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.
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.
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!
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.
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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.
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.
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?????
The first thing I thought of when I read that was: How do we get this guy's address and send him junk mail, like slashdot did to Alan Ralsky? Come on, folks, I want an address, I want an aerial map!
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
And in another startling discovery, saying something over and over doesn't make it applicable to every case! Good Lord!
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
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.
"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.
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.
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'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.
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 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.