Everywhere you look, people are told to embrace technology to make our lives more efficient, help with marketing and automate mundane tasks. While I agree that writers do need to embrace technology, there should be caution. Here are some pitfalls that technology can cause.
E-mail Marketing -- Due to changes in policy at Google and Yahoo, e-mail marketing software companies are having to change their system to be in line with Google and Yahoo's rules. Unfortunately, writers, such as myself, do not know how to update their websites or e-mail addresses to add in the special coding that is required to authenticate my website domain. When I added coding to where I thought it was supposed to go, I no longer can send simple e-mails from Thunderbird. I use Thunderbird because I have many e-mail accounts that I need to track. Thunderbird puts them all in one place. It's annoying that I can't use louise@lastresearchandediting.com to send via Thunderbird because of changes I made to be able to send to a list of potential clients. The technology and its problems are frustrating me.
Converting to Kindle Create -- A colleague of mine is trying to take his client's book and format it for electronic version in Kindle Direct Publishing. Amazon is requiring authors to use its Kindle Create format so it converts to KDP more easily. However, he has been getting an error message when he tries to convert to Kindle Create version. This is costing him money. His client is getting angry with him, and my colleague is frustrated that the technology isn't doing what it is supposed to do.
Copyright -- ChatGPT is being used more and more by content providers. In some cases, authors use it to generate ideas for stories. Then, they write something. Others are using ChatGPT and editing it to make it sound more human. Then, there are those who use it without editing the copy. This is leading to a number of problems, such as low-quality content, content ranked lower by Google and an issue on copyright. When a computer generates content, the question of who owns that copyrighted material is the main legal issue. When a writer creates content, the author or the company owns the copyright.
Two Many Features -- Often, engineers overengineer software. They put in too many choices, too many ways of doing something or too many problems. I am working on a new platform where it should be easy to search. Instead, the template asks too many questions, which makes searching not easy to do. It is hard for nontech people to understand things with too many features. Technology should make life simple, not more difficult due to the features added. Engineer with common sense and think about your end user.
Community Help -- Instead of people dedicated to supporting new software or technology, many companies are using community help. These are people who have dealt with similar problems. There are not always answers to your particular question. In some cases, the problem has yet to be resolved. In other cases, there are chatbots, but not humans behind the chats. They usually have a set of questions that can be answered. They are usually not helpful at all. It is time for real customer service to go with technology. Stop letting technology do everything. When I reach a human for a problem I am having, I usually get it resolved quickly.
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