Associated Content Promotes MySpace Spamming: They Didn’t Think This Through

Category: Associated Content Boneheaded Idea

UPDATED:  Please see the comments for AC response to this post.

Part of the AC Newsletter for 13 March 2008 was some less-than-helpful tips for promoting your article using MySpace.

Make friends with a friend adder bot. This tool collects a list of MySpace users and then sends out requests for you.

This is an incredibly bad idea.

1. It’s against MySpaces TOS. If caught, you’ll have your account deleted.
2. It’s spam. The adding friends part isn’t, but when you start blasting out bulletins, you’ll get blocked.
3. It’s going to give you and Associated Content a black eye.

My jaw hit the floor after the implications of these suggestions sank in. Please do not take AC up on this. Earn your MySpace friends and you will build a long-term, loyal reader base. Scoop and spam random strangers will get you dropped from all circles.

Just one more thing. This was in the AC Newsletter, too:

Make your MySpace page work for you by using colors, fonts and pictures to showcase your content or use the AC-themed layout.

You MySpacers need to open your eyes. I’m starting to think they are closed because you don’t see how butt-ugly your pages are. Tone it down. Stop with the flashing crap. You’re giving people seizures. Pick colors you can see. Stop putting lavender text on a pink background.

Bone up on some basic web concepts such as correct color combination and white space. Spend a few minutes at Web Pages That Suck. It’s a site that teaches you decent design concepts by showing you what other sites have done poorly. Don’t be surprised if you run into a few examples drawn from MySpace.

Good luck and don’t spam.