Sunday, July 29, 2012

No End of Bottom Feeding

Hi,

I'll take this opportunity to introduce myself, my name is Innocuous Alias, very nice to meet you. I'm SEO expert working at Take Your Money Consulting .

I came across libguides.brandonu.ca while making a research for one of my partners and I have few interesting suggestions for you like increasing your traffic & improving your rankings. I would love to tell you more about my ideas.

If you are interested I will be happy to send the additional information and all the details needed to make it happen.

Thanks a bunch,

Innocuous Alias
Take Your Money Consulting


Dear Mr. or Ms. Innocuous Alias,

If you'd actually looked at the site, you'd know that (a) we don't sell anything because (b) we're a library which means (c) I've got about as much budget for SEO as I do for Winnipeg Jets tickets.

One Spammed Librarian

Friday, July 27, 2012

Not Exactly the Invitation I Received...


Dear Hurst Christopher
The abstracts submission closed, now you should submit your FULL PAPERSdirectly (even if your abstracts have not been submitted yet) until September 15, 2012. Hoping to hear from you soon, and meet you in Hell in 2012.

3rd WORD CONFERENCE on SPAMMING LIBRARIANS WCSL-2012
9th Circle of Hell, 2012,
PUBLICATION OF THE PAPERS
All accepted papers of the conference will be published in Hell's Own Journal (ISSN: 6666-6666) by THE INFERNAL PRESS and will be indexed ScienceDirect, Scopus, Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index (ISI Web of Science).All proposals will be subjected to peer-reviews. Selected papers from the conference will be considered for extended version publication in the supporting journals.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION
Due to the large number of papers expected for this conference, the committee only allows an author to present two papers.  The abstracts can be one-page long (200-400 words). The abstract include Problem Statement, Purpose of Study, Methods, Findings and Results, and Conclusions and Recommendations (These elements may need some adaptation in the case of discussion papers: Background, Purpose of Study, Sources of Evidence, Main Argument, and Conclusions). Please note that some elements are optional in abstracts.The abstracts should be submission over the conference web site.

VIRTUAL PARTICIPATION
Researchers who are unable to resolve the funding issue concerning the conference expenses will be provided with an alternative approach for participation, namely, Infernal Online Presentation. Those who would like to make their presentations online from their home countries will also be awarded with a certificate and their papers will be considered for publications similar to other participants as if they were present physically. Those who would like to make use of the  Infernal Online Presentation  facility will be requested to send their virtual posters or other soft copy materials such as power point presentations to the secretariat. In addition, these participants who would prefer to make use of the  Infernal Online Presentation facility may also contribute to the conference through video conferencing.

Deadlines & Important Dates
·         Abstracts Submission          July 15, 2012 (Closed)
·         Full Papers Submission          September 15, 2012
·         Early Registration                  2012
·         Conference Dates                  2012

Please do not reply to this email address.  It is for sending only.
Apologies for cross-postings.Please send to interested colleagues and students.






Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Persistence Is Not A Virtue

In my email this morning, a follow-up to this email from Monday:


Dear Sir/Madam,

I am [redacted], Business Development Manager,

We are [redacted] with primary focus on Website Designing & Development with PHP, Wordpress, Joomla and .net development.
We have our competency in CMS (Joomla, Modx, Mambo and other quality Content Management System) and e-commerce website.

As many as 90% websites do not bring business to their potential because they do not appeal to the target audience. And the reason most visitors leave a website is because of a complex design and navigation.

With an experience of developing more than 2500 websites successfully, we can help you earn more business from your website if you are ready to redesign your website.  Most of our clients have benefited from our expertise. Most firms from UK, USA, Canada and Australia overseas have achieved a significant amount of savings by outsourcing either complete or part of their work to us in India

We wish you the best of luck and looking forward to a long and healthy business relationship with you.

Contact us today to know more about our Web design, re-design, development and CMS Services and about our past work details, Client Testimonials, Packages …

Getting started is easy. Just mail us at [redacted] and we will definitely help you to achieve your business goals and objectives.

Please share your Skype id and contact number to make the communication easily assessable.

I look forward to your reply.

Most of your clients? Wow, that's a sales job, folks. And I always wanted my communication to be easily assessable. 


I'm fairly sure this is the same company that wanted me to hire them for search engine optimization - they have the same non-functional unsubscribe notice at the bottom of the email. I've tried to mitigate my cruelty in posting this by redacting any identifying information. But, really, if if you spam me on Monday and then follow up on Wednesday asking if I got the spam, how much mercy are you owed?

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The Focus Is Learning...

Five Days After Their Last Missive...


Dear OPERA America Members and Friends,

Don’t forget to reserve your advertising space in the Fall 2012 issue of Opera America Magazine!

I know that I’ve been sending you a lot of reminders about advertising in this issue, but I can’t stress enough how many people will be coming through our doors during the opening of The National Opera Center during its opening week festivities, taking place September 24-30, 2012.  These individuals will be HANDED this specific issue, which focuses on Learning.

Financial backers, creative geniuses, industry visionaries—all of these people will view YOUR advertisement—we’re putting it in their hands!
The deadline is July 27th. Does that mean I get one or two more reminders from these people?

Friday, July 13, 2012

Consider Me An Enemy Now

I Get Email At Work:


Dear OPERA America Members and Friends,

Reserve your advertising space in the Fall 2012 issue of Opera America Magazine!

This Fall issue focuses on learning and will be handed out to attendees of the National Opera Center opening week festivities, taking place September 24-30, 2012.  That means decision makers, industry wide, will receive this issue!!!

The deadline to reserve space is July 27th.

What have I done to deserve this? As I said when I complained about these people the last time, I set up electronic access to the magazine for the library. Now I'm an email address that might buy advertising. Yeah, right. What I find amusing is that they're spamming subscribers to buy ads to reach fellow subscribers. And, right, decision makers, industry wide. If I was a decision maker - well, let's not go there.

Friday, July 06, 2012

Optimize This

I get email in my day job:


I am [redacted], Business Development Manager, We are [redacted] based IT Company with our offices in [redacted]. 

As we know that in this competitive era, only doing a business will not help you to attain your objectives and earn maximum profits. A website has become the necessity of your business. It is the mirror that reflects your business, products and services on the World Wide Web.

But Internet is a hub of infinite companies promoting their business online. Therefore, you need to optimize your website so it becomes visible in the crowd and attracts more and more visitors to visit your website and make purchases from there. All these objectives can be attained with the help of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is the major internet marketing technique that helps you to promote your business online.

Okay, English isn't their first language. But how much is it to hire a proofreader? And I'm just some email address on a list of email addresses they've bought, so they don't know that the web site I'm responsible for doesn't sell anything. A little search engine optimization wouldn't hurt us, but I have no budget for it. Anyway, I discarded the original email, but they've now followed up. Twice. They have some fine print about respecting the CAN-SPAM, but they don't have a working unsubscribe feature. It makes me worry that this "hub of infinite companies" are all going to be beating a path to my door, looking for work I can't give them.