NONE: Re: Junk email or quality information?
Re: Junk email or quality information?
Donna Dolezal Zelzer (djz_at_efn.org)
Fri, 5 Jul 1996 19:22:02 -0700
> In a message dated 02/07/96 17:04:28, you write:
> >have personally found it quite offensive to get sometimes up to 20 "Junk"
> >emails a day, which clog up my email download time.
> >
> I'm not sure about all this. It takes under a second to download an email -
> which is less time than it takes to turn the page of the newspaper to avoid
> the "junk print" as I guess you would call it. And certainly less time than
> it takes to wait for the end of the TV adverts ("junk TV"). Does everyone
> get offended by the advertisements in a newspaper, or on TV or on radio
> ("junk air"). Or by the billboards and posters ("junk walls").
>
The less than a second depends.. on the length of the message and on the
speed of your modem/connection. A message that takes a second at 28.8 is
going to take somewhat longer at 2400. Multiply that by how many you get a
month and it can add up in time. And if you don't have a flat rate provider
that time could add up in money, as well.
I don't get offended about ads in other places (unless the ad itself is
offensive). I do get irritated about **badly targeted** direct paper mail -
it's just such bad marketing.
And I don't even mind unsolicited ad e-mail if 1.it's short and 2.it's
something I'm interested in (junk mail = ad mail for something I don't
want)
A problem with some (many?> people who use bulk e-mail advertising is that
they don't target the way they would with a paper mailing. With paper mail
the costs of printing and postage force you to target to at least some
extent, but with e-mail you don't have those economic constraints.
Another problem (mentioned above) is the length of the message. Some people
put the equivalent of a direct mail letter and brochure in an e-mail
message. This is OK to send to people who have asked for info, but NOT to
send unsolicited. The people who are interested will write for more info --
the people who are not interested won't get quite as irritated.
A third problem is more subjective, but perhaps at least some of us who
have been getting and sending e-mail for a long time tend to think of
e-mail as somehow more personal than paper mail, and therefore find ad
e-mail very upsetting. Maybe we feel this way partially because it's
generally easy to tell which paper letter is from a friend and which is ad
mail, but not so easy with e-mail. Maybe partially because a lot of us tend
to write a lot more personal letters via e-mail than paper mail, and have
met and built friendships totally by e-mail, so it is actually a more
personal form of communication to us.
Just some thoughts on this.....
Donna
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Donna Dolezal Zelzer (djz_at_efn.org)
Starlady's Home Page: http://www.efn.org/~djz/index.html
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