From: fringeware@io.com (Fringeware Mailing List) Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 13:46:54 PST Reply-To: asargent@us.oracle.com ("Al Sargent - USA Tech Marketing") Subject: MEDIA - Net Advertising Sent from: pacoid@io.com (Paco Xander Nathan) I've noticed a general state of misconception about computer-mediated communication, like it's merely some kind of super-television. Maybe that comes from reading sensationalized US newspaper articles about "traffic jams on the Information Highway" ... IMHO, advertisers *aren't* a threat here and won't be. But there are threats, nonetheless.. Just wrote a long essay about this *very* subject in FWR#2, called "Intelligent Agents of Fortune" :) It's public domain, because I feel strongly about the matter and hope to get people to discuss the real underlying issues. Here's a preview: it takes 30-odd-seconds to read a msg, average. It takes 2-10 minutes to respond to a message thoughfully. Given current expectations about business correspondance and a few back of the napkin calculations, you might imagine that at 200+ msg/day a person never quite finishes reading/responding to a day's email within a 24 hour period. AUP's and filters really aren't going to help you. Filters help a little, for now, but antagonists haven't had a need to get imaginative yet. Check back on computer virus history: we're in for some fun here in email land.. Does the address "wgibson@gaia.matrix" *recall* anything to y'all? Most people can't respond to a sendmail-hacked msg, until the mailers get smarter, but then the hacks get smarter, but then the mailers get smarter, but then the hacks get.. And how 'bout all the cypherpunx development we've been reporting on? Many rants that I've read about ejunkmail and "mail bombs" seem pretty uninformed about the real nature of the media.. So I'd say avoid AUP's at all costs. They don't work, and their political model runs contrary to the distributed, parallel nature of the Internet -- ie. if something doesn't map, don't die trying to force it, or worse, depend on it.. Real solutions adapt. Like when people who generate junk mail -- based on outmoded notions of production economies and broadcast media -- get a mess back in their face for attempting to map direct marketing techniques within a process media domain, ie. email where the people who get bugged by junkmail have a direct line of reponse back to their antagonist(s). Um, well, that's already happened once. Even the Wall St Journal reported the business/marketing/management failure as a result. My guess is only the stupid will repeat this now classic mistake, and the stupid wouldn't survive here in business long anyways.. Besides, out of the 200+ msgs/day that I receive, the most heinous "junkmail" comes from sources that could never be precluded by an AUP or a filter: your neighbors. E.g., individuals sending me 1000+ word letters and twelve point programs for how I'm gonna do sh*t for them for free! Like I was some sort of public service announcement and not a guy who has to live in a 3m x 3m rented, unheated room just to keep things going. The worst was from "a recent MBA graduate at the Univ Of Texas, in Austin" who wanted me to explain to hir how to "get started in the field of multimedia, in order to pursue a lucractive career". Two page letter, outline my course of response and what I had to provide. Like if I knew that answer in 100 words or less *and* had time enough to just sit around and *type* it out at 9600 baud to every jerk-off that asked, then I wouldn't be busy *executing* on the deal myself instead :) Geez, what's the level of intelligence of biz school grads these days? Might as well pass out bullets at the commencement ceremony.. BTW, I responded to that MBA with a polite suggestion of p'haps charging a small fee for the time spent on career consulting. Sie seemingly took offense. Par for the course, and I wish that person an exciting career in obscure, remote field sales offices.. Real longterm solutions are never technical and are never political. They are social. Get used to it. Read a Gibson novel and study the subtext. It's not technological at all.. It never will be as long as we're human. Learn how to deal with people who would take from you, who would swap your survival for their leisure. Because if you have to survive within an economy based on info, as some have supposed, then email and online identity define your ability to buy groceries and this whole issue starts getting terribly serious. I happen to be of the opinion that all sovereignty is based ultimately at the point of a weapon, and all monetary wealth is generally proportional to the crime(s) employed to create it... at least as long as we tolerate coersion *and* focus on growth as a measure of health. pxn. ---- Sent from: "Al Sargent" Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 15:55:35 PST Jon K Lebkowsky said: "FringeWare is for profit, and we release a price list to our mailing list, but we haven't done advertising as such on the net...we think that commercial interests should be present, but should not be intrusive (invasive?)...Aspen, with its regulation against billboard advertising, is an analogy to our idea of commerce in cyberspace: do business here, that's quite alright, but don't pollute the landscape." So, how do we keep advertisers from polluting the net? Can networks set up acceptable use policies against junk mail? Should individuals be responsible for flaming people who send junk mail? To what degree should people flame -- a few notes, or thousands of notes (to flood the junk mailer)? -- Sent from the cyberdeck of: asargent@us.oracle.com ("Al Sargent - USA Tech Marketing") This is a reply to Mike Ellsworth. His comments are in quotes... "Sent from the cyberdeck of: mellswor@firewall.nielsen.com (Mike Ellsworth) "I envision a future in which we all are required to build advertising sheilds around our email boxes, and advertisers constantly mutate their From fields to duck under our defenses and pelt us with ads." Of course, do you really think an advertiser would do this? Don't you think they would get flamed to the point where there machines would lock up or crash if they sent an ad to all the mailing lists they could get their hands on? "I am, however, in favor of some forms of net.ads, primarily those forms that are much more interactive: I'm interested in buying a Ford, so I gopher to ford.com and check out the ads and the marketing materials and the specs." Yes, that kind of advertising does sound like a good idea. Since junk mail on the net would probably get flamed out of existence, people wil need to check out the ads themselves, or subscribe to a mailing list for ads (e.g. 'Specialized Bikes Monthly'). For either of these two happen, the ads will have to have a strong visual &/or informational appeal. "How can we prevent net.ad.deluge?" The networks that form the internet could set up their own Acceptable Use Policies that prohibit junkmail. Or users might take matters into their own hands and deluge the machines sending out the junkmail. what do y'all think? --