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You are here: Home › Blog

SPIM SPAM and FLIM FLAM


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I don't seem to have this issue (finger's crossed), but apparently it is becoming one for so many people they are producing stats.  What is it I am talking about?  Spam on instant messaging, now referred to as SPIM.

Pornographic messages make up the majority of SPIM at 70 percent, followed by "get rich" schemes at 12 percent, product sales at 9 percent, and loans or finance messages at 5 percent, according to Radicati's research. Nearly all (90 percent) of SPIM messages are short one-line sentences followed by a URL, such as, "Hello, check out my Web cam at www.xxx.com."

Do that many of you get that much IM spam?  I know it used to show on ICQ a lot, but not on AOL or the others for me.  Has it become such an issue that we need spam filters for IM now?  You can read the short article on it here.  It includes a growth chart from Ferris Research.


They state that experts are split about the marketing potential across IM.  Marketing potential?  You mean the ability to piss people off more than the email that we fight already? How about just dropping pamphlets on my house instead and cut out the technology middleman.  Sure we save the killing of a few billion trees by using the computer driven one.  Bits and bytes are free right?  Well not really.  Someone eats the bandwidth cost as small as it might be.  I can see logging in to IM and having 30-40 instant pop-ups saying come buy this product as Seen on TV!   Lose weight fast; stop dandelions from growing; paint your walls with ease; learn how to make better braids in your hair with this simple tool; remove stains with this new Mango sauce!


I see the use of controlled buddy lists and accepting messages only from those on your list getting turned on more often if this continues to grow.  MSN and Yahoo have authorizations to let them add you to their list, while AOL takes the other approach and lets you specify if anyone, no one or only those on your buddy list can see you.  Which approach do you take?