Unwise marketing moves

I've just come across a couple of problems with new media marketing that I feel are problematic. The first happened when I signed up for the Amnesty International e-mail list. Somehow a mistake was made, causing the list to act like a listserv, rather than an e-mail list. People's automatic out-of-office replies started getting sent to the whole list. So then people, who didn't understand why they were getting e-mails from strangers, were replying (which again got posted to the whole list) things like, "I don't know you, why are you e-mailing me?" The situation has been snowballing; one person on the list sent an e-mail to everyone to calm them down, and explained that obviously Amnesty International made a mistake. This can be a big problem, since it means that our e-mails are being released to a large number of people.

Another experience was when I checked out the PC magazine website, to see what they were saying about technology. (Interestingly, it seems to be a website that also operates as a sort of blog, allowing people to post comments on articles.) Their latest issue lists the top 100 web sites, which I found interesting. But of course, they ask you to "join" by registering, and they have a long registration form to fill out. It's not secure, and asks for your name, address, and other personal information. I found that quite annoying; I applaud Emi's suggestion to have all personal information encrypted, not just credit card information.

In some ways, the new media have a few bugs to work out.