You've Been Plutoed!
2006's word of the year, as chosen by the American Dialect Society is "Plutoed," meaning to demote or devalue someone or something. Thanks to the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union who this past year decided to demote the status of Pluto from a planet to, well not a planet, "Plutoed" can now be used to describe everything from that crappy Digg article you just read, or as an insult to that guy on the train with the Zune.
Not far behind, in 4th place was the word flog, which used to be the short term for whipping someone, now also means a fake blog. A Flog, generally is used to promote products under the guise that it's truly grassroots or there's funny business behind the scenes, such as money in exchange for positive feedback.
The terms' close contention into being 2006's word of the year shows us that the mainstream audience is well aware of these tactics. It also tells us that we have to be aware that our audience is not as easily duped by superfluous adjectives, phony testimonials, or any other tricks we may have up our sleeves.
If you have something that is worth buying, at a price worth paying, on a professional looking and functional website, then you'll quickly see how you won't need to cheat your customers.
So before you go and make your next Flog post, make sure you have some truthiness in there, otherwise, your readers may Pluto you right out of your blogosphere. (Wow, that was bad, but work with me.)
*Addition - I would also like to say that this also goes for articles written in the same manner, which I have coined the term "Farticles." Perhaps it will be in contention for 2007's word of the year....
Not far behind, in 4th place was the word flog, which used to be the short term for whipping someone, now also means a fake blog. A Flog, generally is used to promote products under the guise that it's truly grassroots or there's funny business behind the scenes, such as money in exchange for positive feedback.
The terms' close contention into being 2006's word of the year shows us that the mainstream audience is well aware of these tactics. It also tells us that we have to be aware that our audience is not as easily duped by superfluous adjectives, phony testimonials, or any other tricks we may have up our sleeves.
If you have something that is worth buying, at a price worth paying, on a professional looking and functional website, then you'll quickly see how you won't need to cheat your customers.
So before you go and make your next Flog post, make sure you have some truthiness in there, otherwise, your readers may Pluto you right out of your blogosphere. (Wow, that was bad, but work with me.)
*Addition - I would also like to say that this also goes for articles written in the same manner, which I have coined the term "Farticles." Perhaps it will be in contention for 2007's word of the year....
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posted by Jessica Guadiana Monday, January 08, 2007 Read Comments (1) | Post a Comment | Subscribe  
 
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1 Comments:
Ha ha... good one Jess! It looks like the term "farticles" has already be coined:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Farticle.
Too bad!
By
Karl Ribas, at January 08, 2007 3:44 PM
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