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[Peter Fuller Company: AdzZoo Contribution Level: 3]

I received a private message today from someone who has over 1,800 friends but has contributed very little content.

Their first message to me upon becoming friends was a sales pitch. His product, which is basically a Back Pages scrapper and auto-reply to each ad, has made him a millionaire.

It was explained that it is not spam because it does not involve email.

I do not think automation is necessarily spam, but this certainly seems like spam to me.

Recently I setup a test site using Wordpress MU and I receive thousands of obvious automated posts. I think that is spam.

What are your thoughts on what constitutes spam?

[Mike Dillard Company: Magnetic Sponsoring Contribution Level: 5]

Any unwanted communication is considered spam. Please post their user name so they can be contacted.

Mike

[Warren Veach Company: State Continuing Education Contribution Level: 4]

Most of us think in terms of e-mail Spam, however, Wikipedia says, "SPAM is the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social networking spam, television advertising and file sharing network spam."

So yeah, you have been spammed.

[Michaela Ellis Contribution Level: 3]

I think that is interesting. The other day, I received an opportunity email with from "admin" @ xyz.com as the email address.

It was a Credit Card Opportunity ...don't know who it is...but I didn't start getting it until I signed up from here....hmmmm.

I love this zone. I beleive that other's are not reading enough to understand how they should communicate

J.M.H.O.

~ME~

[Peter Fuller Company: AdzZoo Contribution Level: 3]

Any unwanted communication is considered spam. Please post their user name so they can be contacted.

Mike

I see you must have found him because the message now shows it is from "anonymous"

But the question remains, is online automation spam?

I do not think having an automated program to post articles is spam but I certainly do think automating blog comments, forum posts, replies on ad sites etc is spam.

[Chris Tryon Contribution Level: 4]

Hi Peter,

I received the same e-mail. Like yours, the user name is now anonymous. His name that he put in his signature, is still there. The name: David Bennett. I replied and told him, point blank that I do not do business with anyone that does not take an interest in me first. You know, building relationships and if I want more information, I will ask you what you do, then you can tell me.

[Phillip Edward Douglas Dews Contribution Level: 2]

Good question!

Online social sites like this one in my opinion is like one big party where Human Beings mingle, chat, make friends and help each other out for mutual benefit.

So for me any peice of content selling me a business pitch without getting to know me first or trying to make friends with me or asking for help I constitue as spam.

As for Robots, Well its akin to me being invited to a real live party with real human beings and I send a robot to talk on my behalf about me and my business. It just aint going to happen!

All the Best.

-Phillip

P.s. here is a little something to Liven up the Party. check this out, Its all about Robots from the 80's...........Enjoy!

[Peter Fuller Company: AdzZoo Contribution Level: 3]

As for Robots, Well its akin to me being invited to a real live party with real human beings and I send a robot to talk on my behalf about me and my business. It just aint going to happen!

I have been waiting for that one future news report to announce that no one was actually reading twitter posts, that 99.9% of all activity in twitter was actually robot to robot, and that some robots have accumulated so much information that some now consider them sentient.