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KAREN DILLON WROTE:
>I'm a small business and I want to send e-mail press
>releases to relevant (and select) sites, ad agencies
>and industry pundits so that I can promote my
>site, our new features and (as appropriate) encourage
>ad sales. So how do I do this so that it's not spam?
TO WHICH WAYNE BROWNING REPLIED:
>What you need to do is learn how to advertise by
>forming associations with other sites
TO WHICH MATT MAGRI RESPONDED:
>If they actually solicit business contacts via email
>then it's not unsolicited, of course. It appears,
>however, that merely not having a phone number or snail
>address available on a website is all that's needed in
>your opionion to show that a nonbusiness site "clearly"
>wants business opportunities emailed to them:
Not having a phone number/mailing address available on
the web site does not demonstrate that sites want
business contact to be done via e-mail. However, it
does demonstrate that they want whatever contact that
may occur to be done via e-mail. (Therefore, those who
are going through Internic's Whois to get their *other*
information are at a higher risk of making them angry
than those who follow the contact methods within their
site.)
How many sites on the web truly don't want business
opportunities? Those who are entirely non-commercial in
the strictest sense. Maybe someone who I'm sending to
doesn't want *my* business opportunity in particular,
but they do want *some* business opportunities if they
are commercial in nature. Without business
opportunities, where would the web be? Who'd dump
m(b)illions of dollars into the web if there was no
opportunity for potential payoff?
In the same respect that you don't want people
e-mailing business opportunities to you (by obtaining
information you give them willingly), I don't want
people calling me up or snail mailing me (by obtaining
information they should not have) and making me
business opportunities in that manner either. However,
I have learned that these types of opportunities can be
beneficial in the long run if handled properly by the
person doing the contacting.
(I'm taking both sides of the issue in this post - that
of the sender and the receiver - which I would hope
that more people could do. Granted, I personally do not
frequently send out b2b e-mail opportunities, but not
being able to understand reasoning for why they are
acceptable, if handled properly and responsibly, would
make those times that I do *need* to send them out
times that I wouldn't send them out - and potentially
benefit.)
> You do realize that, aside from the "sent multiple
> times" one, all of the above criteria are subjective,
> right? I'm afraid there's no way to base a meaningful
> definition of spam on those. There isn't even an
> accepted cutoff point for "bulk". Many providers which
> set outbound limits in their mailservers will make it
> ten. Do -you- consider eleven recipients to be bulk?
> They do.
Yes, I do consider that to be bulk e-mail in regards to
this current discussion. Granted, there is a distinctly
clear assumption on your part that I don't, but as I
said before in a previous discussion, if something's
being sent directly to me and I can tell that someone
is obviously interested in a business opportunity with
me and has been to my site(s), that's where I would be
willing to listen, whereas if multiple people were sent
it, or it was clearly written by someone who had no
idea what they were talking about in respect to my
site, I'd consider it to be not worthy of me bothering
with - in which case, 11 messages could very easily be
spam. What I am discussing, though, is 1-on-1 (read: 1
business on 1 business), not 1 business on 11
businesses (or 1 business on 8000 businesses).
> You must have a clear criteria for send/notsend (like
> Tom Kirchman's), you should post them somewhere on
> your site (much as many sites post a privacy policy
> when collecting info), and you are making a -huge-
> mistake if you don't clear it with your access *and*
> web hosting providers ahead of time. If they are on
> your side -and- you actually follow all 6 parts of
> Tom's list, you will have reduced your actual risk, and
> the damage to the net.community, to almost nil.
> Remember that it is not up to you to decide how the
> email will be received, however. They have as much
> right to decide about how their mailbox is used as you
> do about how yours is used.
These comments interest me due to their contradictory
nature. Seemingly, it is claimed that the potential
damage is almost nil if you act responsibly, but in the
next paragraph, it mentions that despite the little
risk, there is a great risk. Granted, I do completely
understand what you're saying, but it strikes me as odd
the way it was stated.
> Again, I wish responsible users
> didn't have to use such exaggerated caution, but my
> wishes have about as much bearing on the matter as your
> personal definition of spam. Things are as they are.
I agree. No one person can make up for past mistakes.
However, the way to make sure that past mistakes are
not repeated is not to condemn everyone who is trying
to make an honest business on the internet. If you do
that, you risk the entire potential of e-mail and the
internet as a whole. (Note also that in the post to
which you responded was just a limited definition, as I
outlined it a bit more clearly in a previous discussion
and didn't want to repeat that - as you know from when
you subscribed, unnecessary repetition is frowned upon
since it is assumed that most users have been paying
attention to the discussions. Even though that previous
discussion didn't incorporate my entire view on the
definition of what is and is not spam, it did detail it
to a reasonable enough extent.)
You are essentially suggesting that everyone should be
punished, everyone should be afraid, and everyone
should be overly sensitive, protective, and defensive
in regards to e-mail. If this is the case, we're
returning to the entire situation of: where would the
net be if everyone's so worried that no one can get
anything accomplished?
There are many ways that problems can be dealt with,
but if it comes down to your viewpoint, we all might as
well just jump ship before any type of e-mail contact
that someone hasn't specifically and expressly
requested (read: if a web site says "contact us to help
out" rather than "contact us and offer us business
opportunities", they seemingly shouldn't receive
business opportunities in your book) is considered
grounds for hanging.
Maybe my viewpoint may be a bit optimistic in some
respects, and there *are* people who are going to
consider it to be entirely off-base (yes, I am willing
to admit this, even if some others are unbending in
their stance and unwilling to admit there may be
another opinion), but people need to deal without the
need for fear and anger being projected towards people
who aren't out to do them harm. I welcome other
viewpoints (the world would be boring if we all
agreed), but it needs to be something with which we
won't all pay dearly. *Real* spammers should be
punished (and admittedly, everyone would have a
different definition of this), but everyone shouldn't
need to suffer.
Who's going to post specific grounds for what type of
contact they will and will not accept? In all honesty
(and I believe you'll agree), most web publishers won't
(at least not now). Granted, if there is a major push
for this type of statement such as there is for the
privacy statements now, more may well be willing to
post such a statement. However, there's going to need
to be enough reason for them to be inclined to do so
(as you probably know, many of the publishers who are
posting privacy statements at this time are doing so,
at least in part, to prevent the large advertisers from
pulling out). Without something that directs them
toward that path, most publishers simply will not
consider it a necessity (it probably won't even dawn on
the vast majority).
> You'd think so, wouldn't you? And yet, almost no one
> uses all 6 rules, at least based on the b2b email I
> receive here.
If you're going to make a statement that each
individual is different (as you previously did),
judging everyone based on what you personally receive
is not the way to go.
> That's nice. It's not up to you to decide how other
> folks will receive it, though, so I don't think it has
> much practical bearing on the discussion. As was
> pointed out elswehere, for example, there are a number
> of businesses (press, etc.) which accept new site
> announcements as a matter of course.
AS WAYNE BROWNING REPLIED:
> I did not take from the original inquiry that the party
> was actually using the "term" press release in in the
> way many have taken it to mean. I do not believe the
> question was about sending a "Press release" nor did i
> see any reference to the fact that this was to be aimed
> specifically at reporters or the news media... "Relevant
> sites" does not equate to sites that accept press
> releases, and there for this attempt at email
> broadcasting becomes spam.
I believe Wayne did cover my reasoning for what I said
being completely valid in terms of belonging to this
discussion (and yes, my response *was* to him and what
he thought of the topic, in addition to my thoughts on
the initial post). Had the initial question been about
e-mail press releases without the mentioning the words
"relevant sites" (how relevant, how many, what format,
is it appropriate and directly related to *each* site
that it's sent to, etc.?) or the question "How do I do
this so that it's not spam?", you would be entirely
correct in assuming that I am contributing to a
discussion with irrelevant input. However, as you can
see from Wayne's response, I clearly am not the only
one who took this to be a discussion about spam.
While I may not agree with some aspects of his replies,
I do believe they show that this is clearly something
that does relate to the topic. My concern was over
"relevant sites" not being promotional sites that
specialize in promoting/announcing new sites, but sites
that are similar and thus the initial poster felt
should be contacted (I was fairly certain I'd already
stressed that enough in my last post).
Whether or not some people agree with my logic in this
case in itself is irrelevant because it is clear that
the author of the initial post that began this thread
was interested at least to an extent of discussing what
would be viewed as spam. Granted, the originator may
have gotten a bit more of a response than she bargained
for:), but the floor was wide open for discussion on
the topic.
Shane Sacobie
VGF.Net
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Received on Wed Dec 08 1999 - 04:38:54 CST
