CNN.com doesn't get Oktoberfest

This post has been sitting in the "to do" list for a while... and even though it's long past Oktoberfest 2012 it must be written.  CNN.com's coverage of Oktoberfest 2012 was sloppy.  To be precise, the photos were fine (some actually quite nice) but the captions were crap.  Some were outright misrepresentations, and some were just poor English -- but in every case you'd expect better.  (Schnitzelbahn's English isn't spotless by any means, but wouldn't CNN reach for a higher standard?  After all, we don't get paid for this!)

We're guessing that an unpaid intern wrote the captions after some Google searches!  Or maybe they just took content from German news agencies and used Google translate?  (It's almost certainly the latter, because a few photos showed German celebrities or soccer stars who don't mean much to a U.S. audience.)  Let's take a look at the issues:

First, notice the "featured" item in the lower half of CNN.com front page called "Photos: Oktoberfest beer festival is back".  This was the link to their series of photos on the CNN website.

To start, Oktoberfest is not technically a "beer festival".  Beer plays a central part (to be fair even Wikipedia calls it a "festival celebrating beer") but it is definitely NOT a beer festival.  There are no tastings or exhibits on brewing, no competitions, crowning Ms. Beer 2012, etc..  Just tents where lots of beer is served. The first Oktoberfest was in celebration of the crown prince's wedding, and for the greater part of its history Oktoberfest has been about agriculture and horse races, dancing and rides.  Are the summer fairs in the U.S. "cola festivals" because of how much is Coke and Pepsi is consumed?

The next photo described guys wearing "mock lederhosen".  Wrong.  The three pictured here are actual  lederhosen.  Wouldn't "mock" lederhosen be made from something other than leather?  These look legit to me.  To be pedantic:  traditional lederhosen are made from deer, so these may not be authentic to the extreme.  But by far, most lederhosen sold in German shops today are from goat, but they are still "real" lederhosen. 

The next photo describes "typical Oktoberfest badges".  These are not "typical" at all!  Lebkuchenherz are typical, but these are NOT lebkuchenherz (just made to look like it).  These are pins are sold in only one tent (Schottenhamel).  Schottenhamel waitresses used such pins as nametags, then Schottenhamel started selling versions to the public a couple of years ago.  So these pins are neither popular nor typical.  I think it's poor reporting to try and elevate a photo into something "typical" when it's not, when there are so many other traditional things to show.

The photo below says "police officers wait for the opening parade to begin".  This could technically be correct, but it's doubtful.  These policemen are standing at the entrance to the Wiesn (Oktoberfest grounds) where the opening parade will end.  And judging by the crowd, the parade has already started on Sonnenstrasse, and everyone is waiting for the parade to arrive at the fairgrounds.  Perhaps pointing this out is nitpicking, but we're seeing a consistently low quality of describing reality.

For the next photo, this may also be English-teacher type grading, but "Bavarian dressed man"???  What does that mean?  Bavarian men also wear Ralph Lauren khakis, suits and ties, Levi's jeans, and soccer jerseys.  Would a "Texas dressed man" be in cowboy boots?  What about jeans and a Cowboy's jersey?  It's just cheap journalism.

The next photo has more D- English.  The woman below is wearing a dirndl.  Or a traditional Bavarian dress.  But not a "Dirndl dress".  Are they also serving bier beer, bratwurst sausage, and playing fussball soccer?  I wonder what my friends who attended Medill would say.

OK, last example below.  The description says "waitresses of the Spaten brewery...".  This is incorrect on a number of accounts.  First, this is the parade cart for the Schottenhamel beer tent.  The people on the parade carts (usually horse-drawn) are mostly family members and friends of the family that owns the Schottenhamel tent.  Sure, they might invite waitresses to be on the cart, but the cart is about the proprietors of the tent.  Schottenhamel happens to have an agreement to serve Spaten beer -- Spaten itself does not have any waitresses, unless they have a restaurant at the brewery.  They brew the beer, and Schottenhamel serves it... and the waitresses are not the focus of the parade carts.  How many errors is that?

 

There was at least one other photo caption that used the phrase "Bavarian Dirndl dress".  (Sigh)  Oddly enough, a different photo said "a woman serves Hendl".  Hendl means chicken in German... but they didn't translate it, whereas they felt the need to say "Dirndl dress".  I wonder why?  (And they capitalized both German nouns... again, why?)

I much prefer positive posts, but this was necessary to show how reality and what you see/read are not always aligned.  It's a fun fair in any case, but be careful about what you read about it!

Awkward Office Moments in Europe

Yesterday I read an MSNBC article entitled Awkward! How a workplace hug can go awry. It was basically about the etiquette of hugging coworkers and how awkward moments can arise when one person goes in for a hug and another for a handshake. 

It makes me think of a similar dilemma we have working in multinational European offices - kissing in business settings. 

Photo:Reuters

First, there's the question of to kiss or not to kiss, which can result in some similar awkward moments. But then it gets more complicated from there with the question of how many cheek kisses.

It's not that simple...For a French colleague, it will be twice (once per cheek). For British colleagues, sometimes it's twice, sometimes once. And then I have to just remember which Dutch colleague has two and which has three (as many Dutch and Belgians do). 

It's probably a good rule of thumb in Germany to expect a handshake from a German colleague, though depending on the person and the formality of the office, you may be surprised. German companies still are more formal than those in the US, where you may still wear a suit and tie 4-5 days per week and work with a colleague for 10 years and still be on a Sie (formal "you") basis. But, times are changing and the influences of other countries are working their way into the workplace here. 

Last year, Germany's prominent etiquette group, the Knigge society, called for a ban on office kissing and maintaining a 60 cm distance during a handshake.

Personally, I find a kiss on the cheek hello or goodbye can be a nice thing. But I can see where it could be uncomfortable when it's between boss and subordinate or if you have a sleazy coworker (fortunately neither are an issue for me!).  

I generally observe someone's interactions with other colleagues first (to see if generally they're a kisser or a handshaker) and also let the other person take the lead.  Though I've had many of the funny awkward moments of going for two instead of one, or stopping at two cheeks when someone is used to three. But it's something we do laugh about as a common and very minor cross-cultural miscommunication. 

Getting a "Feedjit Rush" to Schnitzelbahn

As part of the blogging experience, we have used and discussed Google Analytics.  While that is a tool to look at data from past traffic, the more interesting questions is how to proactively increase future readership.

Schnitzelbahn is an income-free hobby for Frau A and I (notice... no ads) so we don't obsess about this.
However, my Mom has a family blog and I noticed a free banner on her page that shows who's been on site.

(You should let that first part sink in a little... my Mom has a blog!  She is so cool.)

The banner showed general info about recent viewers of her blog - notice I'm at the top, "from Munich, Bayern":

           

I found it ironic that in the second banner (right, above), this company itself had poor formatting (the "e" in "site").  And they are trying to convince me that they can drive traffic to Schnitzelbahn?  Not a good first impression.

Nonetheless, out of curiousity, I clicked the bottom of the above banner to see exactly what the proposition was to "Get visitors to your site" and how they could offer to get us 6 million ad views/clicks for less than 50 bucks:

So the company is called Feedjit.  They offer the banner that my mom has for free -- she gets neat info, and they get free advertising space... to sell ad space.  They also offer more advanced (pay) versions of that banner, plus underlying analytics (probably like Google's) to get detailed info about visits, time per page, click path, etc.

For a "Rush" of visitors, our Schnitzelbahn ad would appear at the bottom or their banner.  More details here:

Well, why not?  So I wrote some quick 4-line copy that markets Schnitzelbahn with "share our adventure".
I mentioned specific things that I thought would stand out or attract more clicks (e.g., beer, BMW, Alps):

So, on 1 September at 17:00, our copy started appearing in the Feedjit banners around the world.
You can refresh the status page at any time to view progress.  After 15 minutes our "ad" had appeared on pages "seen" by over 56,000 people.  That's 3700 "impressions" per minute... it'll take a while to get to 6 million.

After 15 hours active, they reported our "ad" had received access to almost 2.5 million "impressions"...

... then after about 1.5 days they claimed we had received the promised 6 million "impressions" -- from which only 282 people actually decided to click on the banner ad and navigate to Schnitzelbahn.  That is a click rate of 0.005%.

Was that a bad result?  A good one?  Hard to tell.  It was certainly cheap!  The ad was not placed in a focused manner.  It could have (and surely did) appear in any country, on web sites pertaining to any random topic.  The "eyeballs" that we received may or may not have been inclined to or capable of (English!) visiting Schnitzelbahn.

What was really interesting is the info from Google Analytics afterwards.

What sites ("referrers") that had the Feedjit banner ad and had people that clicked over to Schnitzelbahn?
Celebrity gossip and TV shows, Christian mission, a French rugby team, and even erotic Arabic stories!  Wow!!!

Of the people that visited us those days, readers from China and Taiwan surfed the most and stayed the longest:

This was a fun experiement for $49, but probably did not fundamentally change the Schnitzelbahn readership.
But it's another learning experience.  Any readers have recommendations for other things we should try like this?

Blogging Yin & Yang - spam comments

Frau A and I are seeing some consistent traffic on Schnitzelbahn now, and that's rewarding for an income-free hobby.  We also enjoy learning through the blogging experinece, with its tools (like Squarespace, our host) and site meters (like Google Analytics).

Of course everything comes with its downsides, and we're seeing one such example more frequently nowadays:  spam comments!

Check out the comments added to Schnitzelbahn on August 9:

I'm not sure if these were added manually, or automated like email spam can be.  I wonder how the person (or computer algorithm) chose those specific Schnitzelbahn pages to spam?  And do you ever wonder why spam is so nonsensical?

Well, who wouldn't want to buy "replica Jessica Simpson Boots" from a watch store???

So I just had to check out the spam link.  It does, in fact, bring you to a web site that appears legitimate.  But when you look closely, things seem a little...off.  At a professional UK site, you have certain expectations about the language, tone of voice, consistency, etc.

First, I noticed the top banner on the page:

"WristWatch" is spelled with a second capical "W" -- strike one.  The price (at a UK site) is in US dollars -- strike two.  And A Rolex for $88? -- strike three.  Maybe theey know the guy that used to sell them down my street in New York City...

Also, you do not sell Rolex watches because they are "World-Recognized".  Rolex buyers are attracted to the prestige, quality and craftsmanship, and elegance.  Strike four?

Even better were the "buyer" comments (not "customer" comments!):

 

I love that "Dawn" is a guy (Dawn is usually a girl's name, but not always) and that "Cynthia" does not look Finnish at all!

Finally, I went to their "About Us" page at the spammed link:

Classic spam.  The first thing they say is how "reliable" they are (but at least admit that they sell replica watches).  More funny is that customer satisfaction "means the world to us" and is also their "chief objetive".  It continues with subtle (unintended) humor through the description.  It would be "pretty wise" of me to choose them!

I guess this spam is the extra cost of blogging, but it's worth it.  We'll just continue to delete them as they come.

Google Doodles Quiz - Part 10...Media and multi-theme logos

In this prior post we briefly described Google Doodles and had a quiz.  This blog entry is the 10th "quiz" of Doodles and the last one (for now).

Below are three Doodles recognizing the birthdays of radio and film directors, two historical figures that did not fit into the previous categories, plus two Doodles that each reflect two topics:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

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Answers below:

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#1    Birthday of Alfred Hitchcock (The Birds)
#2    Birthday of Akira Kurosawa (Japanese film director)
#3    Birthday of H. G. Wells (War of the Worlds)
#4    Birthday of Ghandi
#5    "Birthday" of Confucius
#6    Independence Day (4th of July)  and  Birthday of Rube Goldberg (cartoons of complex machines)
#7    New Year's Day  and  Birthday of TCP/IP which is the communications protocol for the Internet!

Google Doodles Quiz - Part 9...Scientists, Inventors, & Explorers

In this prior post we briefly described Google Doodles and had a quiz.

Now it's time to guess the Scientists, Inventors, and Explorers whose birthdays were recognized with a Doodle:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

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Answers below:

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#1    Alexander Graham Bell (invented the telephone)
#2    Robert Bunsen (discovered the element cesium, developed the Bunsen Burner -- remember chemistry class?)
#3    Albert Einstein (invented the Theory of Relativity)
#4    Louis Braille
#5    Gaston Julia (mathematician who devised the Julia set, which is the foundation for the Mandelbrot set and fractals)
#6    Nikola Tesla (invented the induction motor, Tesla coil, alternating current electrical transmission, wireless communication before radio... and much more)
#7    Jacques Cousteau (co-developed the aqua-lung, oceanic explorer)
#8    Thomas Edison (invented the light bulb, phonograph, motion-picture camera, and more)

Google Doodles Quiz - Part 8...Popular Culture

In this prior post we briefly described Google Doodles and had a quiz.

Now it's time to guess the People and Items in Popular Culture whose birthdays were recognized with a Doodle:

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

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Answers below:

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#1    Birthday of Lego bricks
#2    Birthday of Tetris
#3    Birthday of Pippi Longstocking ("Pippi Langstrumf" in Germany!)
#4    Birthday of the Ice Cream Sundae
#5    Birthday of Harry Houdini
#6    Birthday of Pac-Man (you could click on the logo and it opened a game you could play!)