Just a Hint: Don't Say Moist on Your Software Website

I know you weren't going to, but here are 7 other words you shouldn't use

Hello Gobbledeers,

Thanks for coming back for Part 2 of “15 Words Not To Use on Your Website”. If you missed part 1, it’s here. God knows you don’t want to miss the first 8. Those are the best 8. Today’s 7 words…let’s be honest - if they were the best 8, they would’ve been in Week 1.

But first - a little housekeeping.

In the spirit of last week’s Yom Kippur holiday, I would like to offer my apologies and repent for neglecting to mention 2 weeks ago that I would not be publishing on Yom Kippur. Apology accepted. (Wait - that’s not how that works…)

Also, we had our 500th subscriber join us here at Gobbledy. I don’t know if that’s a lot. But it’s 500 more than when I started this thing 6ish months ago. And virtually all of that has been word of mouth. So thank you for that. I’m excited for the next 500.

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A Quick Aside for Grammar Nerds

I’ve been fascinated lately with the speed at which we’re seeing new AI-based writing tools and new AI-based imagery tools (more on the latter in a moment).

One of those new AI-based writing tools is called Quattr, which somehow simultaneously sounds like I made it up, like a country hosting a World Cup, and like a category on an adult video site all at the same time.

Actually, this is what they say they do:

Yeah, I don’t know what that is either. (“Actionable data-driven workflows?”) It’s not important - it’s an AI writing tool. That’s the important part - it’s a writing tool.

Which is why I was a wee bit dismayed when I saw this:

If you’re reading this newsletter you may be someone who cares about grammar. I understand that not everyone does care about grammar. That’s fine. Your loss. Alas, I do care about grammar. And because of that I need to point out that, as you may have already noted, that copy should read:

“What if there WERE a better way?”

That’s it. (It’s my newsletter - I’m allowed to complain about this kind of thing.)

Quattr. Cracks me up.

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AI Photo Tools

This has nothing to do with the usually gobbledy stuff, but if you have not played with the new AI photo creation tool called DALL-E you are about to spend the next few hours wasting your time on it.

You type in what image you’d like it to create and - magically! - it creates that image. I typed in “golden retriever making a pizza in a bathtub” and got this:

I typed “colored pencil drawing of a monkey eating sushi” and got this slightly upsetting image:

Monkey sushi omakase: $385

The whole thing is blowing my mind and my daughters and I spent hours having it create images. I feel like I’ve seen the future. Enjoy.

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15 Words of Gobbledy (tm), Part 2

After not receiving hundreds of letters, phone calls and telegrams asking - nay, begging! - for the last 7 words that you shouldn’t use on your website, I decided to give the people what they didn’t ask for. Here ya go:

9) “Purpose-built” or “Specifically-built” - Thrown around quite a bit, and I’ve been personally responsible for including this on a website on one occasion, something I’ve spent several Yom Kippurs trying to atone for. Supposed to suggest that the software was built specifically to do this one thing (and this one thing only), yet because of its ubiquity people skip right over it. And there are plenty of examples of products that were purpose-built to do something and then pivoted to become a great something else (Slack, Twitch…).

It’s often paired with other gobbledy so you end up with stuff like this from Humio: “Purpose-Built Log Management Platform Allows for Observability at Scale.” 3 bonus points for “observability.”

My suggestion: Just leave it out.

10) Tailored - Typically found alongside its friend “personalized,” as in “personalized recommendations tailored to each user” (or whatever). I’ll admit that “tailored” is probably the least offensive of the 15 words on the list. But also it’s a trite and overused metaphor. If the recommendations are personalized, by definition they’re also tailored to the user. You wouldn’t have personalized recommendations NOT tailored to the user - those wouldn’t be personalized.

11) Actionable - Generally hand-in-hand with “insights.” I don’t really remember a time when we were just drowning in insights and didn’t know what to do with them. We’ve drowned ourselves in data, certainly. But insights? Like “Wow, I just learned that people Wisconsin are 3 times more likely to want to fly to mars on a time machine than people from Minnesota.” That’s an unactionable insight. But I don’t really see that as an issue. “Stop setting up meetings and wasting my time sharing all these insights!” is not something I’ve heard.

12) Extensible - I used to hear this quite often, but I’ve seen much less of it recently. It suggests that your product can be extended, or that it’s flexible, but I think that’s something everyone says at this point, even if nobody actually believes anything a software company says. That doesn’t stop Kibo Commerce from saying you can create “extensible commerce experiences,” which is as pure an example of gobbledy as I’ve ever read.

13) Future-proof - I know that you think your software is future-proof. It is not. I thought the VCR my parents bought in 1981 was future-proof. As was the Atari 2600. And my Timex Sinclair 1000. Everything is future-proof until the future intervenes.

14) Modern - It’s used signal that newer companies use the product (“Flobria.io is purpose-built for modern flobbing teams” or some such.) What’s a non-modern team? A bunch of old people? If a young company hires a bunch of old people, is that a modern team? Is it supposed to mean that 24-year olds like it? Is it a lazy way of describing why the product is different? Is it shorthand for “Salesforce has a similar product?” “You probably have something that does this already, but this one is a little newer?” Yes, “new and improved” is tried-and-true marketing. But using “modern” to connote “new and improved” is very, very, very tired.

I’m currently reading Rabbit, Run (because somehow I never read it in high school), and in it Rabbit (in 1960) says to his wife, “You’re supposed to look tired…you’re a modern housewife.” It continues:

It gripes him that she didn’t see his crack about being a housewife…as ironical and at bottom pitying and fond…

Even 60+ years ago the concept of the “modern” whatever was already played out. Rabbit used it ironically. 60 years ago. Also ironic - using “modern” isn’t modern at all.

15) Delight - Used primarily to describe what you’ll do to your customers if you use the platform - “Modern teams use Squbbl’s extensible platform to delight their customers by leveraging actionable insights to create tailored experiences that drive conversion.” Or whatever. Your customers won’t be delighted because their coupons are personally tailored to them. Let’s not pretend they will.

16) Bonus Word: Moist. Just please don’t use it. Please.

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As always, Gobbledy is a labor of love created, in part, to let you, the reader, know that my day job is helping companies remove this nonsense from their website. If that sounds like something you need help with, shoot me an email at jared@sagelett.com.

And if you want others to know about this newsletter, I’m always beyond grateful when people share it.