NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> MODERATOR's NOTE: Mark Welch, Marketwave and Focalink
ONLINE-ADS>> MODERATOR's NOTE: Mark Welch, Marketwave and Focalink
rhoy_at_tenagra.com
Wed, 10 Sep 1997 10:05:39 -0500 (CDT)
Hey all,
As many of you probably know by now, a discussion between Mark Welch, Steve
Podradchik of Marketwave and John Mracek of Focalink took a downward spiral
yesterday. First, let me assure you it is not going any further. Second,
let me explain why it got to this point.
My original intention in posting Mark Welch's comments was to generate
discussion on using email to market in the fashion Marketwave/Focalink did.
Was it true, as Mark contends, that two well-respected Internet companies
were using bulk email as a means to promote themselves and both companies
"didn't get it," to use Mark's words, when confronted? Or was there
another explanation?
Then Steve Podradchik's post came in. He told Marketwave's side of the
story, including excerpts from a phone conversation between himself and
Mark over this issue. Mark perceived its an attack on his character and
fired off another email to the list. When I read Mark's second post, I
realized where this was all going. However, since we had gone this far I
felt that Mark had a right to at least present his side of the phone
conversation.
After I sent Mark's second post through, I wrote Steve, Mark, and John
Mracek of Focalink, who had called me to let me know Focalink would be
responding to Mark's charges, and told them enough is enough. I thought it
was only fair that Focalink tell its side, but after that I assured them
statements that are solely aimed at damaging the reputation of a person or
company won't be tolerated anymore.
So that aspect of the conversation ends here and now. Don't submit any
messages that deal specifically with what the parties said to each other.
They won't be posted. If you feel the need to comment on how each of these
guys handled the situation, or how I handled it, write me directly at:
rhoy_at_tenagra.com
However, I think there are some very good threads that could be spun-off
from this exchange. Namely:
Should what Marketwave/Focalink did be perceived as spam? Essentially what
they did is say through a mass mailing that they were giving a discount on
Marketwave's product because recipients were members of MarketMatch. It is
not implicitly stated that by being a member of MarketMatch you will get
such mailings, but does that make it spam?
I am sure members of this list received the Marketwave/Focalink mailing, as
many are probably members of MarketMatch. Did you perceive it as spam? We
received it and the only criticism I have is that it doesn't state upfront
that I am receiving this message because I am a member of MarketMatch. We
do very similar mailings to opt-in lists we have built in association with
our web sites. We have found that by saying upfront "You are getting this
message because you joined XXXX list" minimizes any negative impression.
Other than that, I didn't feel it was inappropriate.
No matter what you do, though, you will always have a few people who don't
like it. If a couple out of 20,000 react negatively, you say nicely that
this is the way it is. If several hundred people complain, then you
apologize and reexamine what you have done. To my knowledge the latter has
never happened to us, but if it ever did that is how we would handle it.
I welcome other points of view on this.
The second discussion I'd like to start is how does one defend against
online attacks of an organization's image? My background is PR, and in that
realm such attacks fall under the category of crises management. In
traditional PR, it is difficult for all but very large groups of people to
inflict a lot of damage to an organization's image. Smaller groups and
individuals generally don't have the resources to access large audiences
(i.e. newspaper, TV, etc.). That is all changed with the Internet. If
someone really wanted to, he/she could register
"some-company-name-sucks.com" and submit it in the search
engines/directories. By closely paralleling the keywords and wording of the
victim's site, this smear site could conceivably come up when people
search.
Also, a person could send spam out to people with your email address. Most
people online are not savvy enough to recognized forged headers. Or if the
attacker were more technically capable, he could alter a mailserver and
make the forged headers on the spam undetectable and untraceable.
There are many other ways as well to "smear" an organization's online
image. Even if an attacker is caught and stopped, it can still be a major
PR headache. The damage to an image is already been done.
What do others think?
richard
moderator
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