Spam owns my physical mailbox, but not my digital inbox and social world.
I think about spam all the time and have been wanting to write a detailed post about my thoughts.
This tremendous slideshow that Fred Wilson posted from David Gillespie got me thinking and writing:
Am I spamming, are my businesses spamming?
Are my kids getting spammed and with what?
My son Max is for some reason excited to get our mail. The main reason was he was waiting for his Bank of America debit card (which came late and you know the rest of that story). He reads out all the companies names and I tell him to throw them all away. He now knows JUNK MAIL.
Max was excited to get text messages on his new phone too, even though he had one friend that knew his number. He quickly discovered that the vibrating his phone was making was from spammers, but I wish I could remember what he called them the first time I asked him why he was not running anymore to his vibrating phone.
Obviously we have a spam problem in the country and it’s two fold:
1. Corporate America
2. We are Lazy
Corporate America blitzkriegs us in every battle and are blowing us away in the war. They have the money and they have the lobbyists. One recent example is Experians’s legal victory over Lifelock, preventing Lifelock from placing fraud alerts on your behalf.
As Todd Davis (CEO of Lifelock, sums it up) ‘We can now continue our mission of helping to protect consumers and their data, while Experian continues to make millions of dollars yearly by selling personal data.’
Experian’s main business is selling your personal information. They have an oligopoly with Trans Union and a few other companies and banks on the FICA credit score they created and than use it to sell your data everywhere.
I concede. You win. Congratulations corporate America. You own my mailbox. Mail IS Spam and I just throw out everything.
What’s funny about this is the government loses as I shred their mail and I shred their photo radar tockets along with the other spam in my physical mailbox.
I refuse to let them win my attention though and technology will win out.
GMail has done an outstanding job for me filtering out spam. Technology is winning.
But Technology can’t do it all, you must be active.
At Stocktwits we battle the financial spammers all the time. In my opinion it just makes our business stronger as we learn and develop our own secret sauce.
In my personal use of the social web, I am vigilant with a discovery process and filtering process. It keeps the spammers at bay. If you are not lazy, you can too.
In other words, quit complaining about spam and take action.
>>At Stocktwits we battle the financial spammers all the time. In my opinion it just makes our business >>stronger as we learn and develop our own secret sauce.
i think its one of our biggest comp advantages
you da man
All marketing is spam. If you are interested in the product, you perceive it as helpful. If you are not, it’s spam.
Those who love StockTwits don’t mind @StockTwits promoting your network, events, and products. To others, it’s spam. Plain and simple.
Unfollow tweeters you don’t care for. Blacklist domains and senders who spam your email. Done.
Nice slideshow. Smart people are funny. 250+ slides to say things with intentional meaning are superior to those without. Successful companies have always provided things people NEED. We need meaning. If you don’t intend to give your customer something meaningful, you will not last long.
The ultimate goal is to give people what they NEED and for the platforms, brands, and businesses to be as invisible as possible OR make the person feel like the brand is a symbol of themself. This has always been the case and will be no matter whether it’s on the internet or an ESP grid in the future.
And, “freemium” is just a cool witty convenient term for something salespeople have been doing forever: bait (with free, giveaways, treats, prizes, etc.) and switch (to the for-profit product). Again, nothing new here. Just different forms. But this is what keeps academics in business …
Maybe but my post was awesome :)
“Name” – appreciate your thoughts. And for saying I was smart, I wish my high school teachers could see! ;]
I would suggest the ultimate goal is not to give people anything, except for an easier way to spread their own message. It is entirely unquantifiable, but I would love to know how many people with no prior experience just had a stab at recording some music because of how easy it was to use Garage Band.
At the end of the day, I don’t think you should aim to give your customer something meaningful, you should create an environment where they can give something meaningful to you. To use the Apple/Microsoft example, MS is launching a campaign for Win7 based around having listened to its users, whereas I believe it is arguable Apple’s platform tries to facilitate being able to listen to each other. A subtle but crucial difference.
Now, off to find a cushy job in a Think Tank!
(Written, for the record, on a PC. With a Mac to my left.)
Thanks for the thoughts. How might this apply to architects or service related businesses.
I would never profess to know nearly enough about the architecture business to have a unique insight there. What I can say is any process that can be automated or done in a cheaper fashion will continue to see shift out of the hands of skilled workers, ideally leaving them free to do the thing that cannot be automated: create.
I’m not actually a career advertising guy (thank God) having spent most of my life in start-ups. A few years back I ran product development for an Australian company called MyVirtualHome (http://myvirtualhome.com.au). We took what we knew about making video games (another story) and applied it to home design software, the idea being that every day users could create their own homes in 30 minutes or so in incredible detail, then use it to test out different kinds of lighting, paint colours, or see if the new couch from Ikea would fit where they wanted it to go before they bought it.
The rendering side of it pissed off some folk in the Auto-CAD industry who are very expensive to use. What we enabled though was for people to express themselves via this software and bring their own vision for their home to life. Which is a roundabout way of saying I imagine there’ll be a general move towards democratization of almost any process that has previously been the domain of a chosen few.
>>At Stocktwits we battle the financial spammers all the time. In my opinion it just makes our business >>stronger as we learn and develop our own secret sauce.
i think its one of our biggest comp advantages
you da man
All marketing is spam. If you are interested in the product, you perceive it as helpful. If you are not, it's spam.
Those who love StockTwits don't mind @StockTwits promoting your network, events, and products. To others, it's spam. Plain and simple.
Unfollow tweeters you don't care for. Blacklist domains and senders who spam your email. Done.
Nice slideshow. Smart people are funny. 250+ slides to say things with intentional meaning are superior to those without. Successful companies have always provided things people NEED. We need meaning. If you don't intend to give your customer something meaningful, you will not last long.
The ultimate goal is to give people what they NEED and for the platforms, brands, and businesses to be as invisible as possible OR make the person feel like the brand is a symbol of themself. This has always been the case and will be no matter whether it's on the internet or an ESP grid in the future.
And, “freemium” is just a cool witty convenient term for something salespeople have been doing forever: bait (with free, giveaways, treats, prizes, etc.) and switch (to the for-profit product). Again, nothing new here. Just different forms. But this is what keeps academics in business …
Maybe but my post was awesome :)
Agree across the board. I love to report spam and unsubscribe from junk mail/calling lists every chance I get.
Well, Howard, if personal relevance is the difference between spam and valuable messages, this blog was becoming RSS spam in my reader, but this post definitely got my attention. To me, there is a pretty big difference between the Experians of the world and the local real estate agent using the post office’s admail service to send out a flyer s/he hopes will catch the attention of a few potential clients, but I do agree with you that it’s getting harder to tell the difference, and that it is indeed due to lax information collection policies, both on the part of the corporation and the consumer.
Well, Howard, if personal relevance is the difference between spam and valuable messages, this blog was becoming RSS spam in my reader, but this post definitely got my attention. To me, there is a pretty big difference between the Experians of the world and the local real estate agent using the post office's admail service to send out a flyer s/he hopes will catch the attention of a few potential clients, but I do agree with you that it's getting harder to tell the difference, and that it is indeed due to lax information collection policies, both on the part of the corporation and the consumer.
I think there is another correlary to that quote. Media becomes interesting when it become technologically boring, but indeed, when the technology shifts, that form of social media begins to DIE and it DIES QUICKLY. Kindle seems to be the latest version of this. I was going to buy one of those Acer wireless notepads, until I found out that I could shove 1500 books into a Kindle AND get the print addition of the Wall Street Journal at the same time. Not only that, but Kindle will allow me to load it BACK to my PC to read.
Result..goodbye Acer notepad. Twitter, Google, Facebook people, wake up. I am already becoming annoyed at a spamming incident that may force me OFF of your service if I do not see correlary content improvement. All the information-hungry folk like me want is QUICK ACCESS. not frilly bells and whistles.
In the economy where 17% of people are not working. IPhones, notepads, and other luxuries could become dust. Get me the FAST CONTENT that I WANT, or you will meet the dustbin of history. If you do not understand this, your heads are up someplace I do not want to mention.
Twitter has already made me angry because of spamming and I am seriously reconsidering my use of it. I will not STOP my use of it, but I will only use it when it provides me with an informational advantage (and in a non-trading context, a marketing advantage related to true social contact) a marketing advantage. Other than that, I am going to limit my use of it and I mean really limit it severely.
Realize that 30% of the public believes Twitter is nothing more than a fad. If it becomes inconvenienced by digial sewage (spam and the like), that percentage number will only grow.
I will get over my current anger over spam and the inability to manage streams, but if it gets in the way of doing my business, I can surely live without it. The survey data I read seems to more than confirm that.
Social media people better wake up to that fact, or they will be on their bums when the next technological CAT 5 hurricane blows through.
Google needs to realize that too, or they might become the next Mister Softee.
(And with regard to filtering, I do not make money FILTERING, I make money trading and investing. If filtering is not made easier, once again, I will do a global form of filtering and stop using the service altogether.) I will not waste time going through a ton of contacts when I can only get rid of one at a time (ever heard of INDEXING, TWITTER?)
Twitter and I have had a bad couple of months, and this topic is quite apropos. Sorry for the rant :).
you are welcome here anytinme to write indepth thoughts. thx
i do belive your concerns are pretty spot on…its frightening
I think there is another correlary to that quote. Media becomes interesting when it become technologically boring, but indeed, when the technology shifts, that form of social media begins to DIE and it DIES QUICKLY. Kindle seems to be the latest version of this. I was going to buy one of those Acer wireless notepads, until I found out that I could shove 1500 books into a Kindle AND get the print addition of the Wall Street Journal at the same time. Not only that, but Kindle will allow me to load it BACK to my PC to read.
Result..goodbye Acer notepad. Twitter, Google, Facebook people, wake up. I am already becoming annoyed at a spamming incident that may force me OFF of your service if I do not see correlary content improvement. All the information-hungry folk like me want is QUICK ACCESS. not frilly bells and whistles.
In the economy where 17% of people are not working. IPhones, notepads, and other luxuries could become dust. Get me the FAST CONTENT that I WANT, or you will meet the dustbin of history. If you do not understand this, your heads are up someplace I do not want to mention.
Twitter has already made me angry because of spamming and I am seriously reconsidering my use of it. I will not STOP my use of it, but I will only use it when it provides me with an informational advantage (and in a non-trading context, a marketing advantage related to true social contact) a marketing advantage. Other than that, I am going to limit my use of it and I mean really limit it severely.
Realize that 30% of the public believes Twitter is nothing more than a fad. If it becomes inconvenienced by digial sewage (spam and the like), that percentage number will only grow.
I will get over my current anger over spam and the inability to manage streams, but if it gets in the way of doing my business, I can surely live without it. The survey data I read seems to more than confirm that.
Social media people better wake up to that fact, or they will be on their bums when the next technological CAT 5 hurricane blows through.
Google needs to realize that too, or they might become the next Mister Softee.
(And with regard to filtering, I do not make money FILTERING, I make money trading and investing. If filtering is not made easier, once again, I will do a global form of filtering and stop using the service altogether.) I will not waste time going through a ton of contacts when I can only get rid of one at a time (ever heard of INDEXING, TWITTER?)
Twitter and I have had a bad couple of months, and this topic is quite apropos. Sorry for the rant :).
you are welcome here anytinme to write indepth thoughts. thx
i do belive your concerns are pretty spot on…its frightening
Agree across the board. I love to report spam and unsubscribe from junk mail/calling lists every chance I get.
Howard, thank you so much for spending some of your Sunday on Digital Strangelove, and for the thoughts shared here. It’s so true, and admittedly something I hadn’t really considered, that with the leap forward in tools that can help people express themselves (almost wholly a positive step), so too is there a leap forward in the tools that people can use to hijack our attention; I think there are few things more annoying than being fooled into paying attention, be it to a person, an email, a website, whatever.
I still do not know about Facebook long term, but one thing I will say is I enjoy being able to go to that inbox and not have to worry about whether or not the content is from a trusted source. For you, waging battle every day on an open service like Twitter must make you pull your hair out in frustration, but if I may reference the same post of Tim O’Reilly’s that spawned create more value than you capture, his first principle (that quote was the second) was “Work on stuff that matters.”
You do that every day, so my hat is off to you.
the spam in the financial industry is more sophisticated and dangerous than
any other…
Facebook is still the one social product that addds little value for me and
the stocktwits community and am racking my brain as to why, but one day
will hopefully fully understand it
Agreed about TRUST – This social media stuff is not about web 3.0 or 4.0. It is about the fact that we want to do things in the easiest way – with confidence – that is, we trust what other people [in our network] have told us.
the spam in the financial industry is more sophisticated and dangerous than
any other…
Facebook is still the one social product that addds little value for me and
the stocktwits community and am racking my brain as to why, but one day
will hopefully fully understand it
Howard, thank you so much for spending some of your Sunday on Digital Strangelove, and for the thoughts shared here. It's so true, and admittedly something I hadn't really considered, that with the leap forward in tools that can help people express themselves (almost wholly a positive step), so too is there a leap forward in the tools that people can use to hijack our attention; I think there are few things more annoying than being fooled into paying attention, be it to a person, an email, a website, whatever.
I still do not know about Facebook long term, but one thing I will say is I enjoy being able to go to that inbox and not have to worry about whether or not the content is from a trusted source. For you, waging battle every day on an open service like Twitter must make you pull your hair out in frustration, but if I may reference the same post of Tim O'Reilly's that spawned create more value than you capture, his first principle (that quote was the second) was “Work on stuff that matters.”
You do that every day, so my hat is off to you.
“Name” – appreciate your thoughts. And for saying I was smart, I wish my high school teachers could see! ;]
I would suggest the ultimate goal is not to give people anything, except for an easier way to spread their own message. It is entirely unquantifiable, but I would love to know how many people with no prior experience just had a stab at recording some music because of how easy it was to use Garage Band.
At the end of the day, I don't think you should aim to give your customer something meaningful, you should create an environment where they can give something meaningful to you. To use the Apple/Microsoft example, MS is launching a campaign for Win7 based around having listened to its users, whereas I believe it is arguable Apple's platform tries to facilitate being able to listen to each other. A subtle but crucial difference.
Now, off to find a cushy job in a Think Tank!
(Written, for the record, on a PC. With a Mac to my left.)
Thanks for the thoughts. How might this apply to architects or service related businesses.
Agreed about TRUST – This social media stuff is not about web 3.0 or 4.0. It is about the fact that we want to do things in the easiest way – with confidence – that is, we trust what other people [in our network] have told us.
I would never profess to know nearly enough about the architecture business to have a unique insight there. What I can say is any process that can be automated or done in a cheaper fashion will continue to see shift out of the hands of skilled workers, ideally leaving them free to do the thing that cannot be automated: create.
I'm not actually a career advertising guy (thank God) having spent most of my life in start-ups. A few years back I ran product development for an Australian company called MyVirtualHome (http://myvirtualhome.com.au). We took what we knew about making video games (another story) and applied it to home design software, the idea being that every day users could create their own homes in 30 minutes or so in incredible detail, then use it to test out different kinds of lighting, paint colours, or see if the new couch from Ikea would fit where they wanted it to go before they bought it.
The rendering side of it pissed off some folk in the Auto-CAD industry who are very expensive to use. What we enabled though was for people to express themselves via this software and bring their own vision for their home to life. Which is a roundabout way of saying I imagine there'll be a general move towards democratization of almost any process that has previously been the domain of a chosen few.
all advertising is spam …
advertising is hated more than most in the industry know …
this has implications for business models based on it …
all advertising is spam …
advertising is hated more than most in the industry know …
this has implications for business models based on it …
all advertising is spam …
advertising is hated more than most in the industry know …
this has implications for business models based on it …