SNAMSPAM!

May 3, 2004 11:29 AM

More on the boom of Friendster, Orkut, Tribe, et al:
  Meet "snam," the junk email generated by social networking.
It's sort of a snowball effect. I just wonder if the name will catch on (?) (It's not as catchy as "spam," is it?) Social networking within organizations is briefly mentioned but interesting: Companies such as Contact Network, Spoke Software, Interface Software, and ZeroDegrees collect individual contact data from a company's employees, then merge it with those workers' past employment histories...
posted by Shane (10 comments total)

Snagging email addresses (and cellphone numbers) from orkut is painfully easy, and I've been enlightened to people already using scripted methods to collect these.

On a second note: 'snam' is almost as dumb a word as 'blog'.
posted by angry modem at 11:54 AM on May 3, 2004

Snam is terrible. Maybe SnEmail?

I like blog though.

Anyone using Friendster, Orkut or the others would do well to get a throwaway email address.
posted by fenriq at 12:17 PM on May 3, 2004

Unwanted email is spam, regardless of where it originates. I don't see any need for a new term.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:18 PM on May 3, 2004

I don't see any need for a new term.

Maybe it's not a need, just the vain desire of the person trying to coin the term. For example, for some time now I've been trying to get "flurbershite" to catch on as a catchall term describing "the utter stupidity of most things human," but for whatever reason the meme just won't catch on. Feel free to help me out, though.
posted by Shane at 12:24 PM on May 3, 2004

I guess I'd probably use 'rimshit' before 'flurbershite'. And I do.
posted by angry modem at 2:13 PM on May 3, 2004

On a second note: 'snam' is almost as dumb a word as 'blog'.

Agreed.

Although I have to add that "social networking" is a pretty loathesome phrase too. It just smacks of arrogance for some reason. I don't "network" with people unless there's a router / hub involved -- pure and simple.

"Say, want to network socially?"

You mean socialize?

"Yes, in a networking manner!"

*blink*

"I want to sound important...... Desperately"
posted by Dark Messiah at 4:44 PM on May 3, 2004

I kinda like the term 'spim,' though.
posted by mwhybark at 5:38 PM on May 3, 2004

Cue a chorus of Vikings singing "snam snam snam snam!"

(Monty Python reference)
posted by Sfving at 6:23 PM on May 3, 2004

"Snam" shows a terrible lack of understanding of the term "spam" in the first place. Spam isn't junk e-mail -- spam is mass junk sent to a nonconsenting recipient. Junk e-mail is just a subset of spam.

When you spam an IP address, you aren't trying to get it to enlarge its penis by 351%.
posted by Ptrin at 6:34 PM on May 3, 2004

(Monty Python reference)

What frightens me about that link is that it occured to me that I didn't know anyone who wouldn't have gotten the reference without a link and could probably do most of the sketch from memory...it's quite possible that I may hang out with geeks. In fact, I may be a geek.

And all this time, I thought I was one of the popular kids.
posted by dejah420 at 9:51 AM on May 4, 2004