update
vb (tr)
1. to bring up to date.
n
2. the act of updating or something that is updated.

I’m no longer surprised to find myself reading a list of words I’ve never heard of making it into the Oxford Dictionaries every year.  Adorbs, binge-watch, cray, humblebrag, listicle, neckbeard, SMH, side boob, vape, and YOLO are but a handful of  new entries that are ‘in’ this year.

Now, unfortunately for my eyes and ears, I wasn’t asked to cast a vote on which should be included.  Had I been consulted I can assure you that 96% of the suggestions above would have been vetoed, but as we know, this is our language moving with the times.  It’s the people who decide what goes in the dictionary, who know what they’re talking about and also know what’s on-point, deciding that things have moved forwards enough to give a word it’s place in history.

By now we’re used to the dictionary squad revealing the ‘new’ entries every year.  First we snigger and refuse to say it but before we know it, there we are, moaning to someone about the latest piece of ‘clickbait’ the guardian have put online.  It’s just progress.

Nevertheless, I find it interesting that every year our media consumption habits and relationship with technology changes enough to provide an even longer list of equally baffling phrases that seem to have found their way from the sales boardroom buzz bin into our everyday lives. Words like ‘hyperconnected’ (sorry) are becoming okay to say out loud to each other now (maybe).

The use of the word ‘update’ has grown year upon year since the 1950’s.  This graph, which I paid somebody to create, clearly shows the trend only going one way.

This is happening because we’re physically updating things more often so we’re using the word more and vice versa.  Our grandparents and even our parents had to make do and mend, but things have changed.  We’re continually updating nowadays: our wardrobe, the tyres on our sweet ride, a new 46″ plasma (dem Jones’ eh?…)

Now, something that I’m particularly interested in, is the technology side of our updates.  It’s such a huge part of our lives; it’s where the majority of our updates are being forced upon us, in two main areas.

Firstly, in the form of constant security updates to ensure our online presence remains, you know, secure.  Maybe three or four times a year (or more if you’ve got an iPhone and they’ve released something before it’s ready) you’ll be prompted to update your password, phone number, security code blah blah etc, and quite honestly, rightly so, there’s some really bad folk out there and they’re absolutely desperate to post an animated .gif of a bald-headed eagle tap dancing all over your home page, and they’ll ideally do it without even leaving their bedroom.

Think about those crazy cats last week at TalkTalk.  They must be so fed up, they’ve been hacked again leaving them with three serious security breaches this year.  Now, your company may not have 4 million customers who could be affected by an attack on your site but the message we send regarding security is always the same:

Change your flipping password….  I mean like really often, do it right now…..Done?  Ok.

The second area of update is of course entirely optional, but also essential, unavoidable and you’d be ‘cray’ to ignore it (stop it).

It’s all about keeping your online business up-to-date; by now you know if you don’t, you’ll lose the customers you worked hard to get and the ones you’d like will never find you.

Today, 80% of Internet users own a smart phone, they’re using their phones and tablets on-the-go and trusting that Google is delivering the results, meaning that responsive web design is becoming more important as the amount of mobile traffic now accounts for more than half of total internet traffic.
Google has started to boost the ratings of sites that are mobile friendly, if the search was made from a mobile device. This means that sites that are not mobile friendly are penalised.   If your site isn’t up-to-date, it’s as good as invisible.

No-one wants to be invisible.