Bloomberg Goes SEO Crazy in the Headline: "Obama $8 Billion Solar Betamax Unwinds as China Backs Rival" (FSLR; GE; SI)
I know the consultants say the media have to write headlines like that but at some point people, actual wetware-equipped people, will stop trying to figure out what the heck they're reading.
Which would be just fine by me as this is actually a pretty good story, once you get past the search-engine-optimization and can focus on the bigger, Betamax, picture.
We have a couple examples in the Buttonwood link, below.The headlines are a running joke at The Economist. From the Buttonwood's Notebook blog, Nov. 2009:
[do you ever worry that the readers have never heard of a Betamax? -ed]...
Huh?
IT is not easy writing headlines but Bloomberg seems to have adopted a strategy of cramming as many nouns as possible into a sentence. The result can be mind-boggling.Keep an eye peeled for "Bloomberg Headline of the Day" on the big E's blogs. They can show up on any one of the 23 offerings.
A few weeks ago, I was baffled by the following. "Sleep-At-night Money Lost in Lehman Lesson Missing $63 Billion". But that was topped by two of today's efforts: "Geithner Saying Be Like Bullish Buffett Can't Make J P Morgan Boost Lending"...MORE
There's even a Tumblr devoted to the beasties:
Strange Bloomberg Headlinese.g.
Canadian Economy Suffers From Dollar Parity's One-Eyed King in Land of Blind
Pandit Fast Money With Hedge Funds Proves Citigroup Dead End With Spinoffs
Facebook’s Sandberg Friends Gaga to Obama as IPO Nears
I think this headline is missing a verb and a few prepositions, but I have no idea which ones.