What Tom Could Learn from Facebook
Dear Tom xxxxx of Cxxxx - I don’t know you. And yet, I have a press release you’ve sent me about your company, Cxxxx, which will announce something at 9AM ET tomorrow, though I’m not supposed to talk about that until then, because you’ve asked me to embargo myself for news I didn’t ask for. Well, Tom, I think if you’re going to build an app that supports Facebook and MySpace, you might consider learning a lesson from them. ((UPDATE: Edited out the name and company name because a commenter was right in saying it wasn’t polite of me to call him out by name. Sorry, Tom.))
Opt in. SOCIAL network. It’s about getting to know me before you fart in my face. On Facebook, users “friend” each other, and that permits messaging. Even then, if you blurt-market me, I’ll drop you. I can’t do that to you in my inbox, except for reporting you as spam, and even then, it’s less satisfying.
What I Want You To Do Next Time
Please at least PRETEND you know me, give a rat’s ass about me, read my stupid little blog. Don’t just lob something over the wall at me. Because hey, I’m doing something over here, and I’m actually reaching out to potential people in your space, and I have 16 years of telecom background with 9.75 of it in wireless. But now, because you threw a bomb instead of built a relationship, I’m telling everyone who wants to know that Cxxxx doesn’t understand the basics of the market they’re planning to serve, if you’re a measure of the company as a whole.
Was that worth blind emailing me your stupid press release?
**UPDATE: Meanwhile, Leo from Monalulu wrote me a personal email that mentioned a blog post from about 8 days ago (meaning he’s been on my site for a while), talking passionately about why I might like his company and the idea. While I’m not fully wrapped around the idea, I *love* that Monalulu has a guy like Leo reaching out to me.
Photo credit, Jurvetson
