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Summary: Signs of life for Web writing
Review: This thin and flatly-written volume will disappoint anyone hoping for a Web writing manifesto. Kilian brings no new research and an unimpressive bunch of case studies. But by making the case once again for caring about Web text, Kilian's book serves a useful purpose. Many pages of the book are taken up with advice applicable to writing for any medium: understand your reader's viewpoint, use the "active voice", avoid relying on your spell checker. Devotees of that classic writers' how-to manual, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, will find a startling amount of familiar material. So will devotees of Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen and his Alertbox site. A substantial slice of Kilian's book could well have been gathered off a handful of well-known Web sites. But Kilian also makes a series of points that have been missed or underemphasised in discussions of Web writing to date: * The Web demands your writing deliver "joltage". A former chief executive of the Fairfax newspaper group liked to compare the newspaper-reading experience to a warm bath. Web reading, by comparison, is a 30-second shower - get in, get the job done, wake you up, don't hang around. As Kilian puts it: "Computers condition us for high joltage. A 'jolt' is an emotional reward that follows a prescribed action ... We feel deprived if we don't get some sort of jolt at regular intervals, so we go where we hope to find more stimulation which, on the Web, means web sites." * Beware old-style marketers who see the Web as another opportunity to pump a message at a commercial audience. In most media, the marketer hunts the customer down and delivers a broadcast or printed spiel that can be hard to avoid. On the Web, the customer comes looking for the transaction, with a million other sites a single mouse-click away. Research shows Web users are uncommonly likely to bolt at the sight of an old-style marketing pitch. A very few good Web marketers, on the other hand, already understand that the message of a commercial Web site must rely on a more subtle link with a brand's values. * The Web suits "response" writing which prompts the user to carry out an activity. In the offline commercial world an entire marketing discipline - direct response copywriting - has evolved to offer users spcific benefits if they carry out particular actions. Indeed, the long-established rules of direct response advertising copywriting often look remarkably like Web writers need to import these direct response lessons, in just the same way that Web interface designers need to understand how to convince users to click on the appropriate screen buttons. "The Web is a culture of impatience," writes Kilian. "Effective appeals offer quick and painlesss ways to respond". Killian could and should have given his readers more insights on issues like these, rather than recycling better-known guidelines. His book does not deserve whole-hearted recommendation. But it's nice to see Web writing getting some of the attention it deserves.
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Summary: Learn to Craft More Effective Web Communication
Review: Writing for the Web written by Crawford Kilian will assist Web developers and Website content providers to craft better Web communication that will attract the attention of the Websurfing public and increase the likelihood of producing more favorable results. Readers will learn that the Internet has produced different demands in publishing. While cool Web graphics, video clips, sounds, and creative HTML programming may have their place in Web development, Kilian believes that the content of HTML - plain text, has been geatly overlooked. He points out that the real purpose of publishing on the Web is to publish text to communicate. Other elements of Website design serve primarily as decorations and have clouded the true purpose of Web publishing. They can also become distracting and actually inhibit Web content comprehension. Kilian encourages his readers to use the Web for a variety of purposes such as publishing e-zines and finding employment and he shows readers how they can create Web content that will get attention. His emphasis is clearly placed on composing and displaying text. Readers will learn the importance of targeting their specific audiences, how to determine content subject matter, how to structure and display content for maximum visual impact, how to compose effective sentences, choosing the right wording, and selecting appropriate font styles. This book is a concise guide to Web writing that will provide readers with ideas and encouragement to advance their own literary pursuits. Sample content, writing resources, and the focus on textual content make this book a good choice to jumpstart a Web-writing career - perhaps yours! Highly recommended!
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Summary: Will enable anyone to be an effective Internet wordsmith
Review: Writing For The Web: Geeks' Edition is specifically designed for those who aspire to utilize the Internet as an outlet for their writing. Internet veteran Crawford Kilian draws upon his years of experience and expertise to provide the reader with a convenient, easy-to-use Webwriter's style guide that will prove invaluable for dealing with the rules governing abbreviations, biased terms, capitalization, compound words, and cliches. The proffered exercises will develop webwriting techniques and a wealth of practical advice will enable the aspiring webwriter to adapt content from print to Webtext; avoid common grammar and usage errors; develop content for corporate websites; even edit material for an international audience. Whether writing for a personal or corporate website, or writing for an on-line publication, Writing For The Web will enable anyone to be an effective Internet wordsmith.
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