Scoble Says "Everything Sucks". A Bit Over The Top But Not Untrue

Over the weekend, Robert Scoble got a bunch of people pissed off by suggesting that all the companies demoing at DemoFall 08, or at least all the companies' websites, suck. Now I do have at least some experience with analyzing suckage, and so I thought I would jump in here.

Now it is unlikely that I would say that every company at Demo or TechCrunch50 sucks. As others have correctly stated, entrepreneurship is hard, and my answer to things done by little guys sucking is generally (though not always) to ignore it rather than call it out. I figure calling out big or really well funded companies or really rich people is OK. Startups, and particularly smaller companies have it harder. Scoble didn't quite call out individual companies but it came pretty close given the small pool he pointed at.

That said, he makes a valid point about the websites.

Now I have not looked at all the websites, but I looked at quite a few. I specifically didn't look at all of them so that I would not be saying that all of them sucked. But most that I saw did. Unfortunately, this is a generic malady, and not a unique reflection on the Demo companies.

The purpose of this piece is not to talk about startups in particular, but to look at the larger issue of why so many websites, all the way from startups to larger companies do suck. Now to be clear I am not talking about the companies' products or services actually sucking. Though, just based on common sense and the basic odds of success, most things do suck, but that is not my point here. What I am talking about is the issue of getting the brochure-ware right. It seems to me that too many companies can't seem to describe even really compelling products or services effectively.

As I see it there are generally four categories of of web brochure suckage.

• MBA Speak - This is perhaps my greatest pet peeve. Its where the company tries to baffle me with a whole bunch of wonky b-school terms that end up meaning absolutely nothing. It is as if going to business school *reduces* one's ability to communicate.
• Geek Speak - This is geeks thinking they are talking to geeks. The problem is that even geeks don't generally want to hear geek speak when they are trying to understand the basics of why they should spend more than five seconds on a website.
• No Speak - Here, companies think their product is so cool they expect you to sit through a ten minute video, or try the product out to figure out what it is about. This company thinks their product is so cool that descriptions and salesmanship are not even necessary. I am not against videos, but before I am willing to commit to a video you need to sell me that it is worth my time. I will *never* try a demo unless I am already sold that the idea is cool.
• Weak Speak - This is where the person writing the copy has limited writing skills and just can't convey the essence of the product effectively. I am most sympathetic to this category because writing is hard, and describing a new concept effectively can be harder still. Still, if you have worked hard developing your product, it makes sense to work hard at describing it, or to at least to pay someone who can describe it.

And so there you have it. If your company's website sucks, the malady is fixable. But the first step is ending the denial. I hope this helps.