We’ve written plenty about Bluespamming in the past, and it never fails to evoke some passionate responses from people on both sides. Helen Keegan’s going over it again on her site, focusing on yet another story touting the success of Bluespamming in apparent conflict with the comments of the people hit by the messages. The debate rages on, but legality of the messages aside, it doesn’t seem it’s a particularly effective way to attract customers.
In any case, she’s glad to carry the conversation on further, either on her site or at the next Swedish Beers event in London on Wednesday. It’s our favorite mobile networking event, and not just because it’s got the word “beer” in the title. If I weren’t here in Vegas, I’d be there for certain so pop along and talk to all the other nice folks, and put your beer on my tab (then make sure you’re not the last one there).
I’m wondering why specifically bluespamming causes so much concern.
Nobody uses Bluetooth anyway (relatively speaking), so by turning Blueooth off the problem is gone. Right? Actually many phones have Bluetooth turned off by default.
If advertizers still want to pay companies to deliver bluespam, then that’s their problem. There seems to be no end of marketing dollars anyway.
It’s hardly worse than SMS advertizing (especially if you have to pay for the received messages), and thankfully we’ve seen little of that so far.
@Owen
You’re kind of right, except you may have your bluetooth switched on without realising (very common if the default setting is ‘on’) or you may have it switched on so you can use your headset or link it to your laptop or something. Most people don’t realise the ins and outs of how stuff on their phones work. And bluetooth is definitely right up there on that list.
As for SMS advertising, here in the UK, at least, it is all opt-in (or at least should be, legally). That means you’ve specifically said it’s ok to send text message adverts to my phone. If you look at the video I link to in my piece about HSBC, you’ll see there is customer confusion and they thought HSBC actually knew that they, as a customer, was outside a branch. This is very big brother and very scary to a lot of people. The fact that the reality is that bluetooth doesn’t (yet) recognise phone numbers is irrelevant to the customer. Perception is reality.