Hey you damn retailers, get off my cyber-lawn!!!1111eleventyOMG!!

Dec 16, 2009

I’ve been on the internet since 1990, and the World Wide Web since about 1993. That means that compared to the majority of the population, I’ve been doing the online-geek thing for quite a while.

I remember when I web log was literally that: a log of places you visited on the web. It wasn’t an online journal or a way to share “what you did that day” or “who you were” (that was a finger file or a .plan), it was like what today’s Bookmarks and Favorites lists are. And you’d share these with other people.

I remember when checking IMDB for something involved sending a very specific text string to an email address. You would then receive a text file with the information IMDB had about that movie, show, performer, writer, director, producer, what have you.

I use some social media: I use Twitter, and I maintain several blogs. (I am not on MyDeadFaceJournalBookSpace. Future employers and clients do not need to have that ease of access to every single thing I do in my off-time, and neither does most of the rest of the world.) I have a Flickr account for one of my blogs. And I actually run a web hosting service and have for the past eight years. But I still consider the web to be as much the province of individuals as the new way to sell stuff. I get a might pissed off when I have advertising shoved into any orifice the retailers can reach. While I think that retailers have just as much right to use the web as individuals, and don’t think that they should pay some kind of extra tax, I wish that I knew all of the possible ways to put up a fence around my online presence to keep the retailers out unless I specifically invite them in. There are plenty of things that just annoy the living snot out of me.

What tool is it that retailers use to automatically follow anyone who uses a given word in a tweet? I’ve been followed by all kinds of sites and businesses selling all kinds of things that I have no interest in buying…and they started following me after I used a specific word. When I posted about the tarot’s major arcana I was suddenly followed by sites selling tarot decks, tarot interpretation services, even tarot reading courses. When I posted a joke about astrology, I was followed by all sorts of horoscope sites. A post about tie-dye nail painting got me followed by some self-proclaimed hippies (who were at least in my area of the country, I’ll give them that) selling tie-dye shirts, sheets, and gods greater and lesser know what else.

I want to know the name of this program so that I can contact my geeky programming friends and have them build an app that will automatically evaluate anyone’s Twitter history and if they include lots of retail-ish posts…automatically cut them off.

I don’t necessarily want to go to the trouble of hiding my tweets from public view. If some random individual out there thinks that I post interesting or funny things and wants to keep following them, great. Let them follow. I know that whenever I see a “protected tweets” sign I rarely put through to follow that person, even if I’ve come to find them through the tweets of someone who I do follow, because they may not want to hear from anyone else. It’s kind of like being in a public place like an airport or a park or a cafe and seeing someone who’s sitting alone, reading a book, not really speaking to anyone else. They may be a perfectly cool person. They may even be a person with similar interests. But unless they’re engaging with the other guests, I feel like I’m intruding if I go talk to them. Likewise, I don’t want to give off unintentional “don’t bug me” vibes. But dangit, I really dislike when I notice that I’ve gotten a few new followers…and they’re all retailers who tweet nothing but “this sale” and “that sale” or what have you. I know that advertising is a bugbear; and advertising via word of mouth is not something that you can easily finesse. But following someone just because they use the name of a city and you offer photography services in that city…that’s about as graceful as a pregnant yak.

I’ll have to start hitting them with my cane.

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