isn't just a web issue: consider the famous sign on 880 in Oakland that stood for years and read only, "stop casting porosity".
However in general the point of the article stands...unfortunately.
It qualified you properly: you are apparently not in their customer demographic!
If you simply type "stop casting porosity sign" to a search engine you will find an enormous discussion by people who did and did not understand it. It was quite famous for decades.
This drives me crazy. Most of the things that pop up on HN that I haven't heard of, I click the link and there's nothing there explaining what they do or what the product is.
There's a company called Deekit that was on HN recently. This is what I see when I click their product page:
Not just no explanation... no text! (you have to scroll down). Note: they are not selling fashion or phones... turns out it's a shared whiteboard or something.
Hey there!
I'm one of the founders here at Deekit. I see you brought out the gap in our mobile homepage not having the short summary tagline on the top image. We're actually fixing it to match it with the site you see on the desktop. Totally agree that the twitter-length summary of what the product/service is about should be always the first thing you see quickly.
PS! A collaborative whiteboard in the cloud is exactly what we do - collaborate, draw and discuss ideas on any device and anywhere :)
If I had the money I would think about hiring this company to get the contact info to a couple of reporters that could write more articles about Meltwaters bad site (and others like it).
10 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 35.1 ms ] threadThis is 100% accurate. There was a thread on here a few days ago about the 10 most valuable startups, and I was surprised to find that I wasn't at all familiar with several of them. I started googling and was shocked at how difficult it was to understand what the fuck their business is from their home page. It is much easier to just go on wikipedia or read a press release of some sort.
I have to wonder if the conclusion in this article is valid -- the more obscure the web marketing, the more phone calls they will get, and the easier they can do the hard-sale. I feel like most of these businesses are so cryptic and generic that it pushes people away.
A couple of reasons:
1. It lets them be flexible with what solutions they can offer.
2. For companies that do a few things, it can be really difficult to be clear and concise
Example: You own a company that makes consumer facing apps with a focus on QR codes. A potential customer who wants a website for an internal use may not choose you so you end up with garbage like "we create dynamic and flexible end to end solutions to enable your core competencies"
However in general the point of the article stands...unfortunately.
If you simply type "stop casting porosity sign" to a search engine you will find an enormous discussion by people who did and did not understand it. It was quite famous for decades.
There's a company called Deekit that was on HN recently. This is what I see when I click their product page:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxucYFiswY_vazdFTF9mUlNHb1U...
Not just no explanation... no text! (you have to scroll down). Note: they are not selling fashion or phones... turns out it's a shared whiteboard or something.
PS! A collaborative whiteboard in the cloud is exactly what we do - collaborate, draw and discuss ideas on any device and anywhere :)
If I had the money I would think about hiring this company to get the contact info to a couple of reporters that could write more articles about Meltwaters bad site (and others like it).