DISQUS

Here's what I think. The bots are not the problem. It's the people who use them. These people that spam with bots have no concept of what true viral marketing and social networking is. There is no way I will accept or acknowledge a friend request from anyone who is going to pitch to me penis enlargement supplements, free ipods, and etc. It just lets me know how much marketing savy they have. No matter how it is delivered, if manually or by bot, its still SPAM and I hate that! Now if I was into snowboarding or scuba diving and someone asked for a friend request saying " hey look I saw your profile,I snowboard also. In fact, I snowboard every winter, I go with a group of friends and we rent out this cabin with a champagne jacuzzi in each room. We get wasted after hitting the half pipes all day and just have a good time while we are out there. I saw you were into snowboarding also. I would like to add you into my circle of snowboarding friends online, is that cool?" Now I can target snowboarders online and send that out to all of them. Is it spam? I don't think so because I'm striking a conversation with the person and not pitching a product or a message. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this. I'm only acknowledging a shared and enjoyed interest in snowboarding. If I did this with 50 snowboarders manually or with a bot, what difference would it make. I'm connecting with an individual and not trying to shove a message down their throat. Personally I can't use bots at my workplace because they are strict with what we can download into the work computers. However if they would let us, I would use it that way. Please tell me your thoughts.