Saturday, February 02, 2008

Yahoo needs a copywriter

There are times when gaffes are staring at you in the face and you do not see them at all. I stumbled across one of them. It's Yahoo this time.

Oh, I forgot the sentence should have been ' It's Yahoo ! this time'.( pay attention to the exclamation mark). I have often mulled about the wisdom of using an exclamation mark in the brand logo? I mean, you're using it right in the middle of a sentence, and as all good english readers read a pause after an exclamation mark, there is a pause where there should'nt have been any. Even mentally i'd read the sentence as " It's Yahoo ! [...pause...] this time". Uncanny. More so when we mentally append the meaning of the word yahoo to the sentence.

Getting back to the gaffe. Right in the middle of the mail login page is the link ' forget your ID or Password'. Duh!! Why would I want to forget my ID or password?




Where does the link lead to? A brainwashing software where I'll be offered options like ' Forget your ID only', 'Forget your password only'. forget both your ID and password' and ' If you cannot read the above please click here!' ?? And when i do click on one of the options, i'll come up to a screen that'll say " please enter the ID you want to forget' and 're-enter the ID to confirm'.

And after the faulty Yahoo ! functionalities would manage to work, you'll encounter a message:

" CONGRATULATIONS; you have now forgotten your ID and/or Password" ' For further help click on contact us and please please send the Yahoo ! support a mail. After gmail took over we've been desperately looking for job satisfaction.

By the way, if Yahoo ! is looking for a copywriter, i can offer my services. I know the difference between forgot and forget.

2 comments:

Vinod Khare said...

He he. Good one. This is the kind of spontaneous writing we were talking about.

Hussain Haidry said...

Heh heh! :D

Imagine Yahoo(!) asking stuff like:

a) 'Are you sure you want to forget your ID or Pasword or both? The password might just be having the name of your girlfriend, or father, buddy!'

b) 'Why exactly do you want to forget it? Is it personal? Or is it GMail?'

c) 'Invite your friends to forget their ID's and passwords.'

d) 'Is there anything else we can make you forget?'