Are Product Descriptions Blog Posts?

Dec 02, 2006

Business Blog Consulting has an interesting analysis of a blog maintained by an online store. The online store here is Woot. Woot is a bit different from other online stores and I’m saying it from a copywriter’s point of view. Their copy is quite witty. It is full of puns and clever remarks and their product descriptions far from being drab, as is the case with most online, or for that matter even offline, stores. Take for instance

You may think you’ve stumbled across every possible way to let your loved ones down, but here’s one that’s probably new even to a seasoned expert like you: tell them, in confidential but urgent tones, that Woot is selling a convertible for six hundred bucks. Oh, to see the looks on their crestfallen faces when they discover the Gateway M275 Tablet Convertible PC instead of the Miata or Spyder they’ve been lusting after. ‘Tis the season to be disappointed, chumps! Har har!

But once they calm down and get a good look at the M275, chances are they’ll thank you. It’s a tablet PC! It’s a notebook PC! It’s cheap, it’s light, and it swivels whichever way you want it to - just like your dream date!

Stephan Spencer on Business Blog Consulting says Woot, you may be witty, but that’s not a real blog. To an extent I do agree. No matter how funny the blog is (it’s actually a rehash of whatever is published on the actual website), it’s after all a collection of product descriptions wrapped in the packet of humor. Where’s the room for conversation? Where is the room for controversy? Or even truth?

But then you may say heck there are so many product review blogs on the Internet! Well, yes there are, but we assume that they are mostly (if you ignore the fact of blog review for money) personal opinions (some educated, some uneducated) and they are not hell-bent upon making a sale eventually. If you just want to publish product descriptions by someone cryptically called “pod” it’s better you just have such pages on your main website.

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