Date: 06 Nov 2001 12:04:03 -0800 From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) To: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Request for opinions: what is spam Message-ID: <3r3d3racp8.d3r@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <3BE81422.7080304@potentialtech.com> References: <3BE81422.7080304@potentialtech.com>
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Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> writes: > One thing, central to this, is where do you draw the line > between promotion and spam? If you should expect to annoy someone by sending them a message which they didn't ask for or deserve in some way, then the message is either spam or as bad as spam. Spam probably has the added feature of annoying a lot of people, but any one recipient can seldom know or care about that; it's just as annoying, though most people will be more tolerant of unwanted e-mail which they suspect is not widely addressed. It's still a fuzzy line, but since the value of e-mail promotion is very low unless you are VERY annoying, it should be pretty easy to just draw your line very close to zero. You have to judge your market and your spamees. Are they going to be annoyed by your e-mail? Some might not. Like freebsd lists which get spam about freebsd books. > So my first question is: "Is this spam?" You can't know for sure, but it's a pretty safe assumption, depending on what your reaction to it will be. > But the deeper, underlying question is: "Where do I draw the line > with promotional activities?" You don't send promotional e-mail to people who haven't asked for it. If someone asks about gizmo-thingy, and you sell a one, send to them or the list they asked on. Even that has to be done judiciously. > An example is that I recently posted to the jobs@freebsd.com list > an announcement about my company and that we're seeking new customers. That list is for seeking new employees and new employers. I don't see any way you could justify seeking new customers on that list. > Our > current budget simply won't allow for magazine or similar advertising > at this point, so what should we do? I'll bet you already know enough of your options; you get the big bucks for making the correct choices, through good judgement or luck. Advertising and word of mouth (among customers and investors) are the only options I know of. You'll need to spend some time getting no/low-cost, low-value advertising and some time working on your high-value word of mouth, but I doubt that anyone can tell you where to draw that line either. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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