Writing for the Web = Writing for People

Great post over at Patrick’s blog about the annoying use of the word “virtual” to describe everything online.

This hit me recently when someone at work asked me to re-edit a document because it was “too Web-speak”. I thought about it for a little and realized what he probably meant was, “It’s too conversational, relaxed, and needs to be dressed up more.”

What he was calling “Web-speak” is actually just “People-speak”.

If you spoke to people the way advertisements speak to people, you would get punched in the face.
Hugh McLeod

And I’m learning more and more that writing for the Web is in fact just writing for people. Conversational, relaxed, clear - the way you would speak to someone if you bumped into them in a supermarket or at a pub.

It’s the old writing - the “writing for print” that was out of touch with reality.