Read Write Web has a good post noting that aggregation is not the issue for Social Media, filtering is. Agree totally, as you can see from earlier posts we wrote here and here for example. In an interesting note RWW notes that in fact some of the newer aggregators actually add to the problem:
With so many different platforms to aggregate, noise levels are surging. An underlying issue in the level of noise is that some of these services were not made to interact with one another. Users of social aggregation tools should understand that what you may consider noise is actually a side-effect of using a social aggregation platform.
Anyway, filtering and how it works is proving to be harder to define that knowing that we need it. RWW notes that:
Filters are rapidly becoming a pertinent issue for developers of social media services. As a result, social aggregation platforms are in the perfect position to lead the pack. While this is no easy task and one that cannot be solved in its entirety, it would help resolve another issue social media users are facing: courtesy.
Instead of being able to freely add whatever service you wish, some users like myself are taking into account what others may consider noise on certain services as a courtesy to members. In essence, you are becoming our own filter. You may refrain from important other services for fear of being labeled as "noisy".
Its an interesting thought, and I can see that members of a community may wish to self manage a commons in this way - but sadly it is the sort of system that is prone to cheating behaviour, spamming for example, so it is likely to break down unless the cost of removing spam is roughly the same as spamming.
No, longer term we believe that filtering has to be a more active system embedded in the knitting of the UI, and must be user set.
For some reason Serendipity (our blogging software) decided to save every update instance as a separate post, so there are now 8 out there. The broadband connection was misbehaving at the time so I suspect this is the cause. I'm leaving them up for now as there are separate comments on different ones and I won't have time to sort it all out before tonight.
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.
Facebook has taken on $100m of debt to buy 50,000 more servers (from TechCrunch)
This is where they get hoist by their own petard of huge amounts of to and fro transactions to do anything on Facebook - great for traffic count in the early days, but it also means scalability is impacted - its at a higher multiple of stuff to serve per user this way.
I don't think they are growing faster than was projected, so unless they were after more money than they got in the last round (c$350m) then clearly transaction per new user are higher than planned. And anyone who has built social network systems will know they scale much more geometrically compared to say a Google anyway, which is a much more linear transaction.
What is also interesting is that they have chosen to take debt, not equity this time round. One can weave all sorts of conjectures around this, right now I'll assume the new COO has worked out this is the cheapest form of funding that / and doesn't put that $15bn valuation under threat.
Spam, luvverly spam (see YouTube below). Or maybe not for very much longer - it would appear users are using the same social networks PR spammers are using to spam people, but to defend themselves. Lifehacker's Gina Trapani has started a PR spammers wiki where people can register PR firms who have spammed them (link courtesy Stowe Boyd)
Spam is intrusive, shotgun-style blasting that usually favors quantity versus quality – meaning, that it doesn’t take into account your interests or preferences.
Bacn (introduced to me by Chris Brogan) stems from the idea that it is better than spam, but not as good as a personal e-mail. Bacn differs from spam in that the emails are not unsolicited: the recipient has somehow signed up to receive it. Bacn is also not necessarily sent in bulk – Wikipedia.
Tofu (new category – suggested name) is email that is sent individually to people who are pre-qualified or identified as being related to, or interested in, a particular category or topic. Or, they have made their email publicly available on their site, thus intentionally or inadvertently inviting contact. I’m not sure what to call it, but the idea for tofu was inspired by the fact that we can almost make it taste like something else, but at the end of the day, it’s still not the real thing.
Maybe different flavours, but still spam methinks.
The solution usually trotted out to get around all this is to have a "conversation" with the customer, build a rusted relationship etc etc. So if everybody says this, why does no one do it uch? Is it lack of training, newbies on the job etc?
Is it heck. This has happened enough times now for lessons to be learned, newbies to be rapped on knuckles, procedures to be designed etc.
No, its to do with the economics of spam. The transaction costs for a spam message are minute compared to a conversation of any stripe, making the cost of any serious conversational campaign of any volume very costly, so there is a sticker shock. Secondly, the payback of any conversational method compared to good old spam are yet to be proven conclusively. Paying a fortune for an unproven approach is not a good way to win friendly clients, who give PR agencies the money to influence people. And for these reasons the PR companies aren't going to stop anytime soon, though they will always point to their newbies and grovel when outed, and/or argue that "the client made me do it"
The obvious thing to do is to raise the transaction cost of sending spam - but that can be hard to do as it entails effort in sorting out a blacklist.
Hence Gina Trapani's cunning plan - essentially she is lowering the cost of raising barriers to spam by using social mdia herself, thus raising the transaction costs of communicating with someone by preventing the cheapest approach, ie spam, which makes the economics of spamming less attractive. And whenever the cost of preventing X approaches the cost of doing X, the "doing X" bit tends to wither away..
Needless to say, PR fanboi's are upset by Gina's elegant system, I love this line:
Well, by publishing it that way, and not providing any safeguard against people maliciously adding to the list with those that are not guilty, she’s just as guilty as those she condemns. Why? Well, she’s just created a vehicle that can harm others. In fact, it is worse. She has not just bothered people with spam, for instance, she’s created a process that may damage one’s reputation unfairly. Talk about Lifehacking. Sheesh!
Sheesh indeed, harming others no less - boot. foot. other. kick. arse.
I love technology arms races, I wonder where this one is going next..... maybe its time to ask the Vikings (see above video....)
Spam, luvverly spam (see YouTube below). Or maybe not for very much longer - it would appear users are using the same social networks PR spammers are using to spam people, but to defend themselves. Lifehacker's Gina Trapani has started a PR spammers wiki where people can register PR firms who have spammed them (link courtesy Stowe Boyd)
Spam is intrusive, shotgun-style blasting that usually favors quantity versus quality – meaning, that it doesn’t take into account your interests or preferences.
Bacn (introduced to me by Chris Brogan) stems from the idea that it is better than spam, but not as good as a personal e-mail. Bacn differs from spam in that the emails are not unsolicited: the recipient has somehow signed up to receive it. Bacn is also not necessarily sent in bulk – Wikipedia.
Tofu (new category – suggested name) is email that is sent individually to people who are pre-qualified or identified as being related to, or interested in, a particular category or topic. Or, they have made their email publicly available on their site, thus intentionally or inadvertently inviting contact. I’m not sure what to call it, but the idea for tofu was inspired by the fact that we can almost make it taste like something else, but at the end of the day, it’s still not the real thing.
Maybe different flavours, but still spam methinks.
The solution usually trotted out to get around all this is to have a "conversation" with the customer, build a rusted relationship etc etc. So if everybody says this, why does no one do it uch? Is it lack of training, newbies on the job etc?
Is it heck. This has happened enough times now for lessons to be learned, newbies to be rapped on knuckles, procedures to be designed etc.
No, its to do with the economics of spam. The transaction costs for a spam message are minute compared to a conversation of any stripe, making the cost of any serious conversational campaign of any volume very costly, so there is a sticker shock. Secondly, the payback of any conversational method compared to good old spam are yet to be proven conclusively. Paying a fortune for an unproven approach is not a good way to win friendly clients, who give PR agencies the money to influence people. And for these reasons the PR companies aren't going to stop anytime soon, though they will always point to their newbies and grovel when outed, and/or argue that "the client made me do it"
The obvious thing to do is to raise the transaction cost of sending spam - but that can be hard to do as it entails effort in sorting out a blacklist.
Hence Gina Trapani's cunning plan - essentially she is lowering the cost of raising barriers to spam by using social mdia herself, thus raising the transaction costs of communicating with someone by preventing the cheapest approach, ie spam, which makes the economics of spamming less attractive. And whenever the cost of preventing X approaches the cost of doing X, the "doing X" bit tends to wither away..
Needless to say, PR fanboi's are upset by Gina's elegant system, I love this line:
Well, by publishing it that way, and not providing any safeguard against people maliciously adding to the list with those that are not guilty, she’s just as guilty as those she condemns. Why? Well, she’s just created a vehicle that can harm others. In fact, it is worse. She has not just bothered people with spam, for instance, she’s created a process that may damage one’s reputation unfairly. Talk about Lifehacking. Sheesh!
Sheesh indeed, harming others no less - boot. foot. other. kick. arse.
I love technology arms races, I wonder where this one is going next..... maybe its time to ask the Vikings (see above video....)
Spam, luvverly spam (see YouTube below). Or maybe not for very much longer - it would appear users are using the same social networks PR spammers are using to spam people, but to defend themselves. Lifehacker's Gina Trapani has started a PR spammers wiki where people can register PR firms who have spammed them (link courtesy Stowe Boyd)
Spam is intrusive, shotgun-style blasting that usually favors quantity versus quality – meaning, that it doesn’t take into account your interests or preferences.
Bacn (introduced to me by Chris Brogan) stems from the idea that it is better than spam, but not as good as a personal e-mail. Bacn differs from spam in that the emails are not unsolicited: the recipient has somehow signed up to receive it. Bacn is also not necessarily sent in bulk – Wikipedia.
Tofu (new category – suggested name) is email that is sent individually to people who are pre-qualified or identified as being related to, or interested in, a particular category or topic. Or, they have made their email publicly available on their site, thus intentionally or inadvertently inviting contact. I’m not sure what to call it, but the idea for tofu was inspired by the fact that we can almost make it taste like something else, but at the end of the day, it’s still not the real thing.
Maybe different flavours, but still spam methinks.
The solution usually trotted out to get around all this is to have a "conversation" with the customer, build a rusted relationship etc etc. So if everybody says this, why does no one do it uch? Is it lack of training, newbies on the job etc?
Is it heck. This has happened enough times now for lessons to be learned, newbies to be rapped on knuckles, procedures to be designed etc.
No, its to do with the economics of spam. The transaction costs for a spam message are minute compared to a conversation of any stripe, making the cost of any serious conversational campaign of any volume very costly, so there is a sticker shock. Secondly, the payback of any conversational method compared to good old spam are yet to be proven conclusively. Paying a fortune for an unproven approach is not a good way to win friendly clients, who give PR agencies the money to influence people. And for these reasons the PR companies aren't going to stop anytime soon, though they will always point to their newbies and grovel when outed, and/or argue that "the client made me do it"
The obvious thing to do is to raise the transaction cost of sending spam - but that can be hard to do as it entails effort in sorting out a blacklist.
Hence Gina Trapani's cunning plan - essentially she is lowering the cost of raising barriers to spam by using social mdia herself, thus raising the transaction costs of communicating with someone by preventing the cheapest approach, ie spam, which makes the economics of spamming less attractive. And whenever the cost of preventing X approaches the cost of doing X, the "doing X" bit tends to wither away..
Needless to say, PR fanboi's are upset by Gina's elegant system, I love this line:
Well, by publishing it that way, and not providing any safeguard against people maliciously adding to the list with those that are not guilty, she’s just as guilty as those she condemns. Why? Well, she’s just created a vehicle that can harm others. In fact, it is worse. She has not just bothered people with spam, for instance, she’s created a process that may damage one’s reputation unfairly. Talk about Lifehacking. Sheesh!
Sheesh indeed, harming others no less - boot. foot. other. kick. arse.
I love technology arms races, I wonder where this one is going next..... maybe its time to ask the Vikings (see above video....)
Spam, luvverly spam (see YouTube below). Or maybe not for very much longer - it would appear users are using the same social networks PR spammers are using to spam people, but to defend themselves. Lifehacker's Gina Trapani has started a PR spammers wiki where people can register PR firms who have spammed them (link courtesy Stowe Boyd)
Spam is intrusive, shotgun-style blasting that usually favors quantity versus quality – meaning, that it doesn’t take into account your interests or preferences.
Bacn (introduced to me by Chris Brogan) stems from the idea that it is better than spam, but not as good as a personal e-mail. Bacn differs from spam in that the emails are not unsolicited: the recipient has somehow signed up to receive it. Bacn is also not necessarily sent in bulk – Wikipedia.
Tofu (new category – suggested name) is email that is sent individually to people who are pre-qualified or identified as being related to, or interested in, a particular category or topic. Or, they have made their email publicly available on their site, thus intentionally or inadvertently inviting contact. I’m not sure what to call it, but the idea for tofu was inspired by the fact that we can almost make it taste like something else, but at the end of the day, it’s still not the real thing.
Maybe different flavours, but still spam methinks.
The solution usually trotted out to get around all this is to have a "conversation" with the customer, build a rusted relationship etc etc. So if everybody says this, why does no one do it uch? Is it lack of training, newbies on the job etc?
Is it heck. This has happened enough times now for lessons to be learned, newbies to be rapped on knuckles, procedures to be designed etc.
No, its to do with the economics of spam. The transaction costs for a spam message are minute compared to a conversation of any stripe, making the cost of any serious conversational campaign of any volume very costly, so there is a sticker shock. Secondly, the payback of any conversational method compared to good old spam are yet to be proven conclusively. Paying a fortune for an unproven approach is not a good way to win friendly clients, who give PR agencies the money to influence people. And for these reasons the PR companies aren't going to stop anytime soon, though they will always point to their newbies and grovel when outed, and/or argue that "the client made me do it"
The obvious thing to do is to raise the transaction cost of sending spam - but that can be hard to do as it entails effort in sorting out a blacklist.
Hence Gina Trapani's cunning plan - essentially she is lowering the cost of raising barriers to spam by using social mdia herself, thus raising the transaction costs of communicating with someone by preventing the cheapest approach, ie spam, which makes the economics of spamming less attractive. And whenever the cost of preventing X approaches the cost of doing X, the "doing X" bit tends to wither away..
Needless to say, PR fanboi's are upset by Gina's elegant system, I love this line:
Well, by publishing it that way, and not providing any safeguard against people maliciously adding to the list with those that are not guilty, she’s just as guilty as those she condemns. Why? Well, she’s just created a vehicle that can harm others. In fact, it is worse. She has not just bothered people with spam, for instance, she’s created a process that may damage one’s reputation unfairly. Talk about Lifehacking. Sheesh!
Sheesh indeed, harming others no less - boot. foot. other. kick. arse.
I love technology arms races, I wonder where this one is going next..... maybe its time to ask the Vikings (see above video....)
Spam, luvverly spam (see YouTube below). Or maybe not for very much longer - it would appear users are using the same social networks PR spammers are using to spam people, but to defend themselves. Lifehacker's Gina Trapani has started a PR spammers wiki where people can register PR firms who have spammed them (link courtesy Stowe Boyd)
Spam is intrusive, shotgun-style blasting that usually favors quantity versus quality – meaning, that it doesn’t take into account your interests or preferences.
Bacn (introduced to me by Chris Brogan) stems from the idea that it is better than spam, but not as good as a personal e-mail. Bacn differs from spam in that the emails are not unsolicited: the recipient has somehow signed up to receive it. Bacn is also not necessarily sent in bulk – Wikipedia.
Tofu (new category – suggested name) is email that is sent individually to people who are pre-qualified or identified as being related to, or interested in, a particular category or topic. Or, they have made their email publicly available on their site, thus intentionally or inadvertently inviting contact. I’m not sure what to call it, but the idea for tofu was inspired by the fact that we can almost make it taste like something else, but at the end of the day, it’s still not the real thing.
Maybe different flavours, but still spam methinks.
The solution usually trotted out to get around all this is to have a "conversation" with the customer, build a rusted relationship etc etc. So if everybody says this, why does no one do it uch? Is it lack of training, newbies on the job etc?
Is it heck. This has happened enough times now for lessons to be learned, newbies to be rapped on knuckles, procedures to be designed etc.
No, its to do with the economics of spam. The transaction costs for a spam message are minute compared to a conversation of any stripe, making the cost of any serious conversational campaign of any volume very costly, so there is a sticker shock. Secondly, the payback of any conversational method compared to good old spam are yet to be proven conclusively. Paying a fortune for an unproven approach is not a good way to win friendly clients, who give PR agencies the money to influence people. And for these reasons the PR companies aren't going to stop anytime soon, though they will always point to their newbies and grovel when outed, and/or argue that "the client made me do it"
The obvious thing to do is to raise the transaction cost of sending spam - but that can be hard to do as it entails effort in sorting out a blacklist.
Hence Gina Trapani's cunning plan - essentially she is lowering the cost of raising barriers to spam by using social mdia herself, thus raising the transaction costs of communicating with someone by preventing the cheapest approach, ie spam, which makes the economics of spamming less attractive. And whenever the cost of preventing X approaches the cost of doing X, the "doing X" bit tends to wither away..
Needless to say, PR fanboi's are upset by Gina's elegant system, I love this line:
Well, by publishing it that way, and not providing any safeguard against people maliciously adding to the list with those that are not guilty, she’s just as guilty as those she condemns. Why? Well, she’s just created a vehicle that can harm others. In fact, it is worse. She has not just bothered people with spam, for instance, she’s created a process that may damage one’s reputation unfairly. Talk about Lifehacking. Sheesh!
Sheesh indeed, harming others no less - boot. foot. other. kick. arse.
I love technology arms races, I wonder where this one is going next.....
Spam, luvverly spam (see YouTube below). Or maybe not for very much longer - it would appear users are using the same social networks PR spammers are using to spam people, but to defend themselves. Lifehacker's Gina Trapani has started a PR spammers wiki where people can register PR firms who have spammed them (link courtesy Stowe Boyd)
Spam is intrusive, shotgun-style blasting that usually favors quantity versus quality – meaning, that it doesn’t take into account your interests or preferences.
Bacn (introduced to me by Chris Brogan) stems from the idea that it is better than spam, but not as good as a personal e-mail. Bacn differs from spam in that the emails are not unsolicited: the recipient has somehow signed up to receive it. Bacn is also not necessarily sent in bulk – Wikipedia.
Tofu (new category – suggested name) is email that is sent individually to people who are pre-qualified or identified as being related to, or interested in, a particular category or topic. Or, they have made their email publicly available on their site, thus intentionally or inadvertently inviting contact. I’m not sure what to call it, but the idea for tofu was inspired by the fact that we can almost make it taste like something else, but at the end of the day, it’s still not the real thing.
Maybe different flavours, but still spam methinks.
The solution usually trotted out to get around all this is to have a "conversation" with the customer, build a rusted relationship etc etc. So if everybody says this, why does no one do it uch? Is it lack of training, newbies on the job etc?
Is it heck. This has happened enough times now for lessons to be learned, newbies to be rapped on knuckles, procedures to be designed etc.
No, its to do with the economics of spam. The transaction costs for a spam message are minute compared to a conversation of any stripe, making the cost of any serious conversational campaign of any volume very costly, so there is a sticker shock. Secondly, the payback of any conversational method compared to good old spam are yet to be proven conclusively. Paying a fortune for an unproven approach is not a good way to win friendly clients, who give PR agencies the money to influence people. And for these reasons the PR companies aren't going to stop anytime soon, though they will always point to their newbies and grovel when outed, and/or argue that "the client made me do it"
The obvious thing to do is to raise the transaction cost of sending spam - but that can be hard to do as it entails effort in sorting out a blacklist.
Hence Gina Trapani's cunning plan - essentially she is lowering the cost of raising barriers to spam by using social mdia herself, thus raising the transaction costs of communicating with someone by preventing the cheapest approach, ie spam, which makes the economics of spamming less attractive. And whenever the cost of preventing X approaches the cost of doing X, the "doing X" bit tends to wither away..
Needless to say, PR fanboi's are upset by Gina's elegant system, I love this line:
Well, by publishing it that way, and not providing any safeguard against people maliciously adding to the list with those that are not guilty, she’s just as guilty as those she condemns. Why? Well, she’s just created a vehicle that can harm others. In fact, it is worse. She has not just bothered people with spam, for instance, she’s created a process that may damage one’s reputation unfairly. Talk about Lifehacking. Sheesh!
Sheesh indeed, harming others no less - boot. foot. other. kick. arse.
I love technology arms races, I wonder where this one is going next..... maybe its time to ask the Vikings (see above video....)
.
