What I don't get about SPAMMERS is....

[kwasher]

....they LIE to me to get into my email box, then expect me to do business with LIARS!

[agerhart]

expect me to do business with LIARS!

Welcome to the business world. ;)

[victor]

Traditionally, if a saleperson expected to get only one sale from you in a lifetime, they'd lie as much as they could to clinch it. Think encyclopedia, double-glazing, car, salespeople. There was no point being ethical -- just grab the commission and run.

If they expected repeat business (almost anything else) then ethics and niceness are paramount as they could be losing a lifetime of repeat sales by upsetting you over one deal.

None of this explains Microsoft's success strategy.

[miles]

There are two kinds of spammers email and serps.

Email are generally for the filth industry as are the serps. But the email bums have no hold barred attitude when it comes to spoofing email addresses, trying any variation of a name, and giving false subject titles. An example would be "hey did you get my email" and the email would be a filth site about whatever the degenerate decided to send. It is these people that I would equate to toe jam....worthless and a unwanted pain.

Lying seems to have become a part of the internet what with scams and all. You really never know what you are getting into. The other side of the coin you actually get people who are honest and want to provide you with their service not under false pretences.

It is unfortunate that people feel that they need to lie to make money on the internet. I cant wait for a do not spam list. I will sign up for that in a heart beat.

[weblamer2]

Hey, on the plus side, I have not seen any advertisements for the x-10 cam in a long time!

[claus]

>> x-10 cam

I guess they made a fortune, closed the shop, and started manufacturing smiley-software in stead

/claus

[bakedjake]

closed the shop

Naw, they're still around. I think if X10 ever closed up shop, I might have to find a new line of work. That would be the end for me. ;-)

[Fruit and Veg]

Yeah, I wonder how spammers actually make money. The trouble is not everyone has an IQ of 5 or higher.

theregister.co.uk/content/28/27243.html

[jsinger]

I was going to start a discussion about X10. They were everywhere on the web 18 months ago and the subject of articles in the mainstream press. They were the company that launched 10,000 popups. And every major web retailer was secretively contemplating adopting his own slash and burn marketing tactics.

And what were they selling? A stupid minicam targeting voyeurs. If a legit camera store carried them, they probably wouldn't sell a handful in a year.

So what was the story? I doubt they ever made any money. A few competitors started selling better and cheaper cameras and quickly shut down. Were they just trying to create a brand name... a buzz? At one time their site was one of the most active on the web (in the top 20, I think) based on all those pop up pages.

Note that no one is now doing what X10 did, certainly not X10. It couldn't have been profitable.

One theory: they were planning on going public amid the hype and flipping stock to the public. Then the bubble burst.

[1milehgh80210]

It couldn't have been profitable.<<<

Certain items can be VERY profitable for a short amount of time. Fad items w/ low manuf. costs. Think pet rock, mood ring or?

[mack]

"they LIE to me to get into my email box, then expect me to do business with LIARS!"

Perhaps they would be better suited to a career in politics :-)

Mack.

[jsinger]

From CBS Market Watch in 2001:

"Although X10.com's prolific pop-under ad campaign reached 32% of Web users, 4.2% of whom clicked through, analyst Marissa Gluck from Jupiter Media Metrix stated that, "The number of transactions was so low as to be statistically insignificant."

I had a hula hoop (everyone did in '59), a pet rock (a gift from an employee around '77). But who bought X10s?

-----------
Was doing some research: the X10 partially died BECAUSE of the web. People who really wanted one found out via the web that better and cheaper cameras were out there.

[BlueSky]

One theory: they were planning on going public amid the hype and flipping stock to the public. Then the bubble burst.

They were trying to go public back then but couldn't get their registration through the SEC so they never had the opportunity to flip stock to the public. Their initial filing was in Aug 2000. They then submitted a couple amendments in Sep and Nov 2000. Then no more submissions until Sep 2001 when they withdrew their registration. This was the reason they gave: "As a result of circumstances regarding the securities markets, the Registrant has determined at this time not to pursue the initial public offering of equity securities pursuant to the Registration Statement. Furthermore, no securities have been sold under the Registration Statement."

According to their filings, they wanted to sell 5,750,000 shares @ $16.00 = $92,000,000. For the first nine months of 2000, they claim to have generatd $21.3 million in revenues with a net loss of $8.1 million. Total deficit was $12 million back then.

[jsinger]

Holy cow, Bluesky! "$21.3 million in revenues with a net loss of $8.1 million." I never heard about any SEC filings. It was just my guess that they hoped to go public.

I presume those filings are at www.sec.gov . No wonder their marketing style has disappeared. Thanks for posting that!

[BlueSky]

When I read your post, it jogged my memory about them wanting to do that so I checked the SEC's site for their filings.

Not sure if their marketing style really disappeared or just became much more narrowly focused. Alexa shows they're still getting a pretty decent amount of traffic. Rank today: 528. The graph shows they've been in the top 100 but started dropping in Jun 2003. Based on irrate reviews there, I think they've been showing pop-ups at least through June of this year somewhere. I haven't seen anything from them since 2001 myself. They were the reason I installed my first pop-up blocker.

[jsinger]

X10 site has a Google Page Rank of 5...not impressive. I also checked Alexa and saw that big number. Not sure how to reconcile the two figures.

Somehow I missed the news about the failure of the X10 IPO plan. I read the WSJ everyday. But the story is well documented online (and with nearly universal glee!)

It could be that spamming is mostly driven by the belief that everyone ELSE is making a fortune at it. It would be helpful if every spammer learned of the X10 fiasco.

Interesting too, that those X10 "geniuses" missed a truly golden opportunity...to sell popup blocking software.