Monday, August 29, 2005

Spam, blog version

It had to come, the systematic use of blogs as a way to gain attention through non-personal networks.

First we had the commentary spam. It showed up at this blog as well, even if people need a blogger account to post. Here it took on the nature of "I love your blog, have a look at mine".

Then we had (and probably still have) paid blogging and promotional blogging. Commercialisation is inevitable, when a good blogger sees a way to make money doing what they know how to do and like.

Now there's the "high-class blogs" thing. That may be serious, perhaps there is somebody out there who really want to show off good blogs. It looks like spam though - now that I have received the same message in email and in the commentaries. I guess if you manage to generate a lot of traffic through links of the nature "I was asked to submit this to high-class blogs", you get a portal which then efficiently points on to other blogs, no matter what the quality of said blogs is. Flattery works, that's the main lesson of the Nigeria-scam mails.

The next version was through email as well. This was the press manager of an English artist, who is writing the writers of art-themed blogs. I never noticed "art" as a particularly well-promoted feature here, but I guess I have said the word once or twice. They suggested a link exchange, very politely.

While not "squeeze my silicone tits", these suggestions have the flavour of spam - high-class spam perhaps (full sentences, no mention of sex or attempts to sell me viagra or a college diplomas, correct spelling), but still. Or perhaps I am doing people injustice, and this blog is just SO attractive that all these wonderful people are willing to send a lot of formula letters in order to make me notice them.

Yes, that has to be it.

(and steve (read the comments) has proved himself a spammer, and I have deleted his post in my comments. If you get hold of Faltin Karlsen, let him know his blog is being spammed.)

3 comments:

Loren said...

Steve has been busy. I got basically the same letter except that he added if you noted that "steve recommended" he could almost guarantee that my site would be listed.

I'll have to admit that it's a good ploy and i even went to the site mentioned to see who was listed there, only to find several good sites.

Mike @ Vitia said...

There's been some discussion of the "high-class blogs" invitations on the CCCC Blogging SIG list, as well: apparently, a number of us writing teacher-bloggers got invitations to the "high-class blogs" thing, too, and WHOIS reveals that their servers are adultxspace.com. Interesting reversal of the Technorati thing, and indicative of a growing consciousness that linking-to can carry value similar to that of being-linked-from. It makes me think of what Collin's been talking about with reverse bibliographies and lists of "works citing" as well as "works cited."

Torill said...

Loren, he recommends us all, and he wants us all to mention that he does so. A real link-slut is what he is.

But perhaps that's not surprising, if highclassblogs is within an adult space? I haven't even checked, Mike, I just declined politely at first, then realised that he was sending the same email/comment all over!