Stop Living in the Past

And start living in the present.  Legal footer(s) on the internet, I’m talking to you.  As wonderful as it is when a website finally updates the aesthetics of its landing page, all its pages, or otherwise incorporates graphic modifications for a much more pleasing digital experience, don’t neglect to update the year in your footer.  Don’t let a potential customer or business partner back away because of one or two digits.

Check out updateyourfooter for more information on how painless it is for you or a developer to implement the change (once, dynamically so that nobody has to do it manually at 11:59pm on New Year’s Eve).

I visited a few sites today that could use a bit of QA love (and development attention to make the updates happen):

First up, All Media Network.  How is the parent company’s copyright still “2015” when its brands’ sites are current?  (All Movie Guide aka All Movie, All Music Guide aka All Music, SideReel, and Celebified).

Next up, Emmis.

Now for Hearst Media

Pinewood Studios in Atlanta followed by two more Pinewood pages

Green Olive Media

Of course, when it comes to digital content optimization and creation, broken links, incorrect navigation, factually wrong text, and other display issues will always take a higher priority in web-dev must-do’s and to-do’s, but a little time spent now (and vigilance across all pages for the next content/UI refresh) will go a long way.  Would a tangible business have locked doors if they are open for business?  Pas du tout.

Pssst.  Zoo Atlanta (scroll down to the bottom of your page, what do you see?)

Men and Trucks

After I had purchased a few Taiwanese editions of Marie Claire from a Chinese bookstore and was en route to acquire my drug of choice, I saw a bright orange truck with the words “College Hunks Hauling Junk” emblazoned across its side.  Now, that’s pretty clever and definitely sounds better than “Two Men and a Truck,” I thought to myself.

The marketing/branding group of College Hunks should be proud because while I’ve seen trucks from Two Men many times on the roads, I’ve never felt motivated to look up their company online to find out more information until now.*  I prefer the College Hunks’ truck, but I can’t say I’m partial to their web site.**  Firstly, their colors make me think of Gatorade coolers or Home Depot rolling around in Teletubby Land.  Secondly, there is no legal footer!  No information on who maintains their website or powers it.  I’ve lost count of the number of web sites that don’t update the year on their legal footer, but to have none at all?

Gasp~!!~ ~Gasp~!!~

Two Men’s site has too much blue (makes me think of Vitamin Shoppe stores) and too large a font, but their legal footer is current and indicates that webTRAIN powers their site.

Which one do you like more in terms of design and intuitive navigation? Have any of you employed the services of either company, if so, what was your experience like?

*But I’m not sure how pleased College Hunks’ corporate personnel should feel especially since they’ve inadvertently compelled me to research their competition.  Although the Hunks may be targeting niches within the pool of potential customers, the industry is still about relocating objects from Point A to Point B.  If I didn’t feel like moving items myself and had the time/resources to give each company an audtion run, I would.

If anyone from College Hunks happens to be reading this post, get that legal footer on your page. Toute de suite!

**The College Hunks site does, however, get brownie points for having their CSS declarations above their javascript code.  Why does that matter? If a customer is loading your web site on a slow machine or browser, having CSS first will at least expedite the display of graphics.  If the javascript were first, a person could be staring at a page in “loading” purgatory for an amount of time that would exceed their patience and force them to think your page is up to no good or isn’t worthy of their attention.