Samuel W. Heywood wrote:
>> The implications of spam (which I'll define as unwanted content) in our
>> Inbox, search engine results and pages we visit should have us all on
>> our guard.
> Hello Jake:
> I generally agree with all of the above, but I disagree on the way you
> have defined spam. "Unwanted content" could consist of postings on a
> mailing list concerning topics that are not of any particular interest
> to you, or it could consist of opinions that are in disagreement with
> your own. <snipped>
-- Being less fuzzy, I suppose "unwanted content at any particular time"
says what I mean without necessitating the drafting of a full set of
Terms & Conditions <g>. It also includes mail from known senders who
I wouldn't accuse of being spammers, and allows for spam to be raised
to to the level of `useful information source' on some occasions.
I see it as all part of our information handling - a basis for our
species' survival. We can over-specialize at the risk of being wiped
out by one virus; or we can have a range of interests, a balanced diet
etc., and the ability to spot opportunities and make the most of them.
To do the latter could now include sifting through spam.
I'm reminded of a very good insurance policy I was sold by a door-to-door
salesman. When asked for further leads, I suggested he visit a friend who
would have a list of members' addresses from our cycling club. It led to
a lot of bad feeling from some of those who received unannounced visits.
I myself would normally not want such a visit, but the product was
appropriate and of good value. The angry members should've realized that
some useful information had been pre-digested for them.
In my Inbox(es) I rarely get spam, but do get an amount of opt-in
advertising bumph. It mainly pays for "free" web services, some of which
carry no advertising. Very occasionally the content of these mails is of
value to me. A far higher proportion of banner ads have been of value,
but these usually lead to to websites paid for by yet more advertising.
TV advertising has virtually no effect on me!
I also receive bulky mail which can fall into the "unwanted at a particular
time" category. The content may be of value, but short life, and I don't
have time to digest and act on it.
Then there are requests for information etc. The "prisoner's dilemma" - you
try and convert these into a win:win outcome.
The most annoying to me are the large files from a 32-bit Windows environment
- I won't run them or view them as intended. Instead of following a simple
to complex option path e.g. sending a simple mail outlining a progression
of options, they'll instead dump a 5MB PDF file or whatever.
When submitting pages to search engines there are warnings against spamming.
I choose to take this to also include using the same <META> tags for all
pages onsite. Repeating <META> keywords will result in multiple hits from
the same site for a particular search. There are also commercial influences
in the delivery of search results and getting listed in the first place with
some engines.
When we arrive at the website we may be faced with pop-up windows etc to
distract our aim from the information we seek. Any advertising should be
carefully designed not to disrupt our primary purpose - that just leads
to the adoption of means to defeat it. The advertising should be targetted,
truthfull and informative - leading to greater success all round. There's
no point in an all-singing, all-dancing, bandwidth-hogging advert that is
aborted before the download is completed and takes a European to, say, a
US credit rating service. Cookies may be harvested and then Geocites or
some other bunch may change their Terms and sell information about us.
We need to be on our guard because the advertising-supported sites may not
be able to continue much longer. Most of the advertising revenue will migrate
to Yahoo and a few others.
My apologies for wasting anyone's time,
Jake
You may safely disregard the following viral marketing message. You have
already digested the information and most probably acted upon it, of your
own volition.
-- the World on a floppy --
-- Arachne V1.64, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
