Who likes spam? Personally, I love it, seared in a pan with mayo on fresh bread with a slice of pepper jack! That’s one reason to be careful with the word spam. It’s pretty good stuff, and if everything washes away or burns up in December of 2012, the few who survive could live off of a stockpile of spam for quite some time.
Obviously, in the world of the internet, the word spam has come to refer to unsolicited commercial emails. There are rules about spam, and rightly so. I’m as opposed to spammy practices as anybody, but I also have another pet peeve and that is when people abuse the word spam, applying it to almost anything they don’t particularly like. For example…
Advertising Isn’t Spam
Sites with banner ads are spam, aren’t they? No. Advertising foots the bills for a lot of content providers. If you don’t like ads, you can click away, look away, or use an ad blocker (which I don’t care for, myself).
Should you smatter every inch of your sites in ads? Not if you want any kind of readership whatsoever. You’ll be conservative in your approach, but ads aren’t spam.
Unsolicited Email Isn’t Always Spam
I’m a Pastor, so I have a lot of very nice and well-intentioned friends forwarding me cute poems, pictures, and jokes. My favorites are the ones that end with lines like, “If you love Jesus, you’ll forward this on to ten friends right now!”
[adsense]
I don’t like lines like that. But these emails come from friends (whom I hope don’t read this post). Nonetheless, this isn’t spam. Hit the delete key and go on with your life.
Self-promotion Isn’t Spam
With the growing popularity of social networking sites, the idea is quickly spreading that if you link back to your own sites, it’s spam. Most people are beginning to have enough sense to realize a couple of things. One is that if you’re going to do this, do it in moderation. Make the majority of your interactions non-selfish in nature.
Don’t forget, however, that self-promotion has another name, and it isn’t spam. It’s called marketing. Are some people annoying with their “marketing?” Absolutely. Some just stink at it. But it isn’t always spam.
Spam Isn’t Defined by What You Don’t Happen to Like
If it’s an affiliate link… if it’s poorly designed… if it’s spelled incorrectly… it must be spam. No it isn’t. I have a dozen pet peeves, and you do too. You’ll probably tell me about them in the comments (which I welcome). Spam is a problem. It’s a problem in email, in auto-blogs, in comments, and on social media platforms. But hey, let’s be careful about how we define it so that we don’t go on a proverbial spam witch hunt.
And hey, go easy on the wonderful stuff that actually IS spam. Sure it’s loaded with sodium and fat, but don’t knock it till you’ve tried it on crackers with some squirts of cheese!
photo credit: freezelight
About Brandon Cox
Personally I think the whole “spam” thing has gotton out of control. We see spammers get more jail time and harsher fines than people who commit assualt!! Lets be honest, if someone rings you out of the blue it’s alot more intrusive than pressing delete on your keyboard. I really think the law especially in the U.S has gotton out of hand.
It appears that some people on the net are opposed to any advertising. As you so aptly expressed, just ignore advertising if it offends you. If advertising didn’t work and wasn’t profitable, then it would not exist.
Regardless of its effectiveness, advertising is not spam. Spam, to me, is uninvited, unwanted intrusion into my experience. If I click on a link to visit a website, and have to view and ad in addition to the content I really want to read or see, I have invited those advertisements.
Viewing ads is, in my view, the admission ticket to accessing the collective knowledge of the world and, of course, some bs also.
These folks who want to internet to be “pure” should examine their heads. Anything worth having is worth paying for. The cost of looking at or ignoring an ad is almost negligible. And it is certainly not spam.
You’re right – advertising and the revenue it can produce adds to the sustainable nature of great content.
Brandon,
Okay, my new pet peeve is bloggers who spam pictures of spam. ;) Seriously though, my stomach is churning looking at all that spam.
I’ve noticed that I’ve been tweeting a ton of my comment lately – I keep forgetting that option is turned on. I wonder if people think of that as spam. What’s your opinion?
Brad
.-= Brad Harmon´s last blog ..How I Make Money From This Site (and You) =-.
My opinion is that tweeting your comments is not spam. However, I used to do the same and finally came to the conclusion that a comment must have a context, so on Twitter some comments look out of place. But definitely not spam in my book.
And… you should tried it seared in some olive oil!
I think I just threw up a little thinking about the aroma of spam wafting through the house.
I probably need to learn to respond to comments in smaller groups so I don’t fill up people’s feeds with 15 comments. I’m also thinking about turning off the tweet feature, but I’ve done that a few times and it seems to turn itself back on. Kinda creepy really, but not as much as seared spam. ;)
.-= Brad Harmon´s last blog ..How I Make Money From This Site (and You) =-.
Lately, my definition of “spam” is mainly attributed to Twitter and the spammers that send DM’s that try to hack your account so they can send DM’s to everyone you follow. The rest of it (you listed) is tolerable even if I don’t always agree. (and I try to click on an ad or two when visiting a site that puts obvious hard work into providing valuable info!)
.-= Keith @ Superior Fence Products´s last blog ..Vinyl Privacy Fence Products =-.
I totally agree. I almost never send a DM for any reason unless I’m truly engaging in a conversation.
Quite interesting to see a different view of spam in this post. I would like to add one more context to the word spam, whenever you are busy, any forwarded message look like a spam. But the same mail if it comes on a day when you are not too obsessed with the work, we pay a lot of attention to it
.-= John Samuel ´s last blog ..Twitter lists: Public or private? =-.
That’s a pretty good point!
Glad you made it so easy for new bloggers to understand. Spam is so obvious when you see it, but sometimes hard to narrow down into a clear definition.
.-= Seth W´s last blog ..Reaching New Customers By Expanding Your Vision =-.
Very true, and we all have a slightly personalized definition of it.
Very well written and it would be great it everyone had the same opinion, I share the same opinion but there are others out there that think any form of billboard or marketing needs to end. It’s crazy.
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..Extreme Johns $150 Christmas Giveaway =-.
It is crazy – seems like people shout “hey, this is my internet – get off of it!” Or something like that.
Great points Brandon. I personally have a misconstrued persspective of spam and this helps clear that up.
.-= Design Informer´s last blog ..Ask the Expert – Using WordPress to Build Large Scale Websites with Derek Herman =-.
Thanks Jad, glad I could help clear it up. :)
Hey that is a very good point. I consider lame comments and unwanted emails to be spam. An over abundance of links and excessive affiliate marketing is not spam to me either.
Super post.
.-= Ms. Freeman´s last blog ..Do You Have Permission To Use That Photo? =-.
Lame comments – yes, but I’m pretty lenient when they’re left by a human. It’s the comments obviously left by a robot or an alien that bug me.