We're now in the two weeks leading up to our shows in NJ and NYC, so I've been on Facebook messaging my friends, making sure they know we're playing and encouraging them to come. I sent messages to people with last names A-I yesterday, and I was planning to do the next 1/3rd of the alphabet today, but last night I got a message warning me that my behavior might be violating their spam policy. They said that if you're promoting an event you have to use the "Message Guests" feature instead of sending messages from the inbox. Here's what I wrote to Facebook about the issues with that:
from Brian Speronello <[e-mail redacted]>
to info@facebook.com
date Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 4:58 PM
subject Spam Problem
Hi,
There is a huge problem with how you define "spam" on your site.
I'm trying to promote my event on Facebook by sending each person that I want to come separate, personally relevant, messages and I'm getting a warning that my message privileges might be disabled. However, you DO allow users to message everyone invited to an event all at once, you just have to send them ALL the same message. What's the problem with what I'm doing? Either way the same people are getting a message from me in their inbox about the event, the only difference is that doing it your way means I have to send a message like this:
"Hey everyone! Just wanted to write everyone to remind you that we've got a show coming up at Fontana's on 2/21! Hope you can all make it!"
Instead of messages like this (actual example):
[Name Redacted]
First let me say I love your picture, hysterical. Also I dunno if [name redacted] told you but my band is playing a show on 2/21 so if you're free you should totally join her because, while I love [her], I think you know how to rock out way harder than she does. Hope you can make it!
Here's a link to the event on Facebook, the info is below too:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=58297072151&ref=ts
[show info redacted]
So please explain to me the problem here. The same group of people each receive one message from me in their inbox. The only difference is that one of these messages is targeted and personally relevant (which studies show have a MUCH greater chance for actually being read and having an impact), and the other is just a mass-message that will most likely get deleted because it looks and reads like spam instead of a message from a friend.
Either come up with a way for users who create events to send messages to specific people invited, or take the cap off of messages, because the policy you have now is fucking atrocious.
-Brian Speronello
--[end e-mail]--
If everyone else is like me, messages that start "Hey guys!," "Just a reminder," or anything else like that go straight to the trash, unless they're sent by my absolute closest friends. There's a great point in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point about e-mail that describes why this happens. Because of how easy and cheap it is to send e-mail, it became a powerful tool that was very easy to abuse, so much so that after years of being bombarded with stupid forwarded messages and spam people have become "immune" to it, and the same thing is true for Facebook I think:
The fact that anyone can e-mail us for free, if they have our address, means that people frequently and persistently e-mail us. But that quickly creates immunity, and simply makes us value face-to-face communications - and the communications of those we already know and trust - all the more.
The only way to break through that immunity is to write each person with a note that feels like "face-to-face communication," or a dialogue, instead of a one-sided advertisement. That's the reason Facebook's policy is awful, instead of connecting people they encourage mass-messaging and crack down on users trying to address their friends with individual and personally relevant conversation.
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