Would you "spam" to get big fast?

4 points by master54 ↗ HN

12 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 28.6 ms ] thread
I'm not referring to those blatant buy-a-mailing-list-and-spam kinda process. I'm talking about the more subtle invitation "spam" executed by the likes of plaxo, hi5 etc.
I would advocate spamming even if its cringeworthy.

Bebo and MySpace would be nowhere without a) birthday alarm traffic and b) a mailing list of 500,000 people respectively. Similarly facebook spammed all of harvards mailing lists.

In business you make one decision - which is to make it big or die. Even if spamming hurts - if you have a compellign enough service go for broke. Even spamming counts.

How does teenwag spam every single site with an ounch of visitor anyway? They seems to have spammed USENET, digg, reddit, this site. Do they automate it or hire cheap labor to do it manually?
Apparently they're 14-year-olds, so they have a lot of time on their hands. Either that or they've figured out how to implement those trendy captioned photos with real cats.
thanks sharpshoot you get the useful part of letting people know
It all depends on the definition of the "spam".
If I was trying to make a site that will last, then no, because I'd feel dirty -- and it's a dirty way to start out.
Spam is a worse crime than murder. Big spammers like Ralsky send enough spam to waste many lifetimes' worth of people's time. Just because the damage is spread out over a large number of people doesn't make that fact any less heinous.