I received mail through my blog about a product that most of you know about. I consider it spam because of the following reasons:
- Hotmail classified it as junk and it's rarely wrong
- I didn't really specify a need for this product
- I did not go to their website and fill out a questionnaire or ask for materials
I belong to a dying breed of person that when they want something, they hunt for it. Part of the fun of purchasing something is the hunt for the item and bargains that may or may not pertain to it. The only time this really doesn't apply is in magazine subscriptions because the only 2 I subscribe to I didn't hunt for: Guitar World and XBox magazine. Guitar World sent me a flier saying that if I bought 2 years I'd get a killer deal, and I fell for it pretty bad. At the time I was thinking “Wow I need to know more about playing guitar than what I teach myself” and it was as if it was there just for me. XBox magazine had a little thing bundled in the XBox I recently purchased and being the gaming freak I am, I thought I would check it out. I don't know why I did that personally but I think I could live with a year of it.
When it comes to a major purchase like hardware or software I tend to want to be the one to initiate the whole process. When it was time to purchase our new server (yay!) I went to Dell on-line and ordered it through there. I had received many emails from a Dell technician who would have easily taken care of it for me but I feel more confident going the on-line route. I've been ordering on-line from Dell since my refurbished P3-866 back in '99 and I'm completely comfortable with the process. I don't like dealing with people most of the time, so if I can avoid it I usually do. I'm just weird like that.
This company that emailed me sells software and there have been some testimonials from people I consider very well respected. I won't give the name of the company since it was in email and not a comment (I consider that private, though I can blog about the experience). Chances are everyone on this site has heard of it or uses it. I'm probably not the only one to get the email either, though I have a couple of suspicions as to how I was “selected“.
Most likely I will never purchase this product for a couple of reasons:
- I don't like being spammed even if it's something I might possibly need.
- Software and hardware are two things that I like to purchase almost completely by myself.
- I already knew of this product and decided back when I first heard about it that it wouldn't be useful.
- If someone has to send me email to draw me to their site, you've already lost.
The part that what really set me off is that they actually took the time to use the blog Contact interface to send me an email. I don't think you could automate that but the content of the email felt more like spam than it did someone seeing a need and proposing to fill it. If the person would have sent a message in a more personal fashion without all the product placement initially I would have probably been more open. I may have had a problem when I realized they were selling something, but it would have been received a little better than this. The mail seems more like they're pushing themselves on me to get me to do something for them, not that they're offering a product that will actually benefit me. Since I'm the customer, I thought it should be more about what they can do for me than what I can do for them.
Maybe I got it all wrong though and if the sender is reading this, I'm sorry. I won't respond to the email because I don't feel it's a person behind it. The product is not for me and though I would have probably written a review for it regardless, probing me to do that just seems like that was the only intent of the email: to get me to do something for you. That may not be the case at all and I'm reading it wrong and for that I'm sorry. I'm just not interested though if I see someone who could benefit from it at our company or any other I'll definitely recommend it. The product is that good, just my need and the approach aren't going to do it for me at all.
Personally I don't really see the point in spam but I suppose it's a pointer to the real problem: information overload. If everything was at your fingertips and you could find everything you needed, then people wouldn't need to advertise. You would have everything, or know right where it is in the unlikely event that you'd ever need it. I feel advertisement is a waste of energy on the internet but that's only because I can perform web searches and actually find what I'm looking for. I never look at my junk folder and go “Wow, I really do need 3 more inches on my penis” or “Yeah! I was looking for porn with a one-eyed transvestite just the other day! Glad you helped me find it, cool guy.”