Bay Area Spam Network

I'm a member of the Bay Area Startup Network (even though I'm based 450 miles south of the Bay Area) which puts on some great events for startup companies looking for financing. I've met some great VCs this way, and every meeting I've gone to has been worthwhile.

BASN has a mailing list which I'm a member of. This mailing list has had some problems lately, and it's driving the BASN members mad.

Seems the configuration settings for the server that runs the list are broken, or the server is broken, or something. Each time an outbound mailing list message bounces because of out-of-the-office notices from one of the BASN members, the bounced message then gets sent to each BASN member. People then respond to the list saying "stop sending me these emails" and these too get sent to the whole list. Someone then follows up with a "yeah, enough already" and that too gets sent to the list. The echo chamber is getting so bad people are threatening litigation:

• Fix your friggin' e-mail system, I only have limited room for e-mails!!!!!!

• SHUT OFF YOUR AUTO MAIL/SERVER/WHATEVER!!!! I AM BEING INUNDATED WITH YOUR STUFF AND DON'T WANT ANY OF IT.  PERIOD...!! THIS IS NUTS.....

• Ditto! I have requested on numerous occasions to be removed from this list. If I receive one more e-mail from basn, I am going to refer this matter to a lawyer!
  -- Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

• whatever the hell this stuff is, stop sending it!!!!!

• take this address off your mailing list. we are getting full mailboxes from repeat e-mails. please fix this. it's been going on for a long time.

• You still have a problem.  I do not want anymore emails from basn.  Thank you.

• You still have a major problem. I am getting 20 autoreplys from various senders. Remove my name. You have a virus.

Methinks BASN ought to consider using a different mailing list service. The organization risks alienating its entire membership if something isn't done soon.

 

The AIGA Debate

I used to be a member of the AIGA, currently the subject of debate in this long thread at Airbag.

Finally left the organization because I couldn't in good conscience continue being a member of a group that polluted so much. The AIGA seems to think it is its mission in life to cut down as many trees as possible, form them into as many different heavy-stock paper objects as possible, come up with slogans and pictures and designs that are as artsy and "designed with a capital D" as possible and print them on these heavy-stock paper objects, and then mail out as many of them as possible in as excessively-overdone mailing parcels as possible to every member as frequently as possible.

You want design inspiration? Go to a multiplex theatre and study the movie posters. Which ones work and why? Grab a copy of the Wall Street Journal and study. Go to an Apple store and stand in the very center and slowly turn around 360 degrees and observe.. Go study Braun products at the local department store. Spend three hours surfing through 300 blogs. The design's out there. We don't need AIGA.

Corporate Hate Sites

Forbes has an article out this week about the top websites for venting about bad corporations.

Talk about "markets as conversations" . . .

It's going to be interesting to see over the next couple of years how the local sites like JudysBook.com and InsiderPages.com deal with really harsh critiques of local merchants, mechanics, doctors, bookkeepers, etc.