My Thermos

I launched another site yesterday called My Daily Spam and I am having a lot of fun with it. Not that I don't have fun writing for MyThermos, or for TechFires, but researching my couple of posts to this new site has already proven to be quite entertaining.

The idea behind this site is to try and find some good from the miserable waste of time and bandwidth that is my real daily spam. I own a couple of domains and have some public email addresses so I get my share of spam, a couple hundred a day. By routing everthing through my gmail accounts I really don't see any of it but I do occasionally go through it to make sure that it isn't filtering out items improperly.

And I am finding that some of it is really funny. The headlines are great. The names are great. The wording is great. So every day I'll dig through (it really doesn't take long) and pick out a favorite to post on My Daily Spam. Like I say there, if you can't stop it, you might as well laugh at it.

I did find some irony in creating the site. I am asking for verified email addresses from people before they can post comments. That's right, I'm collecting email addresses in an effort to minimize my own spam, on my spam site. And I did set up the obligatory feed so you can subscribe in your favorite reader but I did stop short of offering an email subscription, would people really subscribe to get spam in their inbox?

I'm actually thinking that perhaps I can eventually turn this into a resource for spam prevention with articles and such, but for now I'll just stick with sharing the best of My Daily Spam.

Enjoy

SB

I almost hate to write about this as there may be some truth to the old "no such thing as bad press" adage but I am too annoyed to just let this pass.

I get a call this morning from a company called Merchant Circle. It is a message telling me that a customer who found me on google has entered a review of my business on their web site and I should come visit and join to see what they said.

While I tend to be skeptical, I do recognize the importance of branding and reputation and am naturally interested in what someone may have had to say.

Before I pay a visit though - I do some searching around. Seems that this phone spam message is common for them, and usually there are no comments or reviews. Not a good sign.

I am still curious though. I head over and pull up my business. Sure enough - no reviews. There is basic information about my business, a link to my website, etc.. but no other activity.

So now I am annoyed. Deceitful practices to get me to this site in hopes of having me register and subscribe to their service is not the best way to start a business relationship with me. Even if I had been interested in this service, there is no way I would be affiliated with them now.

What is odd though is that the site is actually pretty well done. I can see it being a good service for small business, a place to advertise, announce specials, even basic blogging is available.

A well written invitation to me describing the service and the benefits may have prompted me to at least complete a profile and see if it generated any business.

Instead, I request they pull my listing and I rattle off an email to their customer service team advising them of my displeasure, confident it will elicit no response.

Do you really want to place your trust in someone who relies on deceptive practices and unethical behavior to get you as a business partner?

Bottom Line - Avoid Merchant Circle