MyBlogLog Is Now Promoting Spam
I belong to several social networks, enjoying each one for what they have to offer. StumbleUpon is my favorite site followed by MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog, and BUMPzee. Yes, I still have MySpace, SpicyPage, and a few other accounts, but these are dormant at the moment. Most definitely, if you were to visit my profile on StumbleUpon you would probably surmise that I am very active there — yes, I use S.U. more than all other sites combined.
MyBlogLog has been an interesting community, perhaps the one social network where I have “met” the majority of the people who frequent this blog. For that reason alone, MyBlogLog rocks.
MyBlogLog’s Big Mistake
Unfortunately, MyBlogLog has decided to make it very easy for community managers to message all of his or her members directly to their email inboxes. What could be a good idea is really a bad one — how many of you are being slammed by spam because of this new feature? I know that I am!
What Others Are Saying
I am not alone in feeling miffed about this change; the following bloggers have covered this topic on their blogs with some bloggers threatening to leave communities where they are getting spammed:
- Yack Yack thinks the MBL messaging system sucks.
- Avinash 2.0 shows his readers proof of MBL’s spam effect.
- One of the voices promising to leave your MBL community if you begin to spam him is Andy Beard.
Exiting MyBlogLog Communities
I, too, will simply remove myself from communities where people have chosen to spam their members. Likely, I’ll disregard one time messages but I won’t be patient beyond that point.
MyBlogLog has made a serious misstep with this decision — please don’t go along with the crowd and spam your members. If you have something important to say, I’ll find it on your blog. Fair enough?
>Likely, I’ll disregard one time messages but I won’t be patient beyond that point.
I’m taking a similar tack Matt.
To be honest I received a message yesterday from a community and I wasn’t too bothered about it because it was actually something I wanted to see and read.
Maybe the people at MBL need to factor in a little warning somewhere so people actually think before they mass message.
Some people are just too keen to promote their stuff and don’t really think about the possible consequences of their actions.
Hi Rob. I agree — some people will use this service with care. Unfortunately, the majority will not. Opting out is the best choice, one that isn’t presently given.
Hi Matt, I’m with you on this one. I’ve written a post on this myself as well as read other blogs with similar sentiment. As the end of the week nears, I’m hopeful to hear of a solution from MBL on this subject. As you may know, they posted on their blog the day after the “feature” was released in light of all the members crying foul, in which they said they’d give it a week to see how things go before they make any changes. Fingers are crossed.
Mark, I need to read the MBL blog!
I thought that there would be some sort of backlash felt by MBL administration and it is good to know that they will reconsider this feature.
[...] MyBlogLog Is Now Promoting Spam - An article written by Matthew C Keegan of The Article Writer. About the Mass Messaging feature, [...]
I have mixed feelings about this. You could argue that as long as you only sign up for communities which genuinely interest you and are of value, then the mass messages you receive should be relevant to you. Maybe this will have the indirect effect of cutting down on the current tendency for everyone to join everything in sight just because they can?
If I get ’spam’ from a community (I haven’t so far), I’ll make a call - do I want more messages like this in future? If not, I probably shouldn’t be in the community in the first place and I will just leave. Doesn’t seem too bad to me.
I agree with you to a point, John. Although I must say that we are also automatically joined to MyBlogLog communities if we don’t opt out of that feature and MBL isn’t currently giving us the option to opt out, which is something that may have legal implications too.
can you elaborate what you’ve gotten out the various communities. What makes stumbleUpon so engaging. maybe, i’ll just have to join.
Hi Baseball Investor — I wrote a review about S.U. that covers many of my favorite points about it. MyBlogLog has brought visitors my way as have the other communities. In all, S.U. is my personal favorite — mostly because it is fun, fun, fun!
Mybloglog is completely hopeless. Everything good gets spammed
I think the “one strike” approach is very wise. Have to say I’m disappointed in MBL for this. I seem to recall their privacy policy assuring folks their email addresses wouldn’t be made available to third parties without consent. Who knew joining a community was, essentially, consenting to receive anything and everything other members want to dump in your InBox?
Yeah it was not a move I was happy with… Hopefully they do reconsider.
VK — My exact sentiment. When you join a social network, you don’t expect to have the rules changed to the point where you cannot easily opt out. A bad move on MBL’s part.
kevin — Word is that MBL is reconsidering. Let’s keep the pressure on them until they relent.
I haven’t noticed this feature yet, however I tend to agree that there is too much potential for spam. The good news is I’ve seen them be very responsive to user feedback in the past, so perhaps they’ll adopt some of the changes mentioned above.
A quick note to let you know that the team pushed out a release earlier today that allows you to opt-out of Community Message emails. You can select it as an option at the bottom of your Profile page.
For more details, see my post on the MyBlogLog blog:
http://mybloglogb.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/07/at-your-service.html
Ian, I applaud you for the move. I must say that the number of community emails received of late has been limited, but I do welcome the added option.
Keep up the good work!