Here’s a dreary little approach to spamming. For some months now, a guy called Bobu, or demoore has been stalking us around the blogosphere. He searches for posts about ChinesePod using the various blog search engines. When he finds one, he goes in, often adding some silly, fake helpful comments, as if he were a disinterested party, and recommends this site . Wherever anyone find posts about us, there he is. It seems he spends a lot of time populating social networking sites with spam.
Now Bobu himself is one in a million and utterly inconsequential, of course, but I think his approach is noteworthy for what it gets wrong. First of all, he hides behind his anonymity, indicating that he doesn’t believe in what he’s selling. Secondly it’s deceptive: Pretending to be be an objective commentor on a blog, when your purpose is, in fact, to sell, is simply dishonest. Thirdly, it has that clingy, stuck-to-your-shoe quality says needy amateur all over it. Not exactly good marketing. (It also took no more than a few clicks to find his little trail of spam.)
To me, web 2.0 is about transparency. Anyone who wishes to discuss alternative offerings has always been welcome to do so, here on ChinesePod. We have never once blocked a genuine discussion here, even if it were an obvious promotion for a competitor, as long as the insights benefit the community.
Trying to selfishly extract value or traffic from the blogosphere is a mistake. If the currency of the realm is information/insight/ideas, then you have to make a deposit before you can withdraw. You have to contribute to the conversation in a helpful (and better still, original) way. If, as a blogger/marketer, you make real contributions, you’ll see a return, in the form of traffic, comments, etc. You may even be able to build a community.
I think trust is another key issue. Online communities value trust, possibly above all else. Give it to them and show them that you trust their judgment, and they will reward you with the same. Nothing proceeds in a community without trust and transparency.
Just some home-spun philosophy, for this Monday afternoon. What are your thoughts on trust, and transparency?
Ken Carroll
Ken,
I’m not wise to all the scams on the web by a large margin and I still don’t understand what this guy has to gain but I TRUST YOU to do what is best. Thank you for making this such a neat place to visit and exchange ideas! And thanks to all the other people who make this such a vibrant and educational community.
Dear Ken Carroll,
A friend of mine sent me a link to your the last post on your blog, which I would have certainly come across soon or later since I am a
regular reader of your blog. I have even joined some of the discussions in the past.
Your post made me ponder about the general SPAM issue.
Chinese-tools.com’s forum is also victim of SPAM on a daily basis, and I waste a lot of efforts deleting the unwanted comments from
spammers. I run the site myself, and obviously have to promote it as well. I am far from being an expert in promoting a site online, and I
currently use Google alerts (such as “learn Chinese”) in order to spot similar websites and forums, where I can suggest a link to my site.
Chinesepod turns to be a very popular website with Google alert, and that’s the reason why I have posted links to chinese-tools, in
relation to the actual topic discussed in the post. But I have never considered this as spamming until you raised this issue.
I apologize to all the bloggers who might have felt abused by my comments, and will seriously reconsider the way I promote chinese-
tools.com
I will stay in Shangai for a few days in February, and I would only be too happy to meet you there.
Olive (www.chinese-tools.com)
Ken,
I’m not sure that I have as much faith in the blogosphere as you do. It certainly would be a better place to be if folks behaved themselves. But I don’t think that it has the innate ability to defend itself (which I perhaps incorrectly understood you to be suggesting). It’s much much easier to game a virtual social circle than a real one. The one extra level of indirection allows folks to dissemble more easily. And to the technically proficient, there are many ways to make one’s voice louder than many others, even if one doesn’t have a lot to say. I have seen examples of this in the software development blogosphere.
I’m a late comer to blogging and I have an allergy to the term Web 2.0 (again - this is due to the software engineering filter that I can’t help looking through), but I’m slowly and belatedly beginning to enjoy the experience of reading and writing blogs. All this in spite of elements like the one you refer to. The fact that trust can take place without perfect transparancy and meaningful conversation can take place over the background noise is what gives me most satisfaction.
I have a question regarding “transparency”. It may be a stupid question but if it is it won’t be my first and probably won’t be my last. Why do so many people post names other than their real names? Am I being naive? Are so many people afraid of the boogeyman or “Cáocāo” (曹操) or the tax collector or do they plan to run for public office and don’t want what they say on ChinesePod to held against them? There are others besides me who post using their real names and they don’t seem to have suffered from wear and tear and it doesn’t seem to hurt people like Ken Carroll, Jenny Zhu, Aric Queen or John Pasden or….ahhh, now I get it! Maybe those aren’t their real names. Maybe I should change my registration name to something like Alf from Melmac
Bob-
I’ve never seen a public blog or board with actual user names. I think it’s probably part of the blog culture.
Of course, there are some who take advantage of anonymity to cowardly make rants or insults. Although it occasionally happens here, it seems much less so than other sites.
rb
I’m sure it’d be pretty easy to find out just about anything you like about me on the net. I’m careful, but not that careful. I am actually using my first name, rather than an alias (mostly because I don’t know one that sounds/looks decent and still suits me). I’ll recommend CPod to people if they’re looking for things, but I don’t quite understand why you’d go and promote something wiht all your spare time, and damage their reputation, when you have zero connection to it. I don’t get trolls.
Michael,
Thx for the kind words.
Olive,
I think your comments are a good example of transparency! You are open and willing to see another PoV and you took prompt action.
Brendan,
I don’t beleive in in the innate goodness of people or the blogosphere, for that matter. The net is morally neutral but it has a kind of self-correcting mechanism built into it that tends to expose dissemblers over time. Wikipedia is an example of a similar process. The content of wikipedia gets more accurate over time, not because of the moral guidance or a supernatural force, or any innate human kindness, but becasue of simple peer assessment and the filtering out of the dross -’wisdom of the crowds’.
Bob/Ron,
The culture on the bullet boards forums tends to be one of anonimity. With blogs, slightly less so. I think it’s reasonable to want to remain anonymous on those forums. I think blogs work best when someone commites to a view of the world and explores that with readers. I guess trust (and transparency)is pretty necessary.
Ken Carroll
Whether you talk about current blogging or old school newsgroups, anominity far surpasses those with their faces out there. It is the prudent way to be on-line. Still, with the patience to wait out the spammers and trolls, even anonymous on-line people can become trusted sources (to a point). I post using my real, albeit not full, name. Even the most frequent CPod blog and forum posters use an alias, first name only, or adopted Chinese name.
The chinese-tools comment/reference did hit my remix web site soon after I started it. I almost deleted the comment when it appeared, but let it stay. It was benign enough and seemed like a real person, instead of a bot, was doing it.
Guerilla marketing works to a point for legitimate products, but it is a fine line to cross to becoming a spammer.
I also thing Chinese Pod sets a great example of how this actually works.
Olive,
It’s good to see you owning up to it, but I find it a little hard to believe you didn’t know you were spamming. You used a textbook spam method. Then the only promise you made was to “seriously reconsider” your “methods.” In other words, “my spamming got exposed, so I might stop.”
Olive… nice going. Doing a quick search I see you’ve even got Stevie Wonder’s lawyers after you. Did you at least call him first? to say, I don’t know, that you love him? And offer to give him his domain name back?
Bob,
Ha! I kill me! I like the planet Melmac too.
Nice to see you blogging again.
—
I apologize for not contributing anything to the transparency discussion. I just have to say hi to Bob.
Hi Ken,
I wasn’t suggesting any inate goodness of people. I was referring to the notion that is found amongst many blog evangelists that the structure of the blogosphere somehow creates a defense against fakes. I think this is the argument that you are making: the blogosphere is by its nature transparent and therefore tends to uncover frauds naturally (the ’self-correcting mechanism’ that you mention).
I wish it were the case because I too believe in the Wisdom of Crowds. However as that book (an excellent answer to another excellent book The Madness of Crowds) points out, it doesn’t happen by itself. It needs a number of key factors in place (I wish my memory would allow me to mention them all, but independence and hetrogeneity come to mind). The blogosphere has some of these in place, to some extent. Clearly enough to make it worth people’s while to go online.
A parallel with a market-based economy: The modern marketplace works quite well, based on a modest transparency that must be constantly guarded. But it screws up regularly and spectatacularly when transparency (and other factors that regulate the crowd in the marketplace) fail: from Tulip Bulbs to Enron, people have been fooled by mad markets. I think the blogosphere functions in a similar way except that it is possibly less regulated than most modern markets.
Economists and financiers are very good at reading the market - and because they can filter so effortlessly this leads them to believe that the markets function (i.e. deliver truthful answers about worth) better than they really do. Similarly, techies and others who are very informed about the Internet tend to make a similar mistake and overestimate the ability of the blogosphere to deliver truthful answers. We have to remember that most users of the Internet still can’t recognized a phishing attempt, still see nothing wrong with passing on chain email, and still have difficulty recognizing a reliable source from an unreliable one. (A similar argument can be made about the ability of expert big players in both these areas to game the market/community).
So to summarise (God yes please! I hear you say) I think that the blogging community does benefit from trust and transparency but I suspect that there is more trust and less transparency than you seem to be suggesting.
Art Kho,
Hey, it’s good to see that you are still around also. Us Chicago boys need to keep our hand in and keep the lid on.
My apologies to everyone for interrupting the blog but I just had to say Hi to Art. He is such a cool guy…and he uses his real name too!
Hi Olive, let’s see if you’re real. Please post about why you put up your site, and leave out the website link.
Hey, looks like the President of China is serious about “purifying” the Internet. Hopefully, he has read this blog and will be targeting the spammers.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/i.....index.html
Ken,
I have been cruising online forums since about 2000, but i’m just now getting into reading blogs. I just started my own blog, which is mainly about my life. Since i’m in the military and I don’t really want to be censored by my work, I don’t use my name in anything I post online. This way, even if they ever do find something I wrote to be a harsh criticism (something we’re not supposed to do in public) , I can’t get in trouble.
I haven’t known very many people online that actually use their real names in forums. But I see it more and more on blogs.
just my 2 cents one why at least 1 person remains nameless.
Well, looks like there’s a spamming issue here, check latest three letters posts under How big is mobility for you?
Yv
Hmmmmmm… looks like they’re getting more aggressive about keeping the blogs cleaned up. No mention of other websites allowed? Good luck!
Fred,
This is a blog and as such, we link freely to other blogs al lthe time. Ironically, thsi morning there was an avalanche of spam and your post may have been a victim during the cleanup. Sorry if that’s the case. You’re welcome to post again.
Ken Carroll
Dear Lantian,
What do you mean? You want to know the reason I created my website?
Chinese and web programming are two of my passions, building this website was 一箭双雕.
I’m also a musician, I played a lot in China the past years, and I’m about to start a website with a friend, which will offer some free online music tools.
As I promissed I wont publish any link in this post.
And as I told in my previous post, I will be in Shanghai in two weeks, a guitar on my back! I would be pleased to invite the Chinesepod team for a drink.
You’ve got my email!
Olive