Is your company outofdate like these five huge European businesses?

Everyone has pet hates don’t they? Well one of mine is to see websites and other marketing collateral showing copyright dates with anything other than the current year. This becomes even more tiresome when you’ve actually informed the owner (who you know!) and they still don’t change it! (The two companies I’ve talked to in the last month shall remain nameless).

It’s got me thinking – why does it bother me so much – and does it bother anyone else? It bothers me simply because of my expectations around the speed of information change online. If someone hasn’t posted on a blog for a month, you assume the site is out of business… if someone is quoted in an article with a date from more than six months ago – you start to assume that they couldn’t get anyone better… We are all starting to demand real-time information – anything more than a few hours old is simply not uptodate enough. Am I being fair?

So back to the copyright thing. If you discover a new site and are wondering whether it is authorative – look for the copyright notice – is it showing this year? If not – vote with your feet – the owner hasn’t bothered to update it – the information is probably out of date. I’ve just done my own (very random) little survey (which took around 15 mins) and would suggest the following site owners take a look at the following:

BT Global Services: Flicking through their product portfolio and downloading the first 5 brochures I could find – not a single one said (c) 2009. They were all 2006, 2007 and 2008. They were of course produced in those years and therefore technically are correct – however my first thought as a user was whether the product still exists, or whether the brochure is technically accurate.
Ericsson’s UK site: Scanning the home page – I’m drawn to their events section – which proudly advertises an Ericsson Roadshow from 30/6 – 10/7. Today is 1/9. This is precious screen real estate and is being wasted, as well as showing Ericsson to be a sloppy company, which I know it isn’t.
Balfour Beatty: (Homepage) Do you really wanting to be talking about winning awards from 2006, 2007 and 2008. Does this mean you’ve not won anything in 2009 and are going downhill?
Marks and Spencer: A heinous crime – click on the ‘The Company’ link at the bottom of the home page… Page not found and it blames ME for using an outdated link! Worse than a copyright statement problem which shows 2008!! Come on M&S – you are better than that.
Severn Trent Water: Corporate social reponsibility seemed to stop in 2007 – that’s the last date mentioned on that page – despite the fact it has a page rank of 4 – ie many, many sites are linking to it. What does this say about you?!

All the above are top European companies, who almost certainly employee dozens of people to run their websites. How are you faring?