Then perhaps it should specify in the message that it is a Commercial
product so that you are not wasting your time going to a commercial website.
If I filter ANN: am I also filtering announcements for great free
components/source code/tutorials/FAQ's? Is it law that ANN: must be used
for posting commercial advertising to these support threads? I doubt it,
which means only a minority of commercial marketers would actually use it.

We get enough spam, do not justify to commercial interests that they can
freely cross-post to these groups. Discourage them by not buying their
software and protesting their plastering advertising over our community
space. Encourage the free exchange of ideas and software in these groups
and discourage commercial marketers so the practice is seen as bad practise,
therefore bad self-advertising.

Now I can see a barrage coming from all of the miltant commercial marketers
preaching "freedom of speech/marketing" or some-such. I doubt there'll be
many like yourself replying that they like spam.


~Troy


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I agree - I do use commercial products so I am interested in announcements
of new or updated products in this newsgroup (or any newsgroup that I
subscribe to). As long as people abide by the "ANN:" convention I'm happy,
and it makes it easier for me to find them. Besides, it's not like these
newsgroups are overrun by commercial advertisements.

Paul

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That depends what group you read. Some groups are 30%+ spam, and very few
spammers really care about ANN, so the only solution in my eyes is to
promote people to boycot all spammed products. I too am interested in some
commercial products, however I pro-actively seek the information,
voluntarily signup for updates (where there is also a clear opt-out) and
hook into RSS feeds for products I want info on or blogs that watch those
products for me. To me, spam includes unsolicited commercial advertising
sent electronically to me or to an online community group that I'm reading.
It just annoys me (I must be the only one on the internet) when people
advertise commercial wares in newsgroups and forums.

You can like a certain commercial product but that doesn't mean everyone
else has to read about it. I don't think it hurts to mention a product if
someone is asking for a specific ready-made solution that they don't want to
modify; commercial suggestions are perfectly acceptable. In fact, that type
of advertising would be pretty welcome in helping people find solutions. If
marketers weren't so lazy they'd find such threads where they can showcase
their wares (where the person hasn't indicated a preference for free or
commercial) and try and catch interest there, rather than making new
threads. They'd probably get a lot more sales success from it too.

Besides, I could be a product competitor of this announced thingy and be
deliberately trying to frustrate the marketing of that product to drive more
people my way... anyone for newsgroup commercial wars?



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