Write Like a Human
Om Malik argues that technology writing often becomes too focused on jargon, metrics, and technical details, losing the human connection. He advocates for writing simply and clearly, as if talking to a friend, to make technology more accessible and meaningful to readers. Great writing, he suggests, comes from empathy and understanding the human experience behind the tech.
Background
- Om Malik is a well-known tech writer and early employee at GigaOM, a popular tech blog he founded. This piece reflects his views as an industry insider who has watched online writing evolve over two decades.
- Context: By 2020 (when this was published), the web had been flooded with SEO-optimized content — articles written primarily to rank on Google rather than to inform or delight readers. This is often called "content marketing" or "SEO spam."
- Malik argues that many online writers and companies have forgotten basic human communication: they use jargon, corporate speak, and overly structured formats (like listicles or templated blog posts) to game algorithms, producing soulless text.
- "Write like a human" pushes back against the dominant trend of robotic, metric-driven writing and advocates for voice, personality, and genuine connection with readers — ideas that became more resonant as AI-generated text (e.g., GPT-3's release that same year) began to emerge.