Please don’t make me Google you
Posted on: August 1, 2008Author: Cali Lewis
40 comments so far (is that a lot?)
I get hundreds of emails a day, and I’m honored that so many people want to talk to me about their lives, their dreams, their goals, and their businesses. A good percentage of the email I get are requests to take a look at products, websites or applications. A significant number of people requesting I look at something don’t give me a link. I tweeted about it last night, and the overwhelming response from Twitter friends was “that’s why there’s Google”.
That’s true, but it doesn’t scale. The extra steps to select the text, copy, paste and search multiplied by a thousand times a week or so, is a tremendous time suck. I hate that this is true, but having to select, copy, paste, and search puts me in a skeptical mood. That’s not the mood you want me in when I go to your site.
I’m happy to look at anything people send. It’s my life, and the thing I spend the majority of my time on. I’m making a request to anyone who wants me to look at something…pretty please, with sugar on top, and bacon on the side, throw the link in the email! You will be dramatically improving the quality of my life.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:07 pm
I have a good idea Cali, adopt a policy: no link, no view :)
August 1st, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I imagine that, as your viewership grows, your “respond to every email” policy will become less and less realistic.
Don’t get me wrong… I hope you find a way… But one of these days you’re going to have to hire some help for that.
But that’s a good thing. You’ll be helping employment. :)
August 1st, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I guess they do not care enough about their product/website/other things to give you the link?
August 1st, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I totally agree with you. It’s bad business not to include a link to either your product or your website in your signature file. It’s not that hard people.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:10 pm
This just seems like common courtesy. They’re not PAYING you to review it, they’re just saying “Hey, take a look at this neat thing!”,so why not make it as easy and pleasant as possible?
Link it up people!
August 1st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
You would think that would be common courtesy / common sense… I mean, you don’t tell people “That movie we saw last night was really cool!” — without providing the name of the movie!!
August 1st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
If someone wants you to look at something, it’s only common courtesy to send a link to that something.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Cali, I have to agree. A link to whatever it is is always helpful. I do turn to Google most of the time, and when I can’t find it.. I end up emailing back, “link please!”
Or at work.. people call and just assume I know who’s calling and what they want. :) I’m good at guessing and mind-reading games, but sometimes I do get stumped! ;)
August 1st, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Especially considering all it usually takes these days is adding .com to the end of it, I don’t think that’s too much to ask!
August 1st, 2008 at 1:13 pm
In a nutshell if you can’t afford the time/effort to give me links or the full story the question will arise… if they wouldn’t give me the full jist of the product… should I care?
BTW can we get bacon salt on top instead please?
August 1st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
You’re 100% right…and that *is not* what Google is for anyway…!
Having been in Sales & Marketing for many years, I know that if I want someone to review my product I have to provide them with as much information as possible…!
Neglecting that is not only impolite and lazy, but also highly unprofessional…!
August 1st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I would imagine this is just common courtesy! I’m absolutly flabbergasted(sp?) that you read all that mail. very few people would, the least we could do is put a link to more information in it.
Makes me wish I had somethign to email you about. lol
August 1st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I would imagine this is just common courtesy! I’m absolutly flabbergasted(sp?) that you read all that mail. very few people would, the least we could do is put a link to more information in it.
Makes me wish I had something interesting to email you about. lol
August 1st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
While I agree that it is much more convenient, isn’t the golden rule of internet security not to click on links in emails? I hope you are not compromising your security for the sake of convenience.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:15 pm
It should be common sense that they send a link. With the volume of email you get a day it’s the only right thing to do.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I agree with you. If I am asking someone to look at something I will absolutely include the link for them. To me that’s common courtesy.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I think that if people want you to do them a favor by looking at something they want you to look at, the least they can do is send you a link for it. I think it’s rude to expect you to not only do something for them but also do the legwork for it too!
August 1st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
@Michael I’m on a Mac. :)
August 1st, 2008 at 1:17 pm
well said! i know sometimes people get excited and rush and forget the link, but they’re asking you to check out something. the LEAST they could do is post a link to it.
*this SO applies to personal daily life as well people!*
August 1st, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Amen sister!! Totally agree.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Amen to that!
One of my pet peeves is people who leave a voice mail, ask you to call but don’t leave their number. Tell me how to reach out to you or don’t expect a returned call.
“Thats why you should carry a phone book.”
BS! You want my time make it easy.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
If your getting your mail through google and using firefox, highlight the text, right click and choose search google. Opens in a new tab. That way you won’t get rick-rolled or anything.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Hi Cali,
it would not only improve the quality of your life but also the chance that you actually look at these things….
We are making the same experience as a webhosting company: in many of the support requests people don’t care to provide their customer id which would make it much easier for example to look up the server where their site is hosted. We want to help, but as with the missing links in the mails to you it takes a number of extra steps if we have to dig out the information each time.
It would be so much easer if poeple who want something are also willing to give something (information)
Best regards
Jochen
Germany
August 1st, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I agree. I think of it like a phone call. “Please call me back, but you have to get the phone book out or call 411 to get my number.” Doesn’t happen with phone calls and shouldn’t happen with url’s. I usually don’t bother to try to find the url unless it is interesting enough to make it worth it.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Hey there’s this great show…I think it’s called geekbrief…it’s sort of like a TV show. I don’t remember the site but you should check it out!
August 1st, 2008 at 1:36 pm
@Michael Haha I was about to say Cali’s on a Mac, but she beat me to it. :) Not that that excludes all types of attacks, but it does forego pretty-much every practical kind of malware, and the addition of Firefox extensions like NoScript and others can take care of the majority of other types of attacks. Ah, yes… *stretch* It’s nice living in the walled garden of Apple. :D
August 1st, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I’m with AlienSpaces
———
(Comment by on August 1, 2008 1:07 pm) on this one
“I have a good idea Cali, adopt a policy: no link, no view :)”
———
I can’t believe that people would even send you emails without a direct link in it.
Cali, if they can’t be bothered to include the link then they are just not worth spending the time search for, unless your just really bored. So stop doing it.
“No Link, No View”
August 1st, 2008 at 2:08 pm
All snark & huffiness aside, I think people are mostly unaware of the etiquette of sending a link and stop short with the suggestion. For most that are asking you about it could research it themselves if they felt comfortable about doing it. The automatic link sending that prevails among the tech knowledgeable is less so among regular folk. I’m sure your readers/listeners/viewers mean no disrespect and if were informed of your preferences, would be happy to comply. Perhaps such a request might be placed closer to your venue rather than on Twitter where the more link-sending-prone tend to hang?
August 1st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Hi cali,
I think that this kind of acts is a result of an excitement by the project which they want you to revise or to present in your episodes[that i like very much;)]this excitement make them forget to put the link in their emails :).
I believe that this huge number of mails that you receive may be managed if you use an email form script instead of the normal “cali *at* geekbrief *dot* com” and that you oblige the sender to choose between some criteria,for example : Product reviews;suggest a service;suggest a website and so on, when trying to send an email via that form.
I believe that by this kind of filters (scripts integrated into the blog/website to improve the “Contact” form)you can easily treat a big number of emails in a very short amount of time because they are already organized .
Finally I just want to say that I love your shows and i like the GB team at all :).
August 1st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Don’t use platform trust as a substitute for real computer security. Also, if you use the mail component in Opera to read your email, you could eliminate the copy-and-paste part of your “no-link-provided search workflow.” In Opera, you can just select text, right-click the selection, and choose the Search option. Simple, quick, and safe.
(But if I were to send you email asking you to check out something, I would certainly include a link.)
August 1st, 2008 at 2:22 pm
@J1509 That’s a good idea. I’ve always disliked the idea of contact forms, but I think what I actually dislike is not having an email address publicly available. I could have both, huh? :)
I think I’ll add a contact form for tips, etc. Thanks!
August 1st, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Being on a Mac does not exclude you from phishing scams or other security vulnerabilities. Don’t let the “no viruses” claim give you a false sense of security.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Cali,
In the past you have been great at reviewing products/software that I have sent you. And in fact you have thanked me for the link. I do believe that if you want someone to do something for you then you should make it as easy for them as possible especially if you are not paying them. On the other hand (before I say this let me say I love your show and will always be a fan links or no links) but I noticed you don’t have a Contact Form. You could make a contact form and make a place for viewers to put a link and make it a “required” field. The best way to reduce such link-less emails is to educate your viewers as to the best way to submit a “Request For Review”. Yes … I know this is why you brought it up in the first place. :D In your email signature and other correspondents you could put a link to a page specifically created for RFR.
Check out:
http://green-beast.com/gbcf-v3/
This is the form I use at my site. It’s a wordpress plug-in with a very good UI and config page. My site is hosted by Godaddy.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Regarding my comment about security – It’s true, but I was mainly joking. I know when to click and when not to click. Thanks for the concern!
August 1st, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Now you only write your email address at the contact section. And users need to send you manually an email. Personally I prefer it that way when contacting someone.
But especially when you get many emails I would use a contact form (or several contact forms for several types of requests). Then you can include in the structure of the contact form fields like “list link of page this is about” or so.
Also, if you are not yet using it, a system like OTRS ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTRS ) , a email ticket system could be useful to structure and manage the emails. The queue system, templates to answer make it much more efficient to process emails. I use that to answer emails send to wikipedia.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Haha, that last clip reminded me that I have two episodes of Weeds to watch.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Everything’s better with bacon on it!
August 1st, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I know what you mean. It’s even worst when you’re looking on Google for a solution to a problem only to land on a thread in a message board where people are telling the OP, who happens to be having the same problem as I am, to search Google.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:21 pm
@Cali, what might be going on is this: there’s a lot of SPAM filtering targeting HTML links and markup, frightening senders into believing if they sent you a link, the entire email would be filtered into a “Junk” or “Bulk” directory. What do you think?
Oh, did your Macbook arrive in the mail from Chicago? ^..^~
August 6th, 2008 at 2:45 am
Hi cali, and everyone else, Isent an email once, even I (the forgetful boy that I am) included a link!!! It’s just mean when there’s no link it’s like saying, mmmm lets have ribs at the ribs place, what ribs place?!?!? give me a name! lol I’m done ranting. mmm bacon sounds good right now, with a side a BBQ ribs, mmm.
check out my site: http://www.lucasvincent.com
and my dad’s friend’s site: http://www.laptopkingz.com