What is GitHub talking about?

https://www.reifyworks.com/writing/2024-03-19-what-is-github-talking-about

by mrbbk • 2 years ago

7 14 2 years ago

reifyworks.com

mrbbk7• 2 years ago

What pages should we look at next?

opengears• 2 years ago

github pages

lloydatkinson2• 2 years ago

Microsoft 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20110330160247/http://www.micros...

Microsoft 2024: One single almost full screen advert for one of their devices, followed by more adverts.

---

SendGrid. An example of a good homepage with a description of what services it provides:

Send transactional and marketing emails at scale with the platform that offers a 99% deliverability rate. Brands large and small use SendGrid’s world-class email tools to deliver 148+ billion emails monthly.

---

Twilio, who owns SendGrid. An example of another shitty homepage. It has three big standout headings, all of which are much like GitHub's word salad but worse.

Gartner names Twilio a Leader in CPaaS

I have no idea what Gartner or CPaaS is, and a homepage should get to the point immediately.

The 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for CPaaS recognizes Twilio based on its completeness of vision and ability to execute.

Hmm yes more word salad this time with a few copyright symbols thrown in for good measure. Plus, we get to feel like wizards because they said the word magic.

Connect the dots across your customer journey with better data + AI
Twilio is the industry-leading and trusted platform that efficiently powers your customer engagement innovation.

Ah, there! There we go, it's more AI nonsense! I have to scroll down *to the middle of the page to see what Twilio even does*!

Atotalnoob• 2 years ago

Gartner and their magic quadrant are very popular among business folks.

It’s a way to see where all of the players in a market stand.

I use gartner stuff if I am presenting to execs or business users.

Twilio knows that it usually isn’t the engineers buying stuff. It’s the business people.

mrbbk7• 2 years ago

Will put Twilio on the list, thanks!

mrbbk7• 2 years ago

Is it "AI nonsense" because you don't see that as the core of the product?

lloydatkinson2• 2 years ago

I saw that awful AI slop on their homepage the other day when I had to login again. At this point, the constant AI saturation/enshittification in marketing is just lazy.

GitHub, you need to remember your primary and first objective is to be a source control provider for Git repositories. Your homepage doesn't even mention that.

mrbbk7• 2 years ago

That's arguably just a commodity at this point, right?

paholg• 2 years ago

I don't think so. I use GitLab for work, and the experience is definitely more clunky than GitHub. Merge requests load slowly, and clicking on, say, a specific file is very unresponsive, often taking me to the wrong place.

I'm also subscribed to a 4 year old issue for adding timestamps to CI logs.

probably_satan• 2 years ago

Should be noted that Github's success comes from the community and existed before Microsoft bought it.

Microsoft gets no credit, not even once.

mrbbk7• 2 years ago

Noted!

tr3ntg• 2 years ago

One of the main ways we evaluate messaging like this is whether or not it makes us want to scroll down to learn more. By that measure, this is successful – and we definitely know what they’re talking about.

I'm glad this is included. In my opinion, by any measure other than "marketing speak that might pique your interest," I see the headers as an absolute failure to capture reality. Github is the world's leading platform for software collaboration, sure. But it isn't "powered by AI." Copilot, a beta programming assistant tangential to their main product, is AI powered. But (rounding up) 100% of Github's core features have nothing to do with AI.

What is the marketer's perspective on lofty homepage statements that aren't grounded in reality? What are your thoughts on the usage of terms that are losing all meaning? "AI" seems to be one. If everyone has it, it differentiates no one. To some group of people, it might even be seen as a negative.

mrbbk7• 2 years ago

A marketer's perspective would be that the job of the ten words above the fold is to entice you to learn more, to pique your interest. Not at all to communicate everything about the product -- docs are for that. I don't think it's fair to say that these statements aren't "grounded in reality," but I do understand your sentiment.

What is GitHub talking about?

Related Stories