blogging: October 2007 Archives
I was very humbled last night when I got the latest copy of the Movable Type newsletter. SixApart’s team choose a member of the community each issue and this time it was my turn!
Continue reading A Bit of PR Can't Hurt.
If you don't like what people have been saying about you, then you simply delete all the blog entries!
Now why didn't I think of that?
Now why didn't I think of that?
I signed up for a Jaiku account a few weeks ago. I may have found it via Bernie's blog, though I'm not 100% sure.
Like so many of those services that I sign up for I completely forgot that I had an account until I went to PodCamp last weekend.
What's attractive about Jaiku, for me at least, is that it's a sort of mini-blog format that also allows you to share your other RSS feeds, so my "presence" is populated with my various blog posts, last.fm activity and anything that I've actually posted to Jaiku directly.
One of the features that really interests me is the concept of "channels", so that you can talk about specific topics or, as in the case of podcamp, events.
Being able to post quick one liners is nice and you can get some interesting discussions going with your contacts that you might not have otherwise.
The only thing that concerns me is that the service is free and I can't see how it will be able to remain free in the long term. Yes they are showing Adsense ads on the sidebar, but how many users are actually clicking? How can they afford to send all the SMS updates etc., to the thousands of users?
Is there a business aspect to the service that I've missed?
Like so many of those services that I sign up for I completely forgot that I had an account until I went to PodCamp last weekend.
What's attractive about Jaiku, for me at least, is that it's a sort of mini-blog format that also allows you to share your other RSS feeds, so my "presence" is populated with my various blog posts, last.fm activity and anything that I've actually posted to Jaiku directly.
One of the features that really interests me is the concept of "channels", so that you can talk about specific topics or, as in the case of podcamp, events.
Being able to post quick one liners is nice and you can get some interesting discussions going with your contacts that you might not have otherwise.
The only thing that concerns me is that the service is free and I can't see how it will be able to remain free in the long term. Yes they are showing Adsense ads on the sidebar, but how many users are actually clicking? How can they afford to send all the SMS updates etc., to the thousands of users?
Is there a business aspect to the service that I've missed?
As some of you may know a lot of Irish IT professionals, including myself, received a spam from Monster earlier this week.
Anyone who reads me on a regular basis would know that I am probably one of the last people you would want to spam.
In any case the story grew legs yesterday, as I received legal threats from the Monster employee, as I had published his email.
It is important that people realise that Monster did not send me legal threats - one of their employees did using a Monster email address. There's a subtle but important difference.
Yes I did publish his email. It wasn't an email sent to me directly in confidence, so I didn't see any reason why I wouldn't share it.
I've shared phishing emails in the past, so why wouldn't I shared a spam email?
I could have shared his email address and more than one person would have liked me to do so, but I couldn't stoop that low. I could have shared his mobile number, but I didn't for the same reasons.
I naturally spoke to the company's solicitor who is also my solicitor (why pay two legal eagles?) about the posts etc., and made sure that I wasn't going to run afoul of any laws.
Yesterday afternoon I had a nice chat with Monster's PR person and then this morning I had a very long talk with the head honcho for Ireland, James Mailley.
Mr Mailley was terribly apologetic for all the hassle that this situation caused, but as I pointed out to him a simple apology would have gone a long way as opposed to the attitude that people got and of course the comments etc., here.
For an online company that deals in such a competitive market this kind of negative PR is terrible. While it may not have a longterm effect some people maybe very slow to recommend Monster in the future. Email marketing is tricky. If you do it right you will reap the benefits. Do it wrong and it can hurt!
And last night, in the midst of all the legal threats etc., my original post made it onto the frontpage of Digg!
James has given me permission to publish his email to me. I was considering just putting up a few of the key parts, but decided it would be simpler to put up the entire email:
Moral of the story? Spamming is evil...
For the funnier side of things read Head Rambles' take on the story:
The Black Knight and the Monster
I think it's one of the funniest bits of writing I've seen this year! (you can digg it here)
Anyone who reads me on a regular basis would know that I am probably one of the last people you would want to spam.
In any case the story grew legs yesterday, as I received legal threats from the Monster employee, as I had published his email.
It is important that people realise that Monster did not send me legal threats - one of their employees did using a Monster email address. There's a subtle but important difference.
Yes I did publish his email. It wasn't an email sent to me directly in confidence, so I didn't see any reason why I wouldn't share it.
I've shared phishing emails in the past, so why wouldn't I shared a spam email?
I could have shared his email address and more than one person would have liked me to do so, but I couldn't stoop that low. I could have shared his mobile number, but I didn't for the same reasons.
I naturally spoke to the company's solicitor who is also my solicitor (why pay two legal eagles?) about the posts etc., and made sure that I wasn't going to run afoul of any laws.
Yesterday afternoon I had a nice chat with Monster's PR person and then this morning I had a very long talk with the head honcho for Ireland, James Mailley.
Mr Mailley was terribly apologetic for all the hassle that this situation caused, but as I pointed out to him a simple apology would have gone a long way as opposed to the attitude that people got and of course the comments etc., here.
For an online company that deals in such a competitive market this kind of negative PR is terrible. While it may not have a longterm effect some people maybe very slow to recommend Monster in the future. Email marketing is tricky. If you do it right you will reap the benefits. Do it wrong and it can hurt!
And last night, in the midst of all the legal threats etc., my original post made it onto the frontpage of Digg!
James has given me permission to publish his email to me. I was considering just putting up a few of the key parts, but decided it would be simpler to put up the entire email:
Hi Michele
I appreciate you taking time to speak with me this morning on the events of the last few days.
As I said on the phone and wish to reiterate, I apologise for the original e-mail being sent to you and also for the amount of your time being spent dealing with this situation. Having thoroughly investigated all the aspects of the original mail, I have discovered that this was an error that occurred through the enthusiasm of a brand new recruit who did not understand the policies and practices of the company.
Monster has a strict policy regarding unsolicited emails, and all Monster employees are forbidden from sending such emails unless the individuals or companies in question have specifically opted in to
receive group emails of this nature. I reiterate that the email in
question was sent by an individual in contravention of Monster's policy on unsolicited emails, and that Monster in no way authorised or condoned this behaviour.
On behalf of Monster please be assured that we will do everything we can to avoid incidents of this nature occurring again in the future.
Kind regards
James
James Mailley
Sales Director
www.monster.ie
Moral of the story? Spamming is evil...
For the funnier side of things read Head Rambles' take on the story:
The Black Knight and the Monster
I think it's one of the funniest bits of writing I've seen this year! (you can digg it here)
Sorry about the post title :)
Pete's being spammed by Golden Spiders. He's been trying to get off their mailing list, but they're not having any of it.
Eircom's wireless DSL routers are insecure. I posted a link to my delicio.us account a few days ago that I got from someone and now the story's been picked up by just about everyone.... There's a lot of discussion over on the IIU list and the story's been picked up by most of the papers. Eircom of course are promising to warn all their clients of the potential issues
Joost seem to have launched today (or was it last night?)
Pete's being spammed by Golden Spiders. He's been trying to get off their mailing list, but they're not having any of it.
Eircom's wireless DSL routers are insecure. I posted a link to my delicio.us account a few days ago that I got from someone and now the story's been picked up by just about everyone.... There's a lot of discussion over on the IIU list and the story's been picked up by most of the papers. Eircom of course are promising to warn all their clients of the potential issues
Joost seem to have launched today (or was it last night?)
