Tag Archives: advertising

Spam is Spam

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Don’t try to advertise your products and services on my blog.

June 30, 2014 Update
I’ve finally gotten around to writing up the site comment policy on a regular page (rather than post) on this site. You can find it here: Comment Policy.

For some reason lately, my blog — and many others, I’ve heard — has been attracting a much larger than usual amount of comment spam. Comment spam — in case you’re not familiar with the term — is an attempt by spammers to incorporate links to products, services, or Web sites they’re trying to promote in the comments on blog posts. Smart bloggers use spam filters like Akismet (which I use) to separate the obvious spam from what might be legitimate comments. Some bloggers let everything that their spam filter doesn’t catch get published to their blog, but I don’t. I review and approve every single comment. This is all laid out in my site’s comment policy.

This site attracts, on average, about 100 spam comments a day. Lately, that number has quadrupled. On another one of my sites, Maria’s Guides, spam has increased tenfold. Apparently, there’s a new spam tool available for spammers. But Akismet has me covered.

Akismet, unfortunately, doesn’t catch all spam. One or two spam comments slip through each day. I dutifully delete them — or, more accurately, mark them as spam so Akismet will recognize them as such in the future — even if they appear to have been manually entered by a real person. (Most comment spam is entered automatically by spamming software.)

What some people don’t seem to understand is that my blog does not exist as a platform for them to advertise their goods and services — especially if those goods and services compete with mine. What can people possibly be thinking if they attempt to advertise their helicopter charter service or computer how-to book on a blog post that talks about my service or book? Do they think that I spend hours every week building a platform for their advertising? I don’t.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not discouraging comments here. I’m just asking readers to think about their comment before adding it:

  • Is it on topic? Most spam is not.
  • Does it add to the conversation, and thus, to the value of the blog to other readers? A comment written solely to advertise a product or service rarely adds to the conversation. And yes, it is possible to mention and discuss a product or service without it being an advertisement.
  • Does it provide information about products and services that compete with the blog author’s business? You can’t honestly expect a blogger to allow comments that would reduce his or her ability to earn a living.

If the answer to any of these questions is NO, don’t post it. You’re wasting your time since it’ll never appear here.

And here’s a tip: you’re far more likely to have a comment containing product or service information accepted here if you’re a regular commenter.

If your first comment here simply presents information about a product or service, it’s all to obvious to me that your sole purpose for posting it is to spam my blog. Don’t waste your time. It only takes me a second to click the Spam button.

Smartphone Trick to Stop Answering Repeat Calls from Telemarketers

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Put their numbers in your address book.

These days, my only phone is a cell phone. Although I’m listed on the Do Not Call Registry, apparently telemarketers don’t consult that list before interrupting my work day or dinner or personal time. I get quite a few calls every single day.

I no longer answer calls from “unknown” or obviously fake phone numbers. I figure that if a person blocks their phone number, they’re likely up to no good anyway. If they are legitimate, they can leave a message to prove it.

TelemarketersBut it’s the calls — often repeat calls — from telemarketers using legitimate looking phone numbers that I can do something about. I add them to my address book. Then, the next time they call, I know that answering is a waste of time. I just send it to voicemail.

Adding a telemarketer number after a call is as easy as pushing a few buttons on my smart phone. I don’t even bother entering in the name. Just “t” is enough for me to know. Then, after I sync my phone with my computer’s address book, I merge the telemarketing calls into one record and sync again. The result is a growing list of phone numbers always up-to-date in my phone.

I’m thinking that if a bunch of folks shared known telemarketing numbers, we could prevent first-time answers. So I’m inviting you to share a few telemarketer phone numbers here in comments.

I’d also like to suggest using 800notes.com, whocallsme.com, whocalled.us, www.callwiki.com, and mrnumber.com to look up and report telemarketing calls.

Finally, if you’d like my Telemarketer vCard (complete with skull and crossbones) to get started, you can download it here. I’ll try to update it regularly.

There IS Such a Thing as Too Much Business

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When that business is being conducted at a loss.

I’ve been deeply involved in the Groupon debate for the past few days.

Earlier in the summer, I’d bought a Groupon from a Twitter friend and had used it to buy some jewelry at half price. Later, in August, I was approached by a Groupon clone company and got the details on what they really cost a small business. I did some math, realized it would never work for my business, and blogged about it .

Only a week or two later, I heard a story on NPR about Groupon in which a friend of mine with a business similar to mine was interviewed. He seemed to say positive things in the interview. When I called him, he gave more concrete information that didn’t seem too positive. I spent half a day crunching the numbers again and still couldn’t see how Groupon could benefit me.

I put that aside and got on with my life.

Back into the Debate

Yesterday, my attention was captured by a story on Plagiarism Today about a photographer who had been caught apparently passing off professional photographers’ images as hers on her Web site. The whole thing blew up in her face when she offered a 1-hour portrait sitting with print and CD of images for $65 through Groupon. She’d sold over 1,000 of these — far more than any photographer could complete in a year — when someone pointed out that photos on her Web site belonged to other photographers. She attempted to say that her site was hacked, but it was pointed out that the same photos also appeared on her Facebook page. Then her site and Facebook page went down; when her site reappeared it had a collection of crap photos that my mother could have taken with a Kodak 110 camera. (My mother is a horrible photographer.)

If you’re interested in seeing how the situation developed, read the comments from the Groupon thread, which were preserved by Petapixel after Groupon cancelled the offer, refunded the money, and deleted the thread. (A little too late to put out that fire.)

This story was picked up by many other sites, including TechCrunch. Their focus was on the ability of a business to effectively service Groupon customers, Groupon’s apparent failure to properly vet the services it features, and the hardship incurred by at least one Groupon merchant, Posie’s Diner. Since I’ve always thought that the Groupon model could be potentially harmful to a small business merchant using their service to advertise, I went to the Posie’s Diner blog post and read the story. It’s an honest and rather sad account by the restaurant owner who wound up having difficulties meeting payroll expenses while accepting the Groupons she’d sold. Each one had a face value of $13 but she’d received only $3 for each one. That meant she’d have to sell $13,000 of product for only $3,000 in revenue. The blog post explains the other related problems, which are mostly customer related.

Some Commenters Are Jerks

To make it clear, Posie’s Diner does not blame Groupon. She admits she made a mistake and takes full responsibility for it. But that didn’t stop the usual bunch of jerks from making nasty comments on her blog post. This one really pissed me off:

Businesses that complain about too much business should not be in business.

Wow. This guy needs to get a clue. If every sale you make comes at a loss, then even one sale is “too much business.”

That’s the situation I would have faced if I went with the Groupon clone — or Groupon. My margins are so low that I’d lose money on every single sale. I didn’t need that kind of business. No business does.

Is Groupon a Problem?

I admit that I resent the idea of a company making money off my hard work while I lose money on deeply discounted sales. Posie’s might have made a mistake going with Groupon, but it’s a mistake they won’t make again. I just won’t make that mistake at all.

To be fair, I read both good and bad comments all over the Web about Groupon from both merchants and customers. Clearly, there are possibilities for using the service with success. I just can’t figure out what they could be for my business. But there’s also a lot of pain in the Groupon model: the financial hardship of businesses with too many Groupon sales, the difficulty for customers being able to redeem Groupon goods and services due to crowds and overbookings.

Back to the “Photographer”

The idiot “photographer” who unknowingly pulled me back into the Groupon debate is truly a fool. Not only did she commit fraud when attempting to use other photographers’ work as examples of her own to sell her services, but she sold far more Groupons than she could ever expect to accept. If she hadn’t been revealed as a scammer in time to cancel the sale, she likely would have been out of business before long. After all, she was making less than $35 on each hour-long session at a client’s home. Between transportation costs and materials costs, she would have been in the red from day one. Would 1,700 sales at only $35 each have been “too much business” for her? I think so.

Then, when customers starting seeing the dismal quality of her work, would Groupon have refunded their money? And what would they have done when the fraud claims starting coming in and Groupon was called out for not properly vetting the offer?

Or maybe she was a true scammer who never planned to do any Groupon work. Perhaps she planned to just take the money and run.

Clearly, there’s some kind of problem with Groupon that needs attention. I’ll continue to watch from the sidelines. But I certainly won’t be giving Groupon any business in any form.