Taking Flack from the Spamalot Caste

Rick Calvert responded to my earlier post on Spam where I looked at "Bacn" and "Tofu" and concluded that they were:

"Maybe different flavours, but still spam methinks."

I found Rick's post (and his blog post over here) very good in that they are reasoned and to the point, even though we disagree:

You think wrong. To demonstrate lets compare emails that you get at work. Lets use a clothing store for example.

The first email is for viagra. Thats spam.

The next is from a new clothing line you have never heard of asking if you would be interested in carrying their line in your store. You check out the email and think their style is crap. You would never carry it in your store.

You aren't interested but that's not spam. You are a qualified lead and it is your job to read emails like that.

Same difference for a journalist (and some bloggers who consider themselves to be some variation of a journalist) to get pitches for stories that are relevant to the topics they cover on their blog.

Now if you got those same two email examples given above at your personal email address then both would qualify as spam.

I understand that distinction that some bloggers view their site more as a personal endeavor than a business but you have to realize a casual reader of your blog (some PR flack) may not be able to tell the difference. You have to admit it is on the internet for the world to read. So you just might get some unwanted emails, even a stalker or two.

Make sense?

Sorry for not being more diplomatic. It's late.

Firstly, no worries about bluntness, its totally appreciated and I wish there was more of it, especially if the argument is reasoned like yours is, Rick .

Secondly, I take your point on board re the very honest endeavours of trying to inform a business re new stuff that is relevant in a business sense.

The issue with spam though, and the reason - as Stow Boyd originally noted , that there is now quite a kickback starting - is that:

(i) It is (ab)used for more than the reasonable purposes you describe above, and because of sheer volume and information assymetry its harder and harder to tell good from bad. We've all seen the new messages come in from NewGuy@PRCo.com when we checked the "don't send" box from OldGuy@PRCo.com, or the PR messages from Joe.randomletterstoconfuseyourspamcatcher@Flack.com - ie this is a deliberate attempt to subvert the polite "no thank you" we start off with

(ii) Because social media allows us to now kick back, as Gina Trapani showed, at a far lower transaction cost than before - in fact at the sort of cost that matches the cost of spamming.

In other words, like it or not, we are in an arms race. And the thing about social media is there are a lot of brains out there willing to fight it.

I think the argument that it is in some way my"job" to read material sent to me is incorrect - I know of no society (in western culture certainly) that rewards behaviour where people intrude uninvited to impose their agendas. The issue I see is that this desired behaviour is countercultural, and the only reason that PR countenances this behaviour and tells me I should go along with it is that they want to make money out of me?

From self interest alone the game theory is against the Flack from Day One.

What would I do if I were a PR Co? I think firstly accept that the arms race is real now, and its probably a Pyrrhic victory at best if you win. Secondly, I think it comes to the point I made above about Information Asymmetry - you need some way to prove that you are the genuine article, so that I consensually agree to let you through my door.