Bacn- A New Internet Term

August 19, 2007 · Comments

bacn When you receive email that Geek is now following you on Twitter and Jennifer Gold just wrote on your Facebook wall, that’s bacn (pronounced “bacon”). It’s any email you receive that isn’t spam, but isn’t exactly a personal message either. Your electronic phone bill is bacn. Your Google alerts are bacn.

Bacn. It’s better than spam.

Disclaimer: I had nothing to do with coming up with this term. This was something some of the folks at PodCamp Pittsburgh came up with. I’m not sure who started it. Andy Quayle, Tommy Vallier, Jesse Hambley, and I don’t know who else were at Ground Zero of the discussion.

**UPDATE: Andy Quayle wrote about it last night and he told me that, and then I forgot.

Bacn. Pass it on.

Photo Credit, minjungkim

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  • This term begs for a reverse acronym. How about BACN: Bland Automated Community Notifications?
  • # Jeffrey Sass on August 20th, 2007 10:05 am

    As I twittered, I am a VEGETARIAN, so Bacn won’t work for me :) I will settle for TOFU — Mail that needs action, but not anytime soon. TOFU = To Follow Up.

    SPAM, awful-nobody wants it
    TOFU, the middle class email TO Follow Up we want
    it just probably not Now.
    Personal eMail, We love it! Anytime, anyplace.
    What about this time not another
    meat/manufactured meat term for this?
  • There was a write up about this in the Toronto Star on Sunday.

    http://www.thestar.com/article/249848

    Way to go Podcamper's!
  • Man this thread makes me hungry
  • It'll be interesting to see if/how development changes accordingly. Feels like something has to give .... - R
    www.reginalewis.com
  • I notified the Activerain bunch of the new "buzz word".

    http://activerain.com/blogsview/185435/Bacn-is-...
  • BACN: The best buzzword money can buy!
  • LEMills
    If we all weren't so busy being clever in the self-referential ego chamber [and credit to Mr.ERMurrow for that], we'd all answer email as it arrived or sort it appropriately and be done with it.

    But then we also might not have any of those really-stupid-if-you-think-about-them words such as "proactive" and "impact" (for "effect" OR "affect") and "stakeholder" and "friending" and anything N-point-zero. What would a world without them be?

    There's evolution, and there's regression. I'd suggest that anything that makes a bunch of tech folks look laughable may well be the latter.

    Back to the uphill battle,
    -L.
  • Chris has become the definitive authority on bacn! :D
  • Cameron, you won the internet today. Thank you.
  • peter
    Just noticed that there popped up a german bacn site:
    http://www.bacn.de
  • Vincent: Want some bacon?
    Jules: No man, I don't eat pork.
    Vincent: Are you Jewish?
    Jules: Nah, I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
    Vincent: Why not?
    Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
    Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood.
    Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfucker. Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal. I ain't eat nothin' that ain't got enough sense enough to disregard its own faeces.
  • JT
    Dumb. Completely nerdy - as opposed to geeky.
  • Baloney! /web 2.0 = baln / (snicker) This type of e-mail is not crap. I love hearing that someone wants to add me as a friend or follower at a social network!
  • zeek
    Bacon is delicious. This type of email is crap. Fces would be a better term (pronounced feces).
  • Woy, that's Sausg... heh
  • And I'm right there with Mr. Bacon Pants...degrading bacon this way is wrong!
  • Scapple would be a better name!

    I wrote a post telling the world that mrbaconpants want to make a stand against bacn.

    http://www.mrbaconpants.com/bacn-needs-to-be-st...
  • what about email forwards... are they bacn or spam?
  • bacn & bacnize sounds so good! (jump)
  • "Scrapl"
  • Is scrapple next? Guess not- that's a PA only weirdness!
  • Chris, where is the "share on facebook" app for your blog posts. I want to share this on facebook, but there's no button to do that.

    help?
  • @Norm - "good under some conditions" really made me smirk.

    @Jn- yr rght. vwls nd lv 2.
  • Norm Huelsman
    Spam and Sprouts?

    "What does DLS think about this term? We're still deciding, but it's a little confusing since bacon is commonly referred to as money. Our proposal would be more along the lines of: 'brusselsprout - good under some conditions.' "

    http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/08/19/bacn-th...
  • What does Web 2.0 have against vowels, anyway?

    Oh, sorry:

    Wht ds Wb 2.0 hv gnst vwls, nywy?

    How about calling it 'Vowls' instead?

    "Vowls: we know we need 'em, we just don't like 'em."
  • As I twittered, I am a VEGETARIAN, so Bacn won't work for me :) I will settle for TOFU -- Mail that needs action, but not anytime soon. TOFU = To Follow Up.
  • Bacn. Love the term. I get a lot of it these days.
  • nah, bacn is bacn.

    But if bacn is just emails with links in it, shouldn't we call it:

    sausge?
  • Is Canadian bacn larger and round? American bacn tends to just be emails with links in it, after all. Maybe Canadian bacn has more substance to it?
  • I'm Canadian.

    I love bacon.

    bacn.

    Whatever.
  • OK, that's it. I'm making a "Bacn" filter in my Gmail, STAT. Loves it!

    Thanks, Chris!
  • Has a verb form of bacn been discussed? "Stop bacn-ing me" sounds a little, well, off... and "Netflix is a pretty big bacn-er" doesn't quite work for me either. I'd like to propose "bacnize" - as in "I need to turn those notifications off, because Pownce is bacnizing me like crazy."
  • Mmmmm... Bacn!

    Not as good as Crackln though - specific, personal electronic communications ;)
  • I pulled the guys aside and filmed a PSA on the topic this afternoon...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqdIDpwDsmE
  • /me [grabs a handful of thumbtacks, rusty nails, and poison darts, THEN] facepalms.
  • Glad you posted this... I start feeling totally un-geeklike when everyone on twitter is talking about something I've never heard of, again.
  • Norm Huelsman
    Here is some more Brogan Bacn.

    Wanted to let everyone know I just made the Bacn folder on in Mail.
  • I switched to gmail 100% for it's bacn management. Everything else let me deal with it, but only after it hit my inbox and I was notified.

    Gmail filters let me skip the inbox (and the notification popup), so I can have heaps of bacn coming in, and only have to deal with it when I want.
  • But don't forget - too much bacn can be unhealthy: it can lead to an enlarged head.
  • Jeff
    But I like Bacon any day of the week at any time.
  • hahaha I was in that session also today. THIS is what Podcamp is about. What started as an idea in a hallway turned into a room full of people brainstorming on what could be a great thing.

    No fakn' the bacn Brogan!
  • Woy
    I walked into the think tank session near the registration table of Podcamp Pittsburgh (PCPGH2) where this term was gestating. It was truly an awesome thing to witness. Kind of like making sausage.

    Oops. Sausage is going to be Web 3.0.
  • So what's iJustine's iPhone bill? Pig2.0?
  • Not sure I get the total context, but man love that picture!!
  • I saw that term floating around Twitter for the last few days, now I know what it means :) Everything suddenly makes sense.
  • Philip Crow
    Bacn, it's better than spam, but it's still not steak.
  • I'm glad its better than spam when I follow someone on Twitter. Mmmmmm... bacn.
  • It's already the eleventh google result for "bacn" (the first ten pointing to acronyms). Who says you can't change the English language in a weekend? :-)
  • Ah! I get it! Excellent!
  • Sweet!
    I know I've made it when I have my name mentioned in the Brogan Blog
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