Eccentric Flower:201002/Dialogue With a Spammer
From Eccentric Flower
«February 2010 «Eccentric Flower
Dialogue With a Spammer
Recently, as I write this, I began playing the game Star Trek Online. This game is unique, in my personal experience of online games (which has been extensive, long, and varied) in that it had spammers before it officially opened its doors.
When I go into the game, I must delete four to five spam messages from my in-game mailbox; then, in some areas, I must report/ignore two or three of them in chat. Every day.
What are the spammers selling? Services where you can pay real money to buy in-game virtual money. This is particularly ridiculous in the Star Trek Online universe, where in-game money is not nearly as useful as it is in other online games. You cannot buy your way to the top with money in this game. And yet, the spammers persist. They do so because it is an extremely cheap investment. If one person in a thousand takes their bait, they have made a profit. This is the same principle behind e-mail spam.
Star Trek Online is unique in how fast the spammers got to it. But I don't think it will remain unique in that respect.
Once upon a time I liked advertising. I even wrote about it. But the problem is, that sort of advertising is gone. Television advertising is dying, as television itself is (in the conventional sense). Television will evolve into some sort of demand medium even if it has to be dragged there kicking and screaming; but no one demands ads except maybe those weird people who watch shopping channels.
Print ads? Print is dead, hadn't you heard? Certainly the part of print that is heavily advertising-funded is dying.
Website advertising doesn't work. The reasons why are too complex to list here, but trust me, it doesn't.
With advertising, there are two issues at stake. The first is the profitability issue. The second is the publicity issue.
The profitability issue applies when you have a publication or entity that is attempting to make back some or all of its operating expenses by selling advertising. All of these people are screwed. They may not know it yet, but they are.
This has been a formal prophecy. Bets will be settled in 2030, I should live so long. By then I think you will find that all formerly advertising-dependent entities in electronic media (print media will be gone by then, of course) will have either adopted a subscription system or some other pay-for-content plan, or will make their money from selling related merchandise or other side services/enhancements, the way that at least one web comic I know of makes a living from selling T-shirts.
The publicity issue is about people being made aware that a product or service exists. Strangely, this sort of informational purpose for advertising has been the one that many of my peers are more tolerant of, of the two; but it has always been the one which I am less tolerant of. Advertising to pay the bills? Fine, especially if you make the ads clever. Necessary evil. But my policy on ads just to announce the presence of something has always been low, and in recent years it has gone to zero.
About the time I reach this point in this line of thought, an imaginary advertiser pops up in my head, sort of leering at me with a half grin. My first impulse is to hit him in the face. But instead I say:
Me: "Stop cluttering my social media with advertising."
Advertiser: "But if I don't do that, how am I going to reach you? You don't watch TV. You're on the computer fourteen hours a day. If I don't get to you through the web pages you see, I'm not going to get to you at all."
Me: "That's correct."
Advertiser: "So you want me to go out of business because I can't reach any potential customers."
Me: "If necessary, yes."
Despite knowing many marketing and sales people who have tried to disabuse me of this notion over the years, I am unrepentant: I do not want to be told about new products. (By marketers. I am reasonably tolerant of being told about them by my friends.) If I were running the universe, all information about new products and services would be "pull" information - I'm looking for a new car, I'm going to go out and see what's there.
Advertiser: "But most people don't do that! Even you don't do that nearly as often as you say you do. I'll go broke."
Me: "Tough. To my mind that means there's not enough natural demand for what you're peddling and that you shouldn't have existed in the first place."
Advertiser: "Most Americans would not agree with you on that, you know."
Me: "Most Americans are wasteful over-consuming pigs. Do not try to hit me with the 'most Americans' card. If we use 'most Americans' as any sort of defining example, we are in dire straits indeed."
Advertiser: "You're hopeless."
Me: "OK, I tell you what. Advertise to the people who want it. But stay out of my way. Make all advertising opt-in."
Advertiser: "But that's just the same problem over again! No one is going to check a box saying, 'Oh, please send me more ads!'"
Me: "Well, first off, I think you'd be surprised. And second, if nobody does check that box, doesn't that tell you something about how people feel about your advertising? Why are you pushing things on them they so much don't want that you feel you have to con them into it?"
Advertiser: "You're talking about the collapse of society! You want to bring us back to the days when 'sales' meant going door-to-door with a sample kit and being happy to move a few thousand units a year."
Me: "That sounds pretty good. Except that I can't abide door-to-door salesmen and I like to slam doors in their faces. I also hang up on sales calls (and only a potential liability suit prevents me from doing something like blowing an air horn through the phone at them), and I don't like being approached by anyone - charitable donation, sales pitch, anything - on the street."
Advertiser: "So what you're saying is, I should just give up now and kill myself."
Me: "No. I'm saying make a good product, but keep your manufacturing capacities and your goals modest. Sell one or two to the people who are willing to go out and look for it, like me. Gradually, the idea that you make something of quality will spread through word of mouth and will sustain you modestly. You may not get filthy rich, but then, I don't approve of getting filthy rich."
Advertiser: "Right. And while I'm doing that, some asshole will come along and make a cheap knockoff of my product and spend most of the money they've saved on production on advertising, and they'll move ten thousand times as much as I do, and I'll be out of business."
Me: "Hm. Sounds like you're in a corrupt and decrepit industry. Have you considered becoming a monk?"
Advertiser: "I give up. I'm going off to conduct straw man arguments with someone sane."
Me: "Good luck and best wishes."
Zero tolerance.
There is, of course, not a lot I can actually do about you if you try to market to me. In a perfect world I would have superhuman powers and when you sent spam mails to my mailbox, or followed me on Twitter in hopes I would notice and read your salescrap, I would be able to locate you at a great distance and telekinetically send you some particularly nasty autoimmune disease. Alas, I can't do that, and if I could, I'd probably be too ethical to. But I can block you and report you when such options exist - and those options are increasing.
See, the evidence suggests that I'm not the only person who is getting more intolerant of this stuff. Even the people who like ads in their electronic media more than I do want to be able to choose what ads they see, and keep them out of the places they don't want to see ads. Since demand advertising is a failed concept from the get-go, it's difficult to see how this can be made workable - but the basic intolerance, blessedly, persists and (I hope) will only grow stronger.
In the future I hope not only to see more options everywhere for blocking, reporting, and/or intimidating advertisers, but also I hope that as the importance and prevalence of electronic media grows, the power of bad buzz will increase proportionately. The only real power we, as consumers have in this case is to talk trash about companies who advertise inappropriately. (Refusing to buy their stuff, of course, would also be good.) I'm hoping this will become more and more important as we switch to more and more electronic media.
I figure he who lives by the electronic sword can die by it. But I may be being overly optimistic.
I dispute the proposition that the vast majority of people on Twitter are in marketing. And if they are, then they should be thrown off. It's a social tool, not a marketing tool, and I think you've had a foot in that world so long that the lines have begun to blur for you, which is exactly the sort of insidious thought that leads to our world being a worse and more annoying place.
There's plenty of marketing I approve of. Targeted sales are always fine. You want to go pitch a product to someone who you can tell in advance has some reason to be interested in that product, great. B2B sales make the world go 'round. But when you are firing out marketing pitches scattershot to the general public to see who bites, you have officially become a nuisance. If you ever did that, we would have a hell of a loud argument - not that you ever would.
If people RT things to me, they RT them because they believe that those things are of interest to me or their general circle of friends. That's fine. It's when some idiot comes in who knows nothing about me and says, "Hmm, I think I'll try to pitch some stuff to this dude," that I get mad.
In summation: Word of mouth = good. Cold calls = bad.
-- 20:58, 8 February 2010 (GMT)
Just under two years ago I got a call from a recruiter. The recruiter started the call with "Before you hang up on me, hear me out. I know you just bought a house in the Sonoma wine country. I know you're pretty comfortable working for yourself. I know ..." and gave a few other details, and then said "but my boss said I had to call you anyway."
I heard him out because he'd obviously put a little effort into figuring out what I might be interested in before he took up my time. We both decided that the position wasn't a fit for me, but the fact that he'd invested enough in me before he called to be able to give the pros and cons as I'd have given them meant that I thought he was worth listening to.
Which I think is what you're asking for when you say "I do not want to be told about new products. (By marketers. I am reasonably tolerant of being told about them by my friends.)". I'm actually just fine with being told about new products by marketers, but those marketers have better damned well either be supporting a project I find worthwhile (ie: advertising, be it web site or real world), or have put enough energy into finding out about me that they can get past my very short "before you hang up on me..." threshold.
And it's not like I make it hard to find me. I put a lot of personal information out there on the net and other places to make sure that people who want to sell something strictly to me can know enough about me that if they're going to make a tailored pitch I know about it right at the beginning of the conversation.
One example of the less tailored marketing done right is http://twitter.com/Rockler . Actual dialog with customers, a "deal of the day" that tempts me more often than it should, and showcasing good woodworking.
Follow and interact with @Rockler and it's not exactly like that persona becomes a friend, but it becomes obvious that whoever's running that portion of their advertising is interested in building a relationship with their customers. Even though nothing in their web order form feels particularly personal, the @Rockler persona makes me feel like I'm shopping at a store where I'm seeing the same salesperson every time I go in, and they remember just enough about me to say "did you finish those shelves for the train?" or what-have-you.
As interesting, they're also filling a niche formerly filled by magazines: They're turning me on to articles by other woodworkers describing techniques or works that I may be interested in. Used to be the way they got their message to me was to advertise in those magazines, now it's the other way around.
As I've said before, I'll happily give up my medical records if First USA will agree to not contact me with a credit card offer until after I've had a lobotomy, but really it's a matter of wanting to not be exposed to any advertising until that moment when I see the ad for the product which I didn't know I needed.
And since my attention is going to become more and more expensive to get, hopefully marketers will be investing in figuring out what those products are and when they need to be pitched to me, rather than just being scattershot.
I guess when you get that personal recommendation from a friend, you have a rough idea that the friend has a commitment to keeping a relationship with you that's stronger than selling a single product to you, and that they've seen you have a specific need.
That's the relationship I want with vendors.
-- 21:31, 8 February 2010 (GMT)
I'm actually just fine with being told about new products by marketers, but those marketers have better damned well either be supporting a project I find worthwhile (ie: advertising, be it web site or real world), or have put enough energy into finding out about me that they can get past my very short "before you hang up on me..." threshold.
This is an accurate depiction of what I was trying to get at. Yes.
-- 21:38, 8 February 2010 (GMT)
Up until about two weeks ago, I would have agreed wholeheartedly. And then . . . .
Clare doesn't like my couch because it's too deep and hard for her to stand up from. My easy chair is vintage 1991, and the fabric is falling off, leaving foam and stuff for the baby to eat. So for months we've been saying to each other, "We should get some new furniture."
So I went your route: I asked a friend whose taste I respect to recommend a furniture store, and she said "Jennifer Convertibles," which I agreed with in principle because said chair was from there and had lasted since '91, and the couch's predecessor was from there and had lasted 13 years (with the ottoman, it was a reasonable $1700 in 1991 bux).
Problem is, Jennifer didn't make the kind of leather (which we decided we wanted) furniture we wanted. So what to do?
Enter Advertising. Raymour & Flanagan, which I'd never heard of before two years or so ago, blankets my TV with ads. There's one over in Union Square, and two weeks ago, there was an ad on TV about a sale. So we went over, and long story short, have a new leather sofa, chair and ottoman that we like for a reasonable price. Without advertising, we'd never have gotten there, and the baby would still be eating upholstery foam.
-- 22:05, 8 February 2010 (GMT)
... and the baby would still be eating upholstery foam.
Well, we can't have that!
-- 22:48, 8 February 2010 (GMT)
During the hockey game there was an ad for a free shoulder pain seminar at a local orthopedic clinic. They are on T's insurance. He is going to go if he's awake and not hip-deep in work. This could be an hour of his time wasted or it could be the start of something life-changing. More likely it will be something in between.
That is, however, the main positive ad example I can come up with right now, and it surprised us greatly.
-- 23:04, 8 February 2010 (GMT)
Having an unlisted land line (I still have a land line!) has prevented 99% of unwanted cold calls, except for the ones from entities with whom I have dealings, wanting to up my participation, etc. The idea of people sitting in a cubicle farm, calling and calling and reading from scripts for who knows how many hours a day makes my blood run cold. I'd rather live in an appliance box under an overpass than have to make a living that way. Poor schlubs. I'm pretty civil with them when they call, because, much as I hate 'em, they're just doing their jobs. *shudder!*
TV ads, on the other hand, are a whole nuther thing. I actually LIKE most ads and I have a great deal of respect for the clever minds of Madison Ave. who come up with them, choose the music, all of that. And I may be among the few, but I recognize the value of free TV (except for the monthly DirecTV charge). Although I admit to fast-forwarding through ads I've seen before, I generally watch them all at least once. I happen to love the gecko; I think he's damned clever. I'd love to be the lucky soul who first suggested that campaign. Can't seem to warm up to the money with the googly eyes, though. And you know I love Flo from Progressive. You can't teach somebody those facial expressions and gestures and intonations. She's a natural.
My point is, you may well be right, television will no doubt evolve into demand only, like HBO. But I'm doing my part to stave that off just as long as I can. I don't just watch the ads, I also try many of the products. I keep hoping there are others out there like me.
I won't however, even browse through an issue of Time or Newsweek, anymore. They've gone too far, in an effort to keep from dying. Last time I took the time to count them, there were 75 pages of ads in the issue, with only 22 pages of actual content. Ridiculous. But their content, if I care to see it, is available online, so I'm not missing anything. Whether the internet remains "free" is another story. I don't think I have much control over it one way or the other, so I just watch and wait. You've already decried the fact that The Economist is no longer available for you to quote from at will. Could be the eventual course of things.
I can't worry about it. There are too many things over which I do have a modicum of control that occupy my exasperation time. I pretty much gave up pondering the questions with no answers way back in philosophy class in college. I happen to think those sturdy places you referred to in your previous post are subjective. But I digress.
-- 04:06, 9 February 2010 (GMT)
Nonelvis:
I do not want to be told about new products. (By marketers. I am reasonably tolerant of being told about them by my friends.)
You do realize that the vast majority of people on Twitter are in marketing? And that they depend on the nature of Twitter to help push their products? Which it does, because people RT contest info, etc., and thus your friends end up marketing to you anyway.
-- 20:51, 8 February 2010 (GMT)