VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Mike Harrison]

Here's a Happy New Year FYI to tuck away but keep handy:

I'm not sure it's a misconception of copywriters, producer/directors or voice talent, but I quite often hear website URLs misread. For example, a sponsor billboard on today's CBS 'Sunday Morning' was read: "...visit IBM dot com, backslash, innovation."

If in a piece of copy a URL is phonetically spelled out and contains the word 'backslash,' or if the '/' character appears and is misread as 'backslash,' potential customers who try to use the actual backslash character [ \ ] in their web browsers will receive an error and may mistakenly think the website is down. (The backslash character is not valid for HTML code.)

To a client who is trying to drive traffic to their website, a mistake in a URL is the same as an incorrect phone number or street address, resulting in lost potential sales.

This will be one of those times where we might very politely suggest to the producer/director that they try entering that URL in a browser to see whether it works. Hopefully, we will be seen as a hero - for having saved some potential sales and a re-do of the spot - and we'll score some brownie points!
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Don G.]

Yep, I've had that argument a few times, except it was not a recorded VO, but a credit to be read live. I made a note of it, told the powers that be (who dragged their feet in correcting it) and read it the right way. The fact that you heard it on a network program by big name sponsor is even more troubling.

[Lee Gordon]

Whenever I encounter a similar situation, I usually say something like, "I may be wrong but but ..." and then offer to do it their way and my way "just for safety."

By the way, I may be wrong but I think "www.ibm.com\innovation" is a valid, working URL. (Actually, I'm not wrong; I tried it and it works, although it redirects you to a different URL with a couple of forward slashes.)
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Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

[Mike Harrison]

Dan: Yeah, I can see some people being reluctant to change. They're of the 'the client is always right' mindset.

Lee: I like your "I may be wrong, but..." approach very much. And, yes, I always offer to do an alternate read just so they have it. Also, it seems that some browsers do their own 'correcting' of URLs. My browser (Safari) reports that "The page cannot be displayed." I just read part of a blog where some programmers were discussing the issue. Syntax had always been that the slash [ / ] separated segments of a path or command string, but they complain that Microsoft somewhere along the line started using backslashes and has thus confused many people.
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Bruce]

I usually try to get clients to drop the WWW in front of web addresses and usually succeed, just like years ago I worked to get clients to drop the HTTP:// ahead of each address... but I always test them first. There was a time years ago when having the 3 w's or not made a difference. I also don't understand the need to say forward slash or back slash anymore because 99.99% of us instinctively type / for the word slash and not \ which a hard key to get to in normal typing and \ is only used for programming language, yes?

Of course the day is coming when we'll be ending a commercial saying something like, "next time you're in front of your computer just think 'Biscuit'!!"...because when you do biscuit.com will automatically appear, or if you think "Jolly Good Biscuit" the site biscuit.co.uk will pop up. Brilliant.

B
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[Deirdre]

Who was the idiot who first started saying "backslash" for a URL anyway?

Like Lee points out, many websites now have to create a page at the URL with the back slash character just to get poor benighted nitwits to the correct page.

THE BACK SLASH IS A LIE.
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DBCooperVO.com
IMDB

[Jef Brown]

I've been designing websites since '96 and VO long before that, and the whole "how to verbally convey a URL" has always been a huge issue. I always tell my web clients that when they are choosing a URL they should consider how easy (or difficult) it would be to tell to someone over the phone, and to keep it simple. But invariably they come up with names that require a hyphen (or should we call it a dash), an underscore, abbreviations (like inc.) and is the www part even necessary? I had a VO client who was insisting that I say h t t p colon backslash backslash before the web address because his IT guy said it wouldn't work without it, and then got ticked because I couldn't get the read in time because it took so long to read the web address (oh yeah he wanted it mentioned that way twice in the spot). Despite how pervasive the web has become, there is a frightening ignorance of terminology and also the fact that technically correct terminology is often trumped by a generally used term. For example the term "URL" will glaze the eyes of many a web user, but call it a www address and they're ok. I've adopted a policy of at least tying to save VO clients from themselves. I read addresses as I know they should be read and are most likely to be understood, I use "slash" instead of backslash or forwardslash if necessary, but there really is no way of saving someone who insists on having a URL that is 3 separate words joined by underscores and are apparently oblivious that the underscores are a necessary element of the address ("can't you just say the 3 words dot com?") NO, IT WON'T WORK!!
So far, no one has questioned my corrections, I'm betting that if it was discussed around the board table, somebody spoke up and said "you know what, I think he's right". But I'm not completely unbendable, if a client INSISTED I do it the wrong way hey, I tried.

[Mike Harrison]

[Mandy Nelson]

I got one today that had the backslash in the URL. I recorded both versions in case but later checked the address and it redirected to the proper forward slash and worked just fine so I edited out the forward slash and sent it along. I did correct this line, though: due to heavy call volume you may have to wait for an extended time to speal to a representative.
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006 member of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Mic. Bonded by sound.

Manfillappsoc: The Mandy and Philip mutual appreciation Society. Who's in your network?

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