stop txting me pls. (!)

subtitle: i have an adcrush on danah boyd.

if you don't know about her yet, what's wrong with you? love her or hate her but you need to know. she's doing ethnographies that are incredibly relevant to the shifts of emphasis in the ad biz. so listen up. i know some of you are, and i love you for it. [brief rundown? Agency Spy rocks my socks.]

anyway. long story short? stop texting me.
i know that email won't remain the best way to get in touch with my generation in the future, but that doesn't mean you need to turn to text messaging. as we all know, my generation is increasingly more public with our information on the internet, regardless of how we craft ourselves. key words? on the internet.

if your spamails aren't working out for you, text messaging surely won't. i would be more annoyed receiving texts (and being charged for them by my service provider!) that are unwanted than emails. not to mention, you can't opt-out of text spam like you can unsub from emails. that results in me getting cranky with my carrier.

cell phones? personal and business. spam has taken over email. if it takes over text messaging, that will a) be less productive than intended because of the unwanted setting and b) will only decrease in effectiveness.

! but i'm not all bitch and no suggestions here, folks.
you want to utilize text message spam so badly? how about you do this crazy thing called... respect. i know that means very little on the 'net these days, but it's something that might be considered over phrases like friendly stalking and privacy invasion.

why don't you offer people the ability to subscribe to text messaging for products they like? some commercials advertise this ability. because that changes the game. that means i am interested in what you're trying to sell me. you want me to subscribe to a DriveThru Records (or any other label for that matter) text messaging feed in order to tell me what concerts are now up and when tickets go on sale? GO FOR IT, i'm in.

it's all about relevance, which is what the lovely danah boyd and others keep trying to express. you can't just throw up an ad into a Facebook setting and expect people to suddenly love you and be loyal to your brand. engage with them. become relevant. i know the movement is toward mobile, but can't you be respectful about it?

a la miss danah:
"I think that most brands make mistakes because they don’t understand the social dynamics. Think of MySpace/Facebook as a public hangout space. When is it socially acceptable to go up to a group of friends hanging out at a pub or having a picnic in the park? If you treat it that way, the boundaries are much more logical. If you have something relevant to add to the conversation, you might be asked to pull up a seat/join the mat. If not, you will be seen as sketchy and annoying. You are always welcome in the backdrop, but don’t expect to be included just because you’re there. And be careful.. there’s a fine line between being an active participant on an SNS and being seen as a spammer. You’re often better off being a legitimate participant (a.k.a. buying ads) than trying to coldcall folks."

take home message: if i WANT your spam, i'll ASK FOR IT.