Usually I post my pet peeves and various net grumblings to Twitter but I’ve encountered too many in the last few days to fit inside a 140 character limit. Also I think if you’re going to complain about something you should also provide a solution so it doesn’t seem like you’re just a bitter, crazy, no-pants wearing old man that lives to kill the dreams of others.

Company Blogs That Go Dark

A few times a week I encounter some company blog that hasn’t been updated in more than six months, thus leaving a very bad impression about exactly what the blog is for in the first place. What’s ironic is that I see this most often with self-styled Web 2.0 companies that start with a flurry of almost daily blog posts then suddenly it’s as if the reality of running a company hits and the blog goes silent.

While a silent personal blog is no big deal a company blog is meant to give users a warm fuzzy that things are still moving right along and that their investment, whether it be with their time, data or attention, is still safe. Given the frenetic pace of the Internet and how fast things change even going a month without a post can make users start to wonder if the chef is still in the kitchen. The posts don’t even have to be earth shattering, they can simply be, “Yes, we’re still here and still working on things” or “We made these very minor changes recently that you probably don’t care about but show we do care.”

Year Old “New Features”

This is really an extension of the above. While some may not care how often a company blog is updated (crazy people for sure) it’s really annoying to go to a site day after day and see the same “Just Added!” call-out on a feature that’s almost two years old. Blinksale I’m looking at you with your “Just Added!” Basecamp integration. It’s now May 2008 and that just added feature came out in November of 2006.

I completely understand getting busy and not updating a site due to time constraints but why not future-proof yourself and instead of always doing “Just Added” start with “Newest Feature!” instead, which is a timeless statement.

Cramped Lists

Aren’t bulleted lists supposed to make reading easier? Then why is it so many blog templates completely ignore the styling of ordered/unordered lists and instead create this clumped indented mass of text? In fact poorly styled bulleted lists is one reason I migrated away from blogger.com templates in the first place. If you’re creating a blog or site template please include well spaced li elements in your CSS.

Reunion.Com

For anyone on my gmail contact list I sincerely apologize by any spam you received from Reunion.com. I was fooled into thinking they had the same feature that Facebook does, point Reunion at your address book and it’ll automatically link you with any of your friends that are also on Reunion.com. Instead it uses some slippery wording and a link from Facebook to mass spam everyone on your contact list. I can’t think of a single person that actually wants their entire contact list mailed carte blache so this lands Reunion.com squarely on the Spam Site list.

And Bob’s Yer Uncle.