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A Friday morning post in the general amusement category!

After an entire morning working through a mind-numbing list of software packages thrown up by a Google search, I feel I have to make a few observations.

The names have been changed to protect the ‘innocent’.

1. If your product name shortens to an acronym that’s a little dubious, please don’t use the acronym on your website

For example, if your software is a system to help a circus owner seat important VIPs, and say you decided to call this product Seating Of Dignitaries, then that’s fine with me, there is only a limited namespace available. However, don’t use the acronym! Don’t put on your website:

Click here to download Seating Of Dignitaries (SOD)

Saw it this morning!

2. Be careful about what you really mean when you call your product * Manager

Sticking with the circus, if your software is to help lion-tamers manage their lions then calling your product Lion Tamer Manager is not at all correct. That would be a piece of software for the circus owner to manage lion-tamers. See?

3. And finally, putting the word ‘online’ in your url isn’t going to fool me (for long)

There is nothing wrong with PC-based software. The world may be moving towards hosted software like a, erm, leaping circus lion, but this doesn’t make your product obsolete overnight. It’s probably still the best in it’s class. Don’t worry about it. Putting the word ‘online’ in your url to cover-up for the fact isn’t going to fool me.

To go back to Lion Tamer Manager, calling your site www.liontamermanageronline.com and then giving me a link to order the cd is just desperate.

Pinch of salt