spam
Facebook Ads Will Spam Your Friends
Hugh MacLeod pretty much sums up how I feel about Facebook’s new “social ad platform“. I have no intention of giving out free product endorsements unless I actually feel like it. Facebook merely railroading my personal choice is not worth fifteen billion dollars. If I really, really want to bet my reputation on a product by telling you to buy it, I’ll take the time to blog it.
If Mark Zuckerberg thinks people will somehow feel “cooler” by spamming their friends, he’s deluded. When product recommendation engines work using aggregate data, they’re helpful. When product recommendations come as unauthorized personal endorsements, they’re exploitative.
The First Spam: May 1, 1978
Happy(?) birthday, spam. No, not the canned meat by-products.
The first piece of unsolicited bulk e-mail (what will come to be known as spam) is written. When it’s sent two days later, more than 400 people with an Arpanet address receive a promotional message sent by Gary Thuerk, a marketer for Digital Equipment Corporation. It’s been pretty much downhill from there.
Unsurprisingly, this early feat of cluelessness foreshadowed the fall of DEC. Interesting that, on May 1, 2007, people spammed Digg to defend the First Amendment.
