11 ms·
I’m a freelance copywriter
- simonswords82 10y agoThe site is down. Resource limit hit. Edit:...and it's back again.
- hellofunk 10y agoHe should change the description from "hard sell" to "hard on the eyes."
- jabagonuts 10y agoGive him a break. He's a copywriter, not a designer. Come on! Although, I'm sure there are plenty of used car salesmen who would love for him to put cats wearing helmets riding on skateboards through explosions on their website.
- harel 10y agoCheck out http://lingscars.com http://lingscars.com. It will desensitise you.
- sah2ed 10y agoAgreed. Lingscars.com is arguably the worst money-making website on the Internet [0]. [0] http://metro.co.uk/2015/02/15/welcome-to-lingscars-quite-possibly-the-worst-and-weirdest-website-on-the-internet-5063801/ http://metro.co.uk/2015/02/15/welcome-to-lingscars-quite-pos...
- harel 10y agoA little anecdote, a few years ago I posted a link to her site here. Moments later the traffic from Hacker News took down her site and she took to Twitter to complain about the "Hackers" that brought her site down.
- ge96 10y agoIs there a way to DDOS your self on purpose? I want to bench mark my servers. I saw that there are some tools, damn... need to refer to some old forum threads...
- harel 10y agoab - https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/programs/ab.html https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/programs/ab.html
- ge96 10y agoThanks I'll check that out.
- helb 10y agoNot exactly a (D)DoS tool, but it comes quite handy, too – https://github.com/shekyan/slowhttptest https://github.com/shekyan/slowhttptest
- ge96 10y agoThanks, I was wondering how you get that "Build/Passing" thing on the GitHub. I'm also not sure if Apache is outdated, like I should really move to NGINX or Node/Amazon, I have yet to configure overflow handling (forwarding traffic in the event of a server not being able to handle it all) I was looking at public cloud before, kind of interesting, said something like $0.010/ or maybe $0.10/GB not sure if that was storage or bandwidth but yeah. I also wonder how hard/how you should create quick "copies" or "images" of your application and then be able to forward traffic to that.
- HillaryBriss 10y agothanks. tremendous car rental site. or whatever it is Ling does with cars. not sure. when i viewed the page, the audio soundtrack was a rendition of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da by the Beatles. maybe a better choice would be Helter Skelter.
- sillysaurus3 10y agoAmazing: http://i.imgur.com/98HXL8t.jpg http://i.imgur.com/98HXL8t.jpg
- sova 10y agoI really like it. Might have to mimic your style for an editor friend of mine. Do you incorporate this style somehow into your business cards (if you have any at the moment)?
- sarreph 10y agoGood idea for business cards like this. Could leverage multi-design printing such as Moo's Printfinity[0] (allows for a different design on every card). [0] - https://www.moo.com/uk/about/printfinity.html https://www.moo.com/uk/about/printfinity.html
- sah2ed 10y agoHe does actually. His business cards are hilarious :D http://getcoleman.com/work/joe-coleman/ http://getcoleman.com/work/joe-coleman/
- tomcam 10y agoUh... why is this on the front page of HN? Feels like spam but I'm probably missing something.
- coldtea 10y agoDrag the slider. It's not about the person, or his job. It's about the clever concept.
- tomcam 10y agoThank you! I didn't notice it; think it was not visible on my old Android but could see it on my Mac desktop.
- danso 10y agoI hit the downvote on your comment before realizing what you meant, and I agree, the slider is a little subtle, even on a desktop. I think it might go better at the top, before the text.
- Mz 10y agoOMG, this is awesome. Favorited! I actually am a freelance copywriter. I probably fall pretty close to "If you need a freelance copywriter, you could phone me. Or not." Except s/phone/email. This may partly explain my poverty. Perhaps explosions and aggression is The Way. Tao te Copywriting Edit: He says he's flexible. Makes me think of this: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=flexible&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=flexible&sc=8-8&sp=-1&sk= http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=flexible&qs=n&form=QBIR&... (I confess: I might be a former gymnastics student. Maybe.)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- skilled 10y agoWhat?
- sarreph 10y agoPerfect example of a clever functional component to convey your business / sell yourself. One usability note: I would turn 'less / more hard sell' either side of the slider into links that move it forward/back as keeping my mouse pressed down on the slider reading through all the options was a little cumbersome.
- evolve2k 10y agoYou can also use arrow keys to progress the slider one step at a time.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- jfaucett 10y agoIts rare that you come across a unique personal pitch tactic with this much selling power and focus. For me, this was one of those rare occasions where it actually happened. This guy seems very good at what he does.
- Mahn 10y agoCreativity and novelty are always rewarded. No one gets noticed doing the same pitch everyone else does.
- Dangeranger 10y agoCheck out the business cards in the projects listing, they are gold.
- aerovistae 10y agoAre websites like that supposed to carry a warning for epileptics?
- jnbiche 10y agoYeah, it's hilarious but photosensitive epileptics should beware before fiddling with the slider at the bottom. He could have left off that last one ("hardest sale") and avoided the issue, but I think most people aren't aware of the issue.
- seagreen 10y agoI read this comment before looking at the site, but I still wasn't expecting that. It's bad. SUDEP is a thing. Come on people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unexpected_death_in_epilepsy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unexpected_death_in_epi...
- Normal_gaussian 10y agoSounds like something our OS should be solving
- jdietrich 10y agoThere are W3C recommendations on photosensitive epilepsy; the key recommendation is to keep the flash rate of any large area of the screen below 3Hz. This recommendation follows broadcast television standards. The flash rate on this site is 2Hz, so it poses a relatively low risk of triggering PSE. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#general-thresholddef https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#general-thresholddef
- jnbiche 10y agoThanks for that. I'm clearly bad at estimating the frequency, since I thought it was probably below the threshold recommended. Glad to know I was wrong.
- ge96 10y agoHaha concerns of accessibility? No... that's like an after thought same with using Aria, good contrast, tab-index, no-script option, etc...
- thesagan 10y agoLove it! This is great communication, and I'd like to book Joe even though I have no copy that needs writing. (Or meet for a cup his namesake.)
- amelius 10y agoIsn't this what advertising agencies already do, but with deep learning (based on your past behavior) instead of the slider?
- rrherr 10y agoFascinating and educational to see all those variations! Reminds me a little of 99 Ways to Tell a Story by Matt Madden: http://mattmadden.com/comics/99x/ http://mattmadden.com/comics/99x/
- networked 10y agoI haven't read 99 Ways to Tell a Story, but when I read Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style about a decade ago (in English translation) I was delighted by it. Though I have not reread the book recently, 2008-me would heartily recommend it. I've noticed that exercises in style (in writing or in visual art, comics, video games and what have you) and practices like constrained writing and their analogues in other media seem to resonate with a certain type of computer/math nerd. It affects even those who would rather not associate with anything described as "literary". I think being a nerd predisposes one towards enjoying a kind of formalism in art.
- networked 10y agoIf you want a general term for this sort of thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StretchText https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StretchText. (The original note describing the concept: http://i.imgur.com/jOCOQGI.png http://i.imgur.com/jOCOQGI.png)
- chime 10y agoHere's a long-term AI/ML goal - interpolate between Simple Wikipedia and regular Wikipedia article on the same topic and use StretchText to allow the reader to decide their level of depth.
- themodelplumber 10y agoOh how I wish every math article on Wikipedia had this feature.
- ge96 10y agoI want this for learning faster, summarizing a page, but it's hard to teach something (to me). Like have it pull all the text in plain text, you read the page and pull the information that is new/important to you. Which this is subjective/different per person, but if the "AI" is unique to you then I think that would make sense. But for this to work, you'd have to have a history/scope of your current knowledge.
- WhitneyLand 10y agoThat image is an absolutely fascinating historical artifact. He's describing (in a related paper) the essence of web sites in detail in 1965. It's difficult to even imagine how few people were thinking of such things when they were so far removed everyday life and culture. Tim Berners-Lee I thought was much more well known for starting a revolution with the world wide web. I hate to say but the web seems a bit less of an insight when you know that Hypertext had already been so well established for almost 25 years. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson
- dboreham 10y ago
- Diachron 10y agoGenius.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- adamredwoods 10y agoA mild point, but I don't think it's good copywriting to ask a yes/no question. Still, a clever website.
- adamredwoods 10y agoDownvotes: I've worked in advertising for over 10 years. Most copywriters try to avoid the direct yes/no questions in headlines. For effective headlines, go scan the cover of a Cosmopolitan magazine.
- guiambros 10y agoReminds me of this old "Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod Packaging" [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- gjm11 10y agoTrifling bug report (but in this sort of thing it's worth getting the details right): one of the versions has "fewawards" instead of "few awards". [EDITED to add:] Er, I was assuming that this was posted by the person who wrote it and that the latter is therefore reading this. But it looks like it wasn't, so maybe he isn't.
- microcolonel 10y agoInteresting to see "call me on phone number" in stead of "call me at phone number". Is that the appropriate way to say it where this guy is?
- jpt1 10y agoYes it's a UK number and that is an acceptable way to say that in the UK.
- djabatt 10y agofucking genius
- DownWithTheWall 10y agowarning, flashing on the rightmost setting.
- asciimo 10y agoClever, effective and no Oxford commas.
- aeden 10y agoI see what you did there.
- oferzelig 10y agoCan someone explain this phenomenon to me: http://i.imgur.com/lIAwLXP.png http://i.imgur.com/lIAwLXP.png
- ageitgey 10y agoThere's a lot of randomness in what gets traction on a site like this based on whether or not the story clicks with the first few readers. A few people seeing it and upvoting it early can be the difference between it getting momentum and going on to be successful or totally dying. If the first few people don't upvote, the post loses more and more momentum and dies quickly (even if it was good content). It's sort of like a job interview at a big tech company. Being qualified isn't enough. Lots of good people get turned down based on random factors like who got assigned the interview or what random screening question they got asked. But they might apply again later, get a different interviewer or question and get an offer.
- bernardlunn 10y agoGet comfortable with some randomness in life. If you want theory to explain that reality, read Taleb
- hisyam 10y agoSecond one looks like a spam.
- t_fatus 10y agoCommon, we're not here to get advertising, even if it's well done, I really don;t care about your skills, your supposed talent, and you B&W website. You might want to think you're special, but I still want to see something I could think of of special..
- t_fatus 10y agobtw nice hack : getting ~400pts on a saturday night, with this kind of uninteresting content. Growth hacking is good only when you've got something edgy to sell
- eranation 10y agoGoing through his portfolio, my sarcastic side trying to find something that will somehow justify for my mind why a person's writing is so good that he gets paid for it consistently. Flip through, see [0] A picture of a boy playing in a puddle with a Washtub on his head, with the caption: "The joy of being five. You've got just 365 days to capture it". Ok, now I get it. (goes to my soon to be 6 daughter and gives her a huge hug, and wish I have taken more pictures, and telling my wife I just got something stuck in my eye) [0] http://getcoleman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1_Jessops-Bath-Boy-2.jpg http://getcoleman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/1_Jessops-B...
- oonny 10y agothe only reason why I upgraded my phone to the 7s. I have a 3 year old. A smart phone + Google photos combination is a pretty good one.
- martin-adams 10y agoI got the 7 plus and I can say that I am stunned by the photos I can capture of my son and daughter.
- justonepost 10y agoYou have a 7s?
- oonny 10y agoah meant 7 plus
- adventurer 10y agoThe real-life Don Draper/Peggy Olson.
- cookiecaper 10y agoYeah, very evocative. Being not-very-emotional, I always figured that "they grow up too fast" wouldn't hit me, but it has. There is so much more I wanted to provide my son (the oldest, age 7). I wish that I could just put his growth timeline on pause and continue to get to enjoy him, at least until I feel like I've gotten the TODO at least half-way cleared out. 7 years gone by, 7 more years and he'll be 14. Half of his childhood already slipped through the hourglass and I barely noticed it. Can't take it. Same story with his siblings. It seems that no matter how much time you spend with them, it will always feel like it evaporated, and there will always be stuff you wanted to do but couldn't get to. I don't expect that to change, but the sadness in that slippage is profound. I hope the future, where they're all old people, is somehow competitive with the present. Hard to conceive how that could happen right now. Speaking of something in eyes...
- deavmi 10y agoBest website ever
- ge96 10y agoI could refer to this when writing cover letters. First line in my most recent cover letter "I was ecstatic..." fail... My eyes were popping out of my head when I came across this listing. edit: following through the progression, it would not be hard to emulate this and get responses but then the problem comes back to your actual competence. Thanks for sharing this is helpful. edit: would probably help to dissect this for visible-progression, but the pattern seems to be: feel free -> if you need -> hello I'm -> then more and more dictating, not so much choice, you need to choose me.
- greendestiny_re 10y agoI've been doing freelance writing for 4 years now. It truly is about presenting those small wisps of childhood joy through simple stories. Unfortunately, only small projects are fit for that, as corporate staff generally loathes any risk or anything different from the "standard". For example, I was once asked to do a Christmas video for a plumbing company and was shown the last year's version, which was simply shot after shot of the company's staff saying their names to the camera. I decided to write an actual Christmas carol about a mouse that got stuck in the drain due to broken dishwasher hose on Christmas Eve and got saved by the company's employees. Though the client praised my writing skills, she said the script got rejected because the higher-ups didn't appreciate the thought of mice in customers' homes.
- HaoZeke 10y agoWhy is this here? I mean it just sort of reeks of advertising. That and that website is really unoptimized.
- zoom6628 10y agoJust love the website content and slider. So wish that many more sites were like this. We could all save time by reading the one sentence version and move on.
- raybesiga 10y agoI get a 403 error when I try to access the site ;( ```Forbidden You don't have permission to access / on this server. Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.```