Commentary

Just An Online Minute... Spam and Spin

  • by March 15, 2004
Why do spammers spam? What is the psychology of spamming? Is the prime motivator always money? No one responded to my queries last week, so I am still left with the questions. If you have some ideas, send 'em over. My inquiring mind wants to know.

Conversely, today's Page One story in The Wall Street Journal offers an insightful take on the type of individual who responds to spam. The portrait indicates that responding to spam can be fun and entertaining for some people. It can also spur money-making opportunities for respondents. There must be millions, or at least hundreds of thousands of people like the guy profiled in the Journal article, or the tidal wave of spam would slow.

On another note, Friday's Online Spin by David Cohen, our guest Spin columnist, drew more than 45 responses, and they still keep coming. Cohen, senior-VP and interactive media director at Interpublic Group of Cos.' Universal McCann Interactive, called for a single edition of Media magazine. Currently MediaPost publishes two editions: one for online media practitioners, one for traditional. The overwhelming majority of you who wrote in to comment, favor a unified magazine that "tears down the wall between interactive and traditional media," as Evan Brown puts it.

Eric Picard of bluestreak, comments: "As long as you're going to give an equal amount of time to what you currently apply to online reporting, sure, stick them together!"

And Terry Heaton, from Donata Communications notes: "I'm one of those who believes the age of mass marketing is drawing to a close, and the Internet is making that happen," and, she continues, "The point is that the future is interactive. It is the engine driving the change, and only if a combined magazine approached it from that perspective would it get my vote."

Keep letting us know what you think. And better yet, how about if all of you out there forward David's column to one or two of your traditional media brethren and their bosses? We want to know what they think.

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