arghyle

Thanks to an email from Barnes and Noble I just learned that the seventh Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is available for pre-order right now. Also, the book is not going to be available until July 21st. Super.

Also Trulia.com is telling me that they’re “fired up about the big game” this weekend. After reading a little further I found out that they actually care about football as little as I do- they just want to talk about real estate heat maps. Heat maps are great, but they are nothing new.

Emails like these put users is a delicate position- what do you do when I site you like and willingly signed up for starts sending you junk? There are a number of options, you could delete the emails, mark them as spam or otherwise filter them in your mail client, or go directly to the site and have them stop. The issue is that you probably want emails from these companies, you just don’t want useless ones.

For example I definitely want a confirmation to be sent after I order a book from Barnes and Noble’s site, but I don’t want them sending me recommendations after purchasing just one book (I am a dedicated Amazon.com user and already get more than enough emails from them). As for Trulia, it’s a great real estate site and I would be more than happy to learn about new features when they roll out, bu I don’t need them feigning interest in the Super Bowl in order to lure me to a heat map of Manhattan Beach, a place that is in no way connected with me, my account, or the Super Bowl.

So what to do? It is really a matter of how much you like/use each site. For something like Barnes and Noble, which I only used because of a gift certificate, I made sure that I won’t get any more emails from them. As for Trulia, I am going to give them a second chance in hopes that the next time I hear from them it has to do with a new feature or something associated with my account.

Are emails like these spam? Generally speaking, I would say not. I willingly created an accout at each site and while I did not ask for mailings from them, I did not go into my account and shut them off so I probably should have seen them coming. The problem is that they are not offering me any useful or targeted information so they are as helpful to me as spam and were deleted almost as promptly. I could not mark them as spam using Gmail or create a filter for them because if I ever get an email about a a book order or Trulia listing I am going to want to know about it.

When sites start sending to many emails like this it is a detriment to their image and an annoyance to the user. It takes advantage of our interest and then our trusting them with out contact information. All so they can get a few clicks/sales, slightly pump up their traffic stats, and sometimes get response information through their direct marketing company…

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