un-voiced rants, do they make a noise?
The IM stream started out fairly peaceful, if a bit, umm.. I dunno, antagonistic maybe.
THE RANT
there should be a law that says that no consumer should be held accountable in a contract in which the consumer cannot be expected to understand the language of the contract.
I said:
“lol
I might twitter that if I were you
some of the twitter ranters have quite a following”
Then he went on to say:
speaking of having a following, don’t you think you are more likely to fall into domestic wiretapping if you have followers in social networking with links to al quida?
what do you think the chances are you are literally 2 degrees away from a terrorist?
you early adopters are like the cavemen who tried the new berries. i’m watching you to find out what happens.\
i want to delete my facebook account because there are people adding me as a friend that i don’t want the world to confuse as an actual friend.
i now report all linkedin emails as spam. the only thing linked in ever sends me is spam.
i get requests to link into people i’ve never heard of. and i get 3 reminder emails every time i try to ignore it, so it’s in fact 3x worse than spam.
i am hiding my connections list on linkedin.
recruiters have been able to use me to get to my network without my consent and without going through reasonable channels. i was a zombie social spam node.
facebook is very scary to me. you tell facebook about your personal relationships, and facebook will notify all of your friends when you break up with your girlfriend. all your friends at once. you no longer are empowered to pick and choose how you communicate sensitive information. social networking is like 21st centry nudism.
it all hangs out where everybody can see.
IF NOBODY HEARS YOU
In my opinion my friend has a very good point here and there. He speaks with force and conviction. Shows his passion well. Problem is, of course, I’m the only person that hears his “voice”. And I’ve heard the general concept before. He does continue to come up with relevant points, but I expect that.
That which he is against is that which can make his point heard by more people, who might qualify and maybe modify his point of view. A catch-22 situation. What to do?
If anyone reads this, I’ll let comments speak for themselves.
Filed under Diatribe, Jumped The Shark, social spam | Comments (2)Rights to First Contact or When Does “Social” Become Spam?
First Contact
When does a “friend” have the right to make first contact with you online?
If I want to contact you in a social network like Pownce, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, should I be required to already know you? If I’m restricted from contacting you before you recognize me, how can I get your attention? On Twitter I can follow you like a stalker without you even acknowledging me. On Pownce anyone can contact me with an initial ping.
What Gives You the Right?
This is not a “pick on Pownce” post, I think the team has created a great system, as has team Twitter. In fact I think Pownce is a far more beautiful site than Twitter… and… there are significant differences between the two sites “first contact” user experiences. These differences spawned a question in my mind. I asked myself, “when does another person have the ‘right of first contact’ with me?”
Social Spam
Recently I received an email based ping sent through Pownce from someone on mySpace, asking me to follow their band on mySpace. I didn’t know them. I’d never heard of their band, yet there they were in my EMAIL inbox. That’s right, Pownce let’s people email me with band spam before I know who they are. But wait, Twitter allows people to contact me before I know them also, what’s the difference? On Twitter I don’t need to do anything, except delete an email from my new follower. Due to the highly specific nature of the Twitter service I know immediately what the email is for, it’s either a “new follower notification” or a direct message meant for my eyes only.
On the other hand the email from my example Pownce user was not even a request for friendship, someone simply sent me band spam under the guise of inviting me to an “event”. I then had to mentally process the email and make a decision about what to do with the request. I had to visit Pownce before I even realized that the request was truly spam and I received absolutely no personal gain from the effort. At least with unsolicited “follower” emails from Twitter I receive value because my personal brand (such as it is) may be expanded with a new follower, even if I choose not to follow the other person in return. Pownce has a similar “follower” feature, but again upon receipt of an email request I’m required to visit Pownce to see if I know the person, or care about interacting with them. For some reason I get many more “junk” requests through Pownce. For each one I need to make a choice about it. I physically need to click a button in Pownce, where in Twitter I can simply ignore the request if I choose to. Pownce requires me to mentally and physically process each new request.
But Wait, We Can Control Our Interactions, Can’t We?
Yes we can turn email notifications on and off for the various networks we participate in. But I believe part of the point of social networking should be that we can interact with one another in a low touch manner. We should be required to put as little effort into the act/methodology of interacting as possible in order to focus on the context and content of the communication. Especially since there are hundreds of social sites we can now use, with more launching every day. I’ve heard more than one person complain about tying to keep up with their current networks, so we need to work on making things easier, not more difficult. The rules of interaction and first contact should not be uniquely obtuse to each network.
On my old school business network, LinkedIn, the method for first contact has been well thought out and has served them well for many years. I must first know the email address for a person I want to contact, or I must go through a trusted third party who serves as a quality filter for my inbound contact request. Before I can bother someone with my email in their inbox I need to establish my authority, my right to make first contact. Due to the nature of the LinkedIn network, social pressures influence me to not spam people who I don’t know with unreasonable requests to connect within the network.
On Jigsaw the right of first contact has been taken to an opposite extreme. I can BUY your contact details before you know who I am. I pay for the right to gain access to your phone, email and mailing address details. Now Jigsaw isn’t a social network, but the point is that my first contact rights are being sold to people who I don’t know. This puts me at a disadvantage should the purchaser of my contact details decide to use my information in the wrong way. Yes I can request to be taken out of the Jigsaw database, but again this requires effort on my part to opt-out of the process.
Today I logged into InviteShare in order to add myself to a list and try to get an invite to dznr.org. To my surprise I actually had mail waiting for me in my account. Hmm, that’s odd…. upon reading the “mail” that term is really the wrong word to use. The better term is “invite spam”. The note reads:
Hi XXXX…I’m looking for some invites, I have…
August 21st, 2007
from sonicxboom
Hi xxxx…I have got an excellent (if not the best) under-ground site for you…
- Every & any tune from new to old…rare to popular, ( all free, of course ).
- Millions of p2p users with full D/L speeds…always!
- 10,000s of users to choose from to get your tracks / albums.
- Simple search bar user-interface to find all tunes.
- Pure p2p…No Ads…all shareware, no fees…( just donations, if any ).If you’re interested…I woule like to trade you the details of this site for any invites…like:
Supertorrents… Oink… TL… or HDBits…if you’re interested.
This site only does Music and I mostly download series, films & Pc games.
I always keep the best ratios i can 1:1 +
Please message me if you want more details…Many thanks & kindest regards,
Sonic x Boom.
Do We Need a CAN-SPAM act for Social Interaction Permissions?
in my mind the question over “rights of first contact” in social networking is exactly the same debate that we had several years ago regarding opt-in and opt-out for email lists. At that time the debate was somewhat resolved with the CAN-SPAM act.
Do we need to legislate the right of first contact or can our industry solve this burgeoning problem of social spam before it gets to the point where lawmakers take notice?
Filed under Microcrowds, Scams, Web 2.0, social spam | Comments (4)
