Robin Burden answered
Spam is the name given to those irritating messages, emails, and other forms of unsolicited communication that people receive, sometimes in annoyingly large amounts.
Although the disadvantages of spam are fairly obvious (annoying people, wasting their time, and taking up space on people's hard-drives are just a few), there are also a couple of benefits to spam that are worth mentioning.
The benefits of spam
When I was in a band, I unashamedly used various mediums (email, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace) to send potential listeners messages containing or about my music.
This helped to get more people listening to my music, and also made sure the band met the minimum attendance targets whenever we were playing live.
Believe it or not, most London gig venues will refuse to re-book a band unless its members bring at least 40 people along with them. As a result - unless you have 40+ friends who are willing to hop on a bus to King's Cross on a rainy Wednesday night - this can be a big hurdle that prevents bands from getting enough bookings.
Luckily, my band was able to reach much larger audiences through the medium of the Web.
I know that some of the people I emailed or messaged probably didn't even bother to read my event invitation before sending it straight to their virtual trash-cans, but some people did take the time to check us out - and that's the point of spam!
Companies use spam in much the same way (although often on a far larger scale).
The disadvantages of spam
Spam is annoying. If you've ever had to go through your email account, weeding out the relevant emails from the junk messages selling miracle hair growth lotions, free subscriptions to dating websites, and overnight penis enlargement then you'll know exactly what I mean!
Spam also risks severely damaging an internet company's reputation.
For example, if every time you logged on to a certain social media website you ended up being inundated with spam, it wouldn't be too long before you'd start looking for a new site to connect with your friends and family on - without the hassle of being targeted by spammers.
Although the disadvantages of spam are fairly obvious (annoying people, wasting their time, and taking up space on people's hard-drives are just a few), there are also a couple of benefits to spam that are worth mentioning.
The benefits of spam
When I was in a band, I unashamedly used various mediums (email, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace) to send potential listeners messages containing or about my music.
This helped to get more people listening to my music, and also made sure the band met the minimum attendance targets whenever we were playing live.
Believe it or not, most London gig venues will refuse to re-book a band unless its members bring at least 40 people along with them. As a result - unless you have 40+ friends who are willing to hop on a bus to King's Cross on a rainy Wednesday night - this can be a big hurdle that prevents bands from getting enough bookings.
Luckily, my band was able to reach much larger audiences through the medium of the Web.
I know that some of the people I emailed or messaged probably didn't even bother to read my event invitation before sending it straight to their virtual trash-cans, but some people did take the time to check us out - and that's the point of spam!
Companies use spam in much the same way (although often on a far larger scale).
The disadvantages of spam
Spam is annoying. If you've ever had to go through your email account, weeding out the relevant emails from the junk messages selling miracle hair growth lotions, free subscriptions to dating websites, and overnight penis enlargement then you'll know exactly what I mean!
Spam also risks severely damaging an internet company's reputation.
For example, if every time you logged on to a certain social media website you ended up being inundated with spam, it wouldn't be too long before you'd start looking for a new site to connect with your friends and family on - without the hassle of being targeted by spammers.
