Slashdot Mirror
RC Car Craze: The Spam Connection
Rick Zeman writes "The Washington Post is reporting that the latest toy craze, miniature radio-controlled cars, is actually fueled by spam, and that spammers are actually helping brick and mortar retailers.
Dunno about you guys, but I get a couple of those a day...and I've resisted the 'temptation.'" The Washington Post wants to know your age, ZIP code and sex, and even provides you with hints on the first two.
...or read
the same story on MSNBC.
MSNBC is carrying the same article without the registration requirement.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
It's a lot easier than boycotting 3rd world child labor or commercial software. To bad grandmothers and perverts are the true targets of spam; not us.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Jump with Google.
...the spam has caused me to NOT buy these things. I figure if they are going to spam, the product must rank right up there with the penis + breast enlagement pills.
so if I start a highstreet store selling HGH and farmsex I'll make a million? Cool.
Didn't Shaq do an ad for these things?
Harvard business school recently stated that marketing causes people to buy things! This startling discovery is said to revolutionize the way people do business. "no more hiding my merchandise for me!" said one excited store-owner.
um, is this supposed to be related to the story in any way? sm P.S. nice story, though
"Light is faster than sound." - "Is that why people tend to look bright until you hear them speak?"
Now if only we could get cars fueled by SPAM...
Hey, I bought one of these guys and they are very cool. They sell them at Frys and my friend's 4 year old loves it. For the cheap price they are a great deal. They're also great for annoying the family pet.
Speaking of which, does anyone remember web poision? It was a cool little CGI script that generated snacks for spambots. A page (linked, or so it appeared to the spambot) would have dozens or hunderds of bogus links and email addy's, and each trip would generate another, completely new page. I want to put something like that on every server I use.
Now that it's shown that Spam actually helps the brick and mortar stores, now are we going to see Walmart and KMart behind a lot of spam in the future?
miniature radio-controlled cars, is actually fueled by spam
Wow, I KNEW they would come up with a use for all that spam.
The Washington Post wants to know your age, ZIP code and sex, and even provides you with hints on the first two
And yet slashdot still links to their site, as do you guys link to the new york times' site.
As a professional journalist, I can tell you that they use that information you input to profile you and sell it to advertisers. Try posting a google cache link next time instead.
Stanley Feinbaum, professional journalist and master debater! God bless the USA!
How about my crowbar connecting with the spammers computer or any 'Brick' connecting with the spammers head. I get way too many spamverts for mini-rc racers, I am tempted to get one just so I can enjoy destroying it.
KILL SPAMMERS NOW
Karma: Censored (mostly affected by decency laws)
Powered by . . . Spam? How Mass E-Mail Ads Fueled a Holiday Gift Craze If there's a teeny-tiny remote-controlled race car under the tree a few days from now, you're at the tail end of a long chain of events that turned this toy from hot to white hot in just a matter of months. How popular are the little remote-controlled cars, sold under various brand names? Well, RadioShack recently limited purchases to two per customer. KB Toys had only three left at its Pentagon City store earlier this week. And the Discovery Channel Store ran out of them even before Thanksgiving and rush-ordered more from various factories in Asia. Guess what: Discovery's about to sell out again. "Our plan was that this would be the big toy for next year," said Ken Cutler, senior vice president of Illinois-based Hobbico Inc., which distributes one brand of the cars. "But this phenomenal craze kind of happened real fast." And like so much else in the Internet age, it also happened globally and with an assist from e-mail. Like just about everything in the toy world, mini-racers are a source of claims and counterclaims by rival companies. But if one toy manufacturer gets its way, the frenzy may subside as quickly as it began. They're called ZipZaps, Z-Car, MicroSizers, Micro Blast Racers, I-Racer -- or more generically, remote-controlled mini-cars. Most of them are made in China, and they cost $10 to $50. The story begins more than two years ago in Japan, where innovative toymaker Tomy Co. produced a speedy remote-controlled car the size of a matchbox with a motor smaller than the end of a pinkie. Tomy called it the BitChar-g (pronounced bit-char-GEE). The car's claim to fame, besides its size: It recharged in 45 seconds, instead of the hours it took most earlier remote-controlled cars to recharge for only a few minutes of play time. Soon the two-inch-long cars were being raced on makeshift obstacle courses at Japanese bars and atop desks in Tokyo's executive suites. They quickly became a pan-Asian phenomenon, with uniformed schoolchildren competing on playgrounds. The buzz was too much for U.S. toy companies and distributors to resist. Mini-cars began arriving at mass retailers and hobby shops in this country as early as this past spring. RadioShack had its ZipZaps, KB its MicroSizers -- and many knockoff artists in Asia tried to catch the wave, creating an explosion: minis, minis everywhere. Including in just about every American's You've Got Mail box. And that's when something interesting happened. There's some argument about this, but the daily barrage of e-mail ads -- two, three, eight a day to the same recipient -- seems to have pumped up awareness of the cars. That's right: Rather than siphon sales from the shopping malls, all that spam seems to have driven consumers to the stores looking for "that cute little car I saw online." This symbiosis doesn't surprise some retailers. "It goes without saying that we are benefiting from some of the guerrilla marketing that's going on," said Pam Rucker, a spokeswoman for the Discovery Channel Store. Nor is it news to mass e-mailers, the electronic equivalent of telemarketers, without the dinnertime interruption. "Retailers get a free ride from guys like us," said John Nesbit, vice president of Chicago area Internet marketing firm Penn Media, whose business now includes buying the knockoff mini-cars from a Hong Kong factory and selling them on the Internet. Penn Media sends millions of mini-car e-mails a day. "We go out and promote the living daylights out of something and the retailers get some of that benefit." To extend its reach further, Penn Media pays 25 contractors to send the ads to millions of e-mail addresses they have purchased from various Web sites.
I bought the China-generic RC cars from a mall merchant for $15 a pop. Out local Hallmark store was selling the same brand. I didn't buy from spammers, and did get a great deal on the cars (if you don't care about upgradability).
When was the last time timothy ever posted some thing intresting and correct?
I think Santa got me one of the Evolution Mini-RC cars. I saw them on ThinkGeek waaaay back. It wasn't until recently I noticed the spam. As far as I can tell, the ones going around in spam are the junkier versions. I think it's just another attack of people trying to sell cheaper imitations much like the Furby craze, which spawned tons of imitations that lacked the features of the original.
Anything I get at the WP site is an "URL redirection limit reached". *sigh*
Story's been up for awhile. Hasn't anyone posted a reply?
If not, FP. Suck my troll!
It must be good for many toy stores, although usually the spams I get try to sell you sometihng intangible. Hrm, I've never gotten a spam for an RC car. Someone forward one to me.
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
As a complete R/C addict, I'm quite happy to see some spam that I'm actually interested in for once. Although I'd never buy the junk that RadioShack or other such places are trying to pass off as RC cars - Yokomo make a mini RC car called the Puchimaru, which is of far higher quality./ index.html
http://www.yokomousa.com/kits/puchimaru
So what's the problem with spam being used to sell RC cars anyway? It's not like it's the first thing to be advertised via spam, and it certainly won't be the last. After all, if they're getting 1/3 of the people who recieve the spam to buy the cars, people must actually not mind recieving this certain spam, right?
-Nutter
in soviet russia, domain buys you
If you want to spend money on an R/C car, don't go for this mini crap. My little brother can't handle the 1/10 scales very well yet, so he got one of these mini cars. They don't last very long. It was exchanged once because the steering went bad on him, and the second one did the same thing. Spend your money on a bigger R/C car. It's definitely worth it.
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
"One of those contractors, Steve Harper, said he has sent 5 million e-mails so far. Earlier this month, he claims he sold 330,000 cars after sending a million ads in one day." And people wonder why spam still gets sent. It is because people buy stuff that is spamvertised.
Michael Loves Me!
in a phallo-centric society such as ours, violence against women can only exist if the
Seriously. The ZipZaps, and most of the stuff from Tyco and Nikko aren't that fantastic.
Get the real deals. 1/18th, 1/10th, or 1/8th. Electric or nitro. On-road or off.
HPI
Kyosho
Serpent
Tamiya
Team Associated
Team X-Ray
Traxxas
RC racing has got to be one of the geekiest and most rewarding hobbies to boot. Meet a lot of nice people this way at events.
-----
From the article, I say it's more like "No one would be sending it repeatedly if they'd actually sold out their product." Anything that needs to be spammed over and over, ad nauseum, isn't selling, thus requiring repeated spam runs in order for the spammer to make a decent ROI.
I groan at the thought of how many professional marketing types will read this article and decide that spam is the way to make _their_ product next year's must-have Christmas gift.
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
One of my co-workers has developed the perfect use for these little things. They are the perfect size to fit a small mouse/rat cover over. Ease it onto the floor in boring meetings, food establishments, etc. Run it around until noticed :) Since they can be had for $10-$15 US they can be considered disposable.
Is it just me, or is this pretty much the most unreliable website out there? There's a certain irony in the Linux crusaders evangelizing about the superiority of Linux when its premiere website is absolutely horrific in uptime and speed, while a website like Microsoft.com is a marvel or speed and quality.
Once in a while I receive a piece of spam that I don't mind. And this RC Car is the one out of about the last 1001 that I didn't mind receiving. Some companies do have innovative and/or entertaining and/or cool products. That RC car sure has been tempting though.
It's nice every once in a while when you receive spam for a product that stands on its own merit; it doesn't need to be hyped up or anything. It is what it is, plain and simple. If spam should be anything, then that is what is should be.
Ya, I thought those were pretty cool, and I was just about to buy one until I start get those SPAM messages. I was so sick of deleting and sifting through them I said fsck them and bought something else.
forget it.
I got first post! Yay for me!
enough said.
Its kind of unfortunate to see that they havent really come out with anything new since '97. Must've fallen on hard times.
-
and he can't even read, so it wasn't because of spam.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Ali estimates that for every e-mail Penn Media sends out, his firm wins one sale and retail stores win 20.
21 sales for every email sent???? Who the fuck is this guy trying to kid?????
must resist....too easy....
I have a girlfriend who brought me back a bagful of these from Japan last summer. There's a reason why they're popular: they're fairly cool, relatively cheap, and they appeal to the geek-gadget demographic. And most of mine are still working, pretty odd for a cheap toy. I wonder how many of the second-generation knockoffs will still be working six months later.
That spammers can find in their hearts to help out the Brick and Mortar businesses. All while filling up my inbox! Man I should just sign up for more mailing lists if theats all the spam is. Actually I wont even buy products that I recived in Spam. It is annoying and it sucks more ass than a chinese crack whore!
---
woowooo
cubano!!!
is not causation.
Say it.
Rinse and repeat.
KFG
I actually bought one, and they're pretty sweet! My boss even likes it. Doesn't justify the spam though.
Retailers get a free ride from guys like us," said John Nesbit, vice president of Chicago area Internet marketing firm Penn Media, whose business now includes buying the knockoff mini-cars from a Hong Kong factory and selling them on the Internet.
So the end result is, the spammers are doing all the advertising and the retailers are getting all the benifits. The moral of this story is that spam works... just not for the spammer! Ha ha, irony, gotta love it.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
>Rick Zeman writes "The Washington Post is
>reporting that the latest toy craze, miniature
>radio-controlled cars, is actually fueled by
>spam, and that spammers are actually helping
>brick and mortar retailers.
The problem is SPAM itself, not the new ways their using it.
I notice myself having reactions to Spam as I do to bad traffic, so i guess we could consider it a future health hazard.
killkillkill
diediedie
has anyone used any awesome out of the box, or a not too troublesome DIY spam filter engine goin?
I bought one a few months back, but not because of spam. From the spam ads I've seen, they're selling cheap knockoffs of the popular versions avaiable from Japan (Bit Char-G by Tomy and Takara's MicroIR.)
KILL SPAMMERS NOW
Karma: Censored (mostly affected by decency laws)
slashdot is a cheap plastic imitation of its former self.
na, couldn't be
The spam model is based off of the traditional direct marketing blanket campaign where you throw out as wide a net as possible and see what comes back.
While spam has a lower effectiveness than tradtional snail mail campigns, it nontheless pays becuase some people are interested in buying what the spammers sell (even when its a scam, unfortunately).
If you believe in the free market, then there is nothing inherently wrong with advertising in any medium (though in Soviet Russia there is...).
The problem with spam is the lack of regulation that balances consumer protection with the free speech rights of advertisers.
Clearly, as consumers we should be able to opt out of receiving spam without having our email address validated and resold, be confident that the advertisements we receive are not fraudulent, have transparency as to which company has sold our information, and importantly, have the ability to register to not receive any spam from any companies.
Spam is an easy target for criticizing as it's annoying and the lack of regulation makes it pernicious. Our focus shouldn't be to persecute those sending it, but to push for strict legislation that balances the rights of the consumer with the rights of the advertiser.
----
in Soviet Russia, sig signs off you.
I'm a friend of a friend of the working class.
I do confess that I do provide false information to Washington Post on that page. IE, 1965/20171. I don't want web sites knowing that much information about me. It all seems stupid because with enough patience you can derive that and much more with an IP address.
Sapere aude!
miniature radio-controlled cars... actually fueled by spam
I was trying to figure out how that might work until I actually read the article :).
I know it's hard, but dno't buy from the spammers, please. ;) Thinkgeek, the slashdot affiliate is selling the same RC cars online.
Link here
How does this fall under YRO? Seriously, how does the connection between Mini RC Cars and spam about said cars affect my rights on the Internet? I don't get it. Someone explain how this endangers my right to say what I want, do what I want, or whatever? Someone explain this to me...
Unlike women, Zip Zaps are: 1. Easy to pick up 2. Low cost 3. Low commitment 4. Low maintenance 5. Have a short recharge interval
I bought some of the cheap non-name-brand China imports at a local mall merchant for $15 and saw a couple national chain stores in the same mall selling them. Only after purchase did I go back and look at those spams to see I bought the same product.
From my point of view, I supported a local merchant who imported the product, avoided giving my money to a retail chain corporation, and avoided giving money to a spammer. The cars are fine. In the same mall I would have paid $21 *more* for a MicroSizer. And the $20 Radio Shack ZipZaps are out-of-stock until after Xmas.
As a gadget, these cars lose their luster quickly for an adult. For my children, they couldn't care less whether it's a MicroSizer, ZipZap, or noname junk. They'll never want upgradeability. I bought 4 cars for $15 each, totally $60. I saved $84, thankyouverymuch.
All the stupid spammers have been killed off. All that remains now are the smart and quick ones. I know lots of anti-spammers like to go on about how stupid spammers are, but those anti-spammers are thinking in 1994 terms. It is almost 2003 and spammers have their shit together. Spammers are making money and will continue to make money as long as people buy stuff advertised in spam. Most people see spam as a 'TV Ad' on the internet. They don't see it as an evil thing that they must sped every waking moment fighting. It is just another ad. That is why the spammers will win.
Michael Loves Me!
"If you see a product more than a couple of times on e-mail, that means that product is selling," Finn said. "No one would be sending it repeatedly if was not selling."
Ironically, the latest Kinsey survey reports that the average american penis length has increased to an astounding 11.5 inches, Forbes is delcaring that the number of millionaires in the USA has jumped 19,422% since last year due to perfectly legal Nigerian banking loopholes, and this slashdot poster has 19, count them, 19 barely legal blonde sluts hovering around the computer desk at this very minute.
(In case you didn't know, "Jenny Crank" diet means doing speed all the time)
Ok. You just get *everyone* to change their MTA to handle this new system. :) I am sure that won't be hard at all.
Michael Loves Me!
As far as the Post knows, I'm a 101 year old woman from Nepal.
It simply legitamizes the business of advertising through a cost-shifted model.
While the incremental cost to the end user (victim) is immeasurable on a single email basis, over a prolonged period the time spent weeding through the trash that comes in via email has a very real cost in lost time/productivity.
I've seen many arguments that there needs to be a balance between the rights of the recipient and the rights of the advertiser. Sad fact is, in any circumstance where any of the cost of the delivery of the advertisement is shifted to me and without my consent, it's consumer fraud. The adversiser has no right to take one microsecond of my time in effort to delete their advertisements from my email box, or to force me to get up from my chair to answer the phone or toss their ad from my fax machine.
Telemarketing, spam, junk faxes or stapling posters to my tree, the costs of delivery are heaped upon me and I'm sick and tired of it.
As far as spam goes, it's time to start pushing for the death of SMTP. It was nice when the Internet was sheltered, but it's now part of the real world and just like the real world, there's plenty of morons to cause problems.
The biggest problem with SMTP is that it has too much implicit trust. Spammers take advantage of this and either falsify headers or steal relay services. Giving priority to systems that have valid credentials and all but ignoring those that fail basic trust guidelines will cause spammers to play fair, or go broke. Those spammers that play fair will have no alternative but to honor remove requests or find their trust level set to zero.
They are little 1x1 images encoded with names that are basically serial numbers associated with your e-mail addres. If you view HTML based e-mail, the server records that you have viewed the page as soon as the gif is requested.
Just looking at junkmail counts as a success for spammers in this case. Oh, and you get added to special lists of people who actually read junkmail.
Personally, I prefer the "all crack diet." It was recently featured in Crack Whore Magazine. Check it out!
Just start shooting smack. You'll shed the pounds and look cool and trendy at the same time. Look at Iggy Pop; he used to weigh in at 350 pounds before riding the horse.
I think we have cause and effect backwards...
Zip Zaps and the like are this year's "hot toy" just like Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids have been in years past. Kids love them, so parents have got to go find them... stores everywhere are selling out, they can't make these things fast enough.
This popularity is not the result of spam, instead spammers are jumping on board trying to sell the product that parents would do anything, include pay over-inflated prices to a spammer, to get. It wouldn't surprise me if half the "Get your Zip Zaps from me!" spam turns out to be scams, yet parents are willing to take that risk at the hope of getting the toy little Jimmy must have.
Whenever anything gets this popular, spammers will be there to exploit the image.
I was in Fry's and they had a little table setup so you could play with them.
Cute, but they can keep them.
The spammers have hit me at least once a day since middle November.
No way would I buy one.
I think that we all should use their suggestions as well. I don't know HOW many names I've acquired since going online on the first BBS. Now, I'm just firstname...
But, they are so helpful to just give values to cut and paste. It makes it so easy!
Do people really think of themselves in terms of society labels?
I just can't picture anyone looking in the mirror and saying "I'm a geek!" I've seen a lot of people aspiring to be part of some category. Grunge, 90210 sideburns, punk rock, burnouts, sophisticated-person with the tiny chic eyeglasses.
A big masquarade ball that never ends. And I stick to me theory that everyone takes their costumes off before they go to bed and some put more effort into playing the part than others.
All rather silly and terrifying at the same time.
Yes exactly. Another stupid journalist holding on to their job for dear life, and another stupid slashdot pick.
THERE IS NO NEWS HERE.
When I first saw the story headline, I clicked on the link as soon as I got to it, without reading on. I read the 3 pages of the story before coming back to Slashdot. Then I read that it needed registration. What? I didn't have to register. So I went back and now I have to register. OK, so I tried a few more times. It seems that in their farm of servers, some are not configured to ask for registration, yet. So just keep hitting it a few times with the same URL, and you'll eventually get a server that doesn't hassle you about your private info.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
"If you see a product more than a couple of times on e-mail, that means that product is selling," Finn said. "No one would be sending it repeatedly if was not selling."
I guess breast enlargement for men is selling, 'cause I'm a guy, and I get a couple of these a week. Hmm, down from a couple a day, so I guess they're not quite as popular, but still....
More like *will* block legit email. SPEWS is designed to block legit email with the non-legit email. I was using a list on osirus and they were putting SPEWS listings in the zone file as well. (I didn't know Osirus did that) Well, my boss pitched a fit because a company we were selling to colud not send email to us because of a SPEWS listing. They were in the same /18 as a spammer and the whole lot was listed. We ditched SPEWS and started using SpamCop's BL. Much nicer.
I repeatedly get "increase your penis 2 inches in only 20 days", and I would be interested to buy, if it really works...
Transforming yourself from pudgy to studly is really, really hard. You've just discovered that for yourself. Congrats. But just because it's hard doesn't mean it's impossible.
Most of the information floating around the fitness & wieght loss industry is either politically or commercially motivated. You need info from someone who makes it their business to take ordinary people and help them reach their physical goals. Try here: Body for Life. He lays out an effective program for people who can't devote their entire life to training, nor have the genetic disposition of Arnold. Give it a try.
Also - for some more advanced tips, try : Testostrone.net. Less 'mainstream' than the other guys, but some good info nonethless.
Good Luck
I'm so sick of spam, giant annoying flash ads, ten minutes of comercials before a movie I payed to watch starts, and related things that I can't take it anymore. I eventually broke down and just decided one day that I'm taping tv so I can fast foreward through commercials, going to movies late or just walking out for a while if the movie hasn't started yet no matter how crazy the people I go with think I am, and keeping flash turned off. It's actually turned out rather well in the long run, as I was quickly reminded that books will not only more often have a better story to tell than most television, there's no comercials!
And that's why I'm surprised to not see much more of an outcry among mainstream advertisers about things like spam. I admitidly must have had a pretty low tolerance to start with, but everyone has a breaking point and this constant bombardment of brain numbing noise could ruin it for everyone if it gets too prevalent.
Everything will be taken away from you.
But NO, Spam lovers encourage SPAM by reporting about it. Bet you all bought those X10 cameras too! Niggahs!
Just because the spammers are ruining your day doesn't mean you have to forego the item completely... Buy a different manufacturer/model. I highly recommend the original Bit Char-G Micro RCs at either your local japanese toy shop, or lacking that-- a listing on eBay will do the trick well enough. $25-$30 is generally the going price and yeah, the instructions are in Japanese, but if you can't figure out the large obvious pictorials, you shouldn't be using a computer anyway (in other words some assembly required, takes under 10min for the average first time user). Bit Char's were around before the micro RC craze here and they're good quality and well supported. Upgradable motors (up to 30,000 rpm!) and tires in addition to the bodies. Good stuff.
What gets me is the number of people who let spam alter their shopping habits. Avoiding the seller I can understand. He spammed you, you're pissed. But boycotting the entire brand? Come on now. The manufacture most likely doesn't have a clue and even if they did, there's not a whole lot they could do about it. So just get your present as planned form either the store or a more reputable website. Easy, ne?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
"The Spam Connection" Is that like the rainbow connection? You know, for lovers, dreamers, and me?
People like you who try for first post 15 minutes after the fact are just so sad... Next time, post anonymously "just in case" mmkay?
Well, the spam certainly seems to be keeping itself to country boundaries. I'm in Australia, and not only have I never seen one of the cars the article is talking about, I've never seen a spam ad for it either...
Targetted spam? Why can't they do it with the rest of the spam, all of which seems to be trying to sell stuff to people in the US.
I NEVER got any emails telling me about the cars. But I do get around 50 spam emails a day. I first heard about them from slashdot and Fark... I think they(and word of mouth) work better than spam.
Body For Life works for very few people. It doesn't provide enough calories, and ends up starving your body. Very few people lose weight on it, and most end up gaining.
Try not eating junk food or drinking pop. If you want, cut out white breads and cereal too.
Personally, I haven't received one of these spam ads, but if I had I would be far more likely to buy a $10 toy car which seems interesting over most of the other spam I get, which advertise products far more expensive and/or less tangible objects (i.e. trips, home surveillance, penis enlargement)
It may be letting out a Pandora's box, but if some ad popped up onto my screen selling me something pretty inexpensive (say, a bulkpack of screen wipes for cheap) that impulsively I thought I would have a use for (no comment) I may actually buy it. The only thing stopping me would be that they would obviously want my personal information, and there's no way I'm giving ANY personal information to a company that makes its business using popup ads.
On the other hand, those mini RCs are sweet! I'd like one, spam or no.
Hmmm...maybe I can find out wich particular brand is using spam and only support the competitors? Anybody care to inform me of the name of the non-spamming brands (if there are any)?
You can't take the sky from me...
Don't worry, M$NBC will make sure that only a few "legitimate" operations will be able to spam you. To do so, they will pump up the problems of unregulated email servers or some other stupid pap. How else can you extend your monopoly into the net? Works for both M$ and NBC. Then all your mail boxes will look like your AOL or Hotmail. At least then they might stop paying people to send out porn spam. Annoy people enough and you can screw them as you please when you claim to be their savior. Good stuff, eh?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
They are GREAT fun... especially if you have cats (evil laugh).
In spite of what the spam says, they *are* still available in stores... I checked right after I started getting these spams claiming they couldn't be bought anywhere else. Check your local hobby shop if you're interested.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Hmmm, I can supply fake info, or support MS via the advertising on their site.
Choices choices
-no broken link
A quick grep of spam assassin logs show my company received > 10k spams w/ RC & CAR in the subject in Decemeber. I wonder if:
1) I could track any of the 10k spams down to Steve Harper
2) Jane Brady (Attorney General of DE) would be interested.
I love the ones that tell you to "check this site", and it includes your email address as part of a GET string. I just go to the main site to find the webmaster/info email (or use a whois), and sign in happily using:a mmersdomain.com
www.someurl?somebullshit=blahvlah&id=webmaster@sp
I wonder how many of these idiots are actually getting their own SPAM. It wouldn't make me the least bit sad to discover that 99% of employees at spam-friendly inc are themselves getting spammed.
i had this idea years/eons ago... i even had track designs... just no money
the only thing stopping me from being rich is not knowing any philanthropists
anyway i can claim ip on this? j/k my ideas are a dime/dozen
... who hasn't ever heard of these things?
The Washington Post is reporting that the latest toy craze, miniature radio-controlled cars, is actually fueled by spam
That's funny... I always thought those miniature RC cars were fueled by watch batteries or triple-A's. I guess it's like they say.. there are endless uses for the ham in a can! (:
People who'd like to see what a representative mini-car actually has in it, by the way, might like to check out my review of one, here.
I groan at the thought of how many professional marketing types will read this article and decide that spam is the way to make _their_ product next year's must-have Christmas gift.
Consider this:
In these articles, you have just read the names and locations of spammers bragging about how they lined their pockets with profits from abusing ISPs' and every user's resources by massively junk-mailing "postage due" at everyone else's expense - so wouldn't your provider's postmaster and legal department (especially if the company has suffered a veritable, miserable "nightmare before Christmas" this year because of these spams), as well as the Federal Trade Commission officials processing the Consumer Complaint Forms, and usually agencies like your State's Attorney General (or in some states, even your personal legal counsel) be more than happy to go after those guys who have just admitted their spamming practices and actually identified themselves with all of their profits ripe for the reaping?
Sorkin's Spamlaws Site gives a good idea about who will certainly appreciate receiving all these pieces of information from the media reports and the spams you've received as a present for Christmas, probably to prosecute by 01/02/03 at the latest...
Providing profitable pointers about proven perpetrators might just be what the enforcement people prefer even over Santa himself showing up in their offices...
They'll know what to do and they'll know whom to sue.
Many spammers actually try to sell perfectly good items, items I'd even like to own. I absolutely refuse to buy anything from a spammer though, so, yeah, they do help brick and mortar businesses inadvertently. Of course that could be an isidious trick by SAID brick and mortar businesses, but it's hard to wrap my mind around the mom & pop stores I usually buy stuff from.
I have two of these cars, the Tamaya ones, which I bought long before they appeared in spam, from businesses located in Hong Kong. One works great and is fun to play with, I've even taken it down to the local pub and raced it around pint glasses to the amazement of others who wanted one, too. Most of the mini RC cars the spammers are pushing are thie Piece of Sh!t knockoffs, though one of my Tamaya cars seems to have a big of a bug, so quality take all that with a grain of NaCl.
All that said, yeah, some spammers advertise nothing but cons and garbage products any brick and mortar store would be run out of town for carrying. And then there's pr0n... you can imagine how effective a boycott for would be. It's probably the fastest growing sector of the economy and had Enron execs invested, well, the company would probably be turning a tidy profit without the offshore shell game.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I clicked looking for evidence and found nothing even circumstantial. Could it be that these toys are successful because they are fun to play with? Why is spam necessary to move them when I see them advertised and demonstrated outside of every third store in the local mall? Does there exist a toy store that doesn't hype and sell these things? Is it the christmas shopping season? Has spam ever been effective at selling anything else, even porn?
Spam is getting more credit than it deserves, in that it is getting any credit at all...
"Time to plug the huge hole in the email dike, my compadres"--that's the rallying cry made here by Jim Newhouse who says: "I've been on the Web with no change in current email address for about 7 years, and I now get about 50 spams a day. I expect that to rise to 100 by the end of 2003, 200 by 2004, well, you get the exponential picture."
If a product is selling, that means you'll see it on e-mail more than a couple of times.
Hey, wait a second... that version makes sense, could it be the original that is the one that is backwards?
Since the la times and other rags are out, when did it become ok to use the leftist pinko commie toilet paper of the wash post?
From previous news items, and commentary including slashdot staff, the leftist pinko commie times, because it was used so much and used for so long before registration was required, and because it is quoted so often, is supposed to be an exception to the rule.
It seems that the rules, and slashdot along with the rules, are being thrown into the trash. Hope its going to be recycled, even if the recycling is unaffordable, like the leftist pinko commies insist on.
WashPost doesn't even ask for your email addy. Just basic demo info. I'm more upset about that ad bar at the bottom of the page I keep having to close. That is a PITA.
I'm not sure I understand. I followed the link in the article, and it's not asking me for any info (nor do I see any ad bar that is closable)...
I feel so left out... but seriously, perhaps it's an IE thing (or Flash or some other junk I have disabled)? I'm using Mozilla 1.3a, JavaScript and Cookies enabled...
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
Avoiding buying the product is not the right thing to do. You have to tell the retailer that you would have bought it but you received a spam about it.
"I would have bought an RC from you
but not now because I received spam"
If one person walked in to a retailer and sang a verse and walked out they might think you were crazy and think no more of it.
If two people walked in and sang a verse, they might think you were both gay and think no more of it.
But if three people, three people walked in to a retailer and sang a verse, in harmony, they might think twice about it next time.
But if sixty people, sixty people a day walked in to a retailer and sang a version, they might think it was a movement.
And friends it is. The anti-spam, I won't buy RC movement. And all you got to do is walk in to a retailer, sing a verse, and walk out.
"I would have bought an RC from you
but not now because I received spam"
See you tomorrow at the rally.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
To every one of you that swallowed the mini-RC hype and bought one for yourself, a friend, or kids, please don't whine when you get spam for these latest crazes now that spam has been officially validated as a way for companies to sell their wares:
1) A new money making scheme! Send me your wallet and I'll show you how one can do it.
2) Big busted babes go sucky sucky!
3) President Mgabe Mambo needs you to send money to save his country.
4) HaHaHa
5) Bigger longer faster...not the history of rocketry, but something else going off.
6) Viagra for all!!! Now with more ginseng and ginko. WWW.Amateur-Pharmaceuticals-Inc.Com
7) Stock ticker ABCXYZ is hott! Low trading fees.
8) Mortgage your life away before rates go up!
9) Get in on the ground floor...amateur elevator cams.
10) Thought you'd like to see this...virus wipe out your hard drive.
11) Can't handle your credit cards? Why cut them up when you can saddle yourself with another loan? Operators standing by to collect bank account numbers.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
What's outstanding about this? People became aware of a cool product and wanted it, that how most toy marketing works. I'm sure more spam would be successful to parents, etc. if it wasn't blatant pornography already on the subject line since it would be novel.
I can't wait to see the common sense story here:
SLASHDOT ARTICLES INCREASE HITS ON WEBPAGES
..for anyone who buys anything as the result of receiving spam. (Though it's arguable that soneone who receives a spam, then buys it somewhere else, is not quite as guilty...)
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
It clears the first time you do it, by setting a cookie. Seems to me the requirement (anonymous poll really) goes back a few months. Evidently they are looking for numbers to develop a revenue model. When I cancelled my print edition Post, mostly because the delivery people kept putting it in the wet gutter, the friendly fellow on the phone asked whether I used the online version, said their marketing people were "interested."
They recently raised the price of the daily print edition from 25 to 35.
have a clue. Stay away from marketing classes. Most of them will do everything in their power to beat it out of you.
KFG
All MSNBC did was present the article from the biased Washington Post. The writing of the article has nothing to do with MSNBC, you just want another reason to attack them. I'm posting as anonymous because I've moderated other comments in this discussion.
I got one of these about 2 months ago. I never got one piece of spam advertising one of these things. What peaked my interest was actually a slashdot article on the subject. I also noticed a few ads for it in the newspaper (Radio Shack flyers, etc...) that same week (after it appeared on /. ). It's possible that these appeared on slashdot and flyers because of spam, but I know I didn't purchase one directly because of it.
I thought these would make a great toy for my cats and it is, They go crazy chasing it around. 2nd best cat toy ever made (the first being the laser pointer. They could chase that thing for hours).
I brought it to work one day and now a few of my co-workers went out and got themselves one. They discovered how fun it is to play with them. So I can pretty much vouch that they didn't buy theirs because of spam, but from word of mouth and trying it out.
It's better to burn out than to fade away
> "If you see a product more than a couple of times on e-mail, that means that product is selling," Finn said. "No one would be sending it repeatedly if it was not selling"
Would someone please tell that to the 419ers that are flooding my mail server?
Has anyone dissected one of these cars yet?
As somebody who builds robots in my "oh so copious spare time", I wonder what is in them (Specifically, not generally) and whether they might be worth buying just for the motors and capacitors....
and yes, I googled it, but I must not be using the right search terms or something.... :-(
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
To extend its reach further, Penn Media pays 25 contractors to send the ads to millions of e- mail addresses they have purchased from various Web sites.
Contractors = small time spam artists that will obtain dial up accounts and use them until kicked off OR people using open relays and korean school proxy servers.
Of the people mentioned in the article
1. John Nesbit john@pennmedia.com (Spam Haus)
PennMedia
19001 S Old LaGrange Rd.
Mokena, IL 60448
USDomain servers in listed order:
Notice the nice name servers. I'll be adding whole chunks of these guys to my ACLs (If they aren't already there)
NS1.SENDOUTMAIL.COM 209.125.134.10
NS2.SENDOUTMAIL.COM 207.241.30.136
NS3.SENDOUTMAIL.COM 209.125.134.140
The also mention another spammer named Steve Harper. He lives in Dover Del.
Now, I won't buy one of these cars, because doing so promotes the sh*t I get in my inbox. See my other slashdot posts on the subject, these fools won't stop unless we take the consequences out of the cyber world and put them into the real world. So does anyone think that certain people (or ALL people for that matter) at pen media needs to get a free subscription to the NAMBLA ? Anyone in Oregeon or another state with strong anti-spam laws get spam mentioning RC cars? Want to press charges? Any Lawyer out there want to file a civil case against these guys for harrassament? How many times do I have to be harassed or ask to be "removed from the list" before I can sue? How many times does my mailserver have to reject mail for addresses that don't exist and have never existed before it's a Denial of Service attack?
Cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
yep, the article on slashdot a few months back made me look all over seattle for them. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/01/063921 8&mode=nested&tid=159
little did i know they would show up all over the place.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Sad really. I thought this was one of the hypes I could live with
and actually enjoyed it. Which toy for 30-40 dollars grabbed attention
of so many adults in our serious workplace that we set up tracks and
actually raced full-force! Now if I had known it was a spam-fired toy
I would never have bought it. (Oh well, I might still have bought it!)
Anyway, sad that spam is getting such attention with 'success' stories.
We need to stop fueling it. I need to stop this post right here.
DO NOT PANIC
step one.
KFG
I've never seen one of these RC car spams. All I ever get is offers for viagra and horny teens.
Does this
Hmmm,,
I see a new spam business model here.
1 Be a Wholesaler
2 Spam retail
3 Take Wholesale orders from frantic retailers
4 Profit!
The truth shall set you free!
Is there a website that compares different makes and models of these micro RC cars?
;)
I'd like to see a comparison chart of speed, battery life, ergonomy, range of the RC transmitter, etc.
I want to make an educated buy
--- Eat my sig.
May I suggest you try burning some of these calories stored in fat tissue. Try using gasoline or kerosene as combustion accelerator. I guarantee ya, you will be a HOT CHICK. Just don't do this indoors because burning fat produces poisonous fumes.
Enjoy.
--- Eat my sig.
the Post tech articles are sometimes available without entering demo info.
For regular WashPost stuff you need to enter info only once, and then I guess you get a cookie so they don't bug your ass until the cookie expires. I assume that the ad bar works on a similar principle, though I seem to bump into it more often - maybe I'm just imagining things.
I saw one of these driving around a table at ConQuest this past fall. I searched and found the original Bitchar-Gs, so I found a RC place nearby that carried them and bought one. It's fun, you don't need to find a parking lot to drive it in or carry a suitcase full of batteries, chargers, parts, tools, etc like my old 1/10th RC cars.
They make great indoor toys if you have tile floors but they don't work on rugs or outside very well.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
Wow, A 2100 percent efficiency on advertisement! For every spam they send out , the recipient buys 21 RC cars on average! For anyone still believing there is any correlation between these numbers, please, use some common sense! The statement is so silly it just hurts to just think about the mental state of the person uttering it.
darkstar@iglou.com is an anal-retentive, no life havin, old and busted moron.
darkstar@iglou.com, when you make statements like that you really set yourself up for ridicule and even more spam.
Be prepared for an overload darkstar@iglou.com.
Umm guys.. gurls... screw the RC car.. I bought the talking toilet paper roll.. I've been waiting for years for somthing like that.. now when my friends use my toilet(they love my heat lamp above it, somthing about pushing one out is easier or somthing), I can have my voice saying really horrible stuff to them.. like:
:)
MMmmm tastes like chicken
do you gotta splatter everywhere you shit man?
damn it stinks worse then your last GF in here.
etc etc etc.. this will provide me with hours of fun
...it's all this Chinese spam!
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
For those that enjoy tweaking and want to push your cars to the max, there's an entire site dedicated to car mods. You can find it here.
It includes mods like increasing the range of your racer to 120', run times of 20 minutes, chassis raising (and lowering) and all kinds of silly stuff. Also you can find conversions from racer to airplane and helicopter.
Enjoy!
My wife bought one for me at the mall. It is a poorly constructed piece of crap. Battery compartments are all held shut with a screw, the screw on mine had a nub of metal on the end making it nearly impossible to open the comparment without breaking off the plastic cover. The machine is supposed to last for one minute on a sixty second charge. More like 23 seconds - and it never really has enough juice to get itself going from rest, so you have to give it a little nudge. Finally, the alignment is horrid, you have to constantly turn it to the left just to keep it going straight. I have seen these, of somewhat better quality, at the Discovery Store in larger cities malls. The Discovery store cars seem to work better but they also cost 21 bucks (US) or so - which is probably (i hope) more than my wife spent.
I refute that the craze is fueled by spam, and propose that the craze is fueling spam. I realize this is difficult to prove or even investigate. Saying that the former is true though could be applied to the viagra craze as well. I imagine the reporters could find a SHRED of evidence that people are motivated to buy one of these R/C cars from a store becuase they got a few spams, but this may be a statistically insignificant event.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
My demographic info would tell them "breeder, ready to pop". I would be buried under diaper ads and my life would become a living hell. At least the generic advertising scores an occasional random hit.
I botched the link in my original post - here's the corporate spam watchlist: SpamCrusader.org
If they want to serve me ads that I'm likely to be interested in, I don't mind.
What I DO mind is getting bombarded with phone, e-mail, and snail mail spam - and fake registration data takes care of that problem nicely.
Sean
I got my original BitCharG, direct from Tokyo, way back when /. ran the first story on them. The cars are neat. Turns out this one is running on a non-fcc-approved frequency, but as long as I keep it away from pacemakers and missile guidance systems, I guess I'm ok. You can still get them much cheaper ordering them direct from Tokyo, even with shipping. If interested, http://www.toyeast.com (They are Online Hobby Union)
- "That's just the kind of fuzzy-headed liberal thinking that leads to being eaten."
This is what I just sent:
42. Easy. What is 32 + 8 + 2?
Someday we'll find it... the Spammer Connection...
The toy cars, the emails, and me!
La la la la la la la...
Harper keeps a close eye on the numbers because he gets a cut from each sale his e-mail blitz initiates.
So much for the "They'll send it anyways" or "They make the same whether you read it or not" arguments.
And just to get a +1 Troll for bashing spam: wget -q -O - $URL | sed -e 's/internet marketing firm/spamming bastards/g'
I first read about the micro RC racers on /. way back whenever and I bought one a few months ago at Walmart.
Can't say I was impressed though. Tiny thing gets stuck on a grain of rice and has problems steering.
This is the marketing company that is paying 25 spammers to promte the toys:
PennMedia
19001 S. Old LaGrange Rd.
Suite 400
Mokena, IL 60448
http://pennmedia.com/
Voice: (708) 478-4500, Fax: (708) 478-5470
PENN is located in the south suburbs of Chicago.
Jaffer Ali, CEO, Jaffer@PennMedia.com
Roy Weiss, Executive Vice President, Roy@PennMedia.com
Tom Zegar, VP of Network Relations, Tom@PennMedia.com
Mary Kolacki, mary@pennmedia.com
John Nesbit, VP
Wes Burnett, netsol contact, wes@pennmedia.com and wes@shagmail.com
They have also registered SENDOUTMAIL.COM.
I wonder if http://www.catalogrequest.com/ is also located in a Chicago suburb.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
do you prefer people read the paper through the front glass of the paperbox instead of buying it? A zip code, sex, and age is a lot cheaper than $1 per paper, it's harmless and, IMO, a very fair trade for free use of their resources.
Just what is the problem with telling them where you're from and your age?
The truth doesn't care what I think.
I recently (4-5) months ago bought 2 of the MicroSizer RC's on seperate frequencies. I had never seen a spam on them prior to buying them. Then a couple of months after that, boom the spam was everywhere. Guess I was one of the folks who was not assimilated. Course if I would have waited the prices would have been more reasonable, like they are now.
Regards,
Ryan Pritchard
Fun Extends All Basic Life Expectancies
That was an utter stock Slashdot stupid fucking joke that's been told 34912093 times before, but you moderated it "Funny". Fuck off and die.