Word of the day and word of the year
By Linda Forrest
Several items in my Google Reader caught my eye this morning. Being the amateur philologist and word nerd that I am, titles about “word of the day” and “word of the year” are assured to be clicked.
EMarketer’s word of the day is cyberdisinhibition. Notwithstanding that it may not, in fact, be a word, it’s an interesting concept – people are more inclined to lose their inhibitions online and this could impact your business considerably as customers are more inclined to complain about bad customer service or spread word about dissatisfaction online than they are in the “real world.” All the more reason to excel at customer service. Sites like the Consumerist are devoted to spreading the word about sub-par customer service; this is not a site where you want your company to appear.
In a year when sparkling vampires ruled the box office (and high school locker posters), an exciting new U.S. President held his first year in office, Michael Jackson and other cultural icons passed away, H1N1 threatened health worldwide and the economic bailouts in America overtook international headlines, the Global Language Monitor has just announced the Word of the Year. The winner is? Twitter. The microblogging platform saw incredible year-over-year increases, the linked ComputerWorld article references research that denotes a 1,170% from 2008 to 2009. It’s undeniable that the platform has made the leap from being strictly for tech geeks and now is the communication platform of choice for the mainstream public.
