Glossyware
Encyclopedia
Glossyware is a slang term referring to marketing materials produced on high-gloss bond paper
. Typically, the content of this material provides an abstract description of a product often too vague to obtain a solid understanding of the product and often lacking any relevant substance or evidentiary facts. Rather, the intended impact is to impress the reader with vibrant colors and loaded industry buzzword
s in hopes of motivating a sale.
Glossyware is most commonly found in use in the marketing
of computer software
. Glossyware is often developed by marketing professional from the original software design documentation and may include features that have not yet been developed or tested. Such uncompleted features or software componentes run the risk of ending up as vaporware
. Other examples of glossyware use the golden hammer principle to illustrate how the marketed product will solve all of your problems, or at least most of them, often with brilliant use of bullet points
.
The term glossyware is attributed to a team of computer scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2004, who after sitting through presentations on software products not yet ready to be used, began to call these products glossyware based upon the sheen on the product brochures touting features not yet available.
Bond paper
Bond paper is a high quality durable writing paper similar to bank paper but having a weight greater than 50 g/m2. The name comes from it having originally been made for documents such as government bonds. It is now used for letterheads, other stationery and as paper for electronic printers...
. Typically, the content of this material provides an abstract description of a product often too vague to obtain a solid understanding of the product and often lacking any relevant substance or evidentiary facts. Rather, the intended impact is to impress the reader with vibrant colors and loaded industry buzzword
Buzzword
A buzzword is a term of art, salesmanship, politics, or technical jargon that is used in the media and wider society outside of its originally narrow technical context....
s in hopes of motivating a sale.
Glossyware is most commonly found in use in the marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
of computer software
Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
. Glossyware is often developed by marketing professional from the original software design documentation and may include features that have not yet been developed or tested. Such uncompleted features or software componentes run the risk of ending up as vaporware
Vaporware
Vaporware is a term in the computer industry that describes a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is never actually released nor officially canceled. Vaporware is also a term sometimes used to describe events that are announced or predicted,...
. Other examples of glossyware use the golden hammer principle to illustrate how the marketed product will solve all of your problems, or at least most of them, often with brilliant use of bullet points
Bullet Points
Bullet Points can refer to:*"Bullet Points" , a season four episode of Breaking Bad*Bullet Points , a comic book limited series...
.
The term glossyware is attributed to a team of computer scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2004, who after sitting through presentations on software products not yet ready to be used, began to call these products glossyware based upon the sheen on the product brochures touting features not yet available.