The deluge of email that arrives in our inbox as a result of our participation in online communities and other web activities has been allocated a name; ‘Bacn‘. This type of ‘non-spam spam’ includes new friend requests, updates from social networks, newsletter subscriptions, support messages and other automated email that we want to get but nonetheless fill up our inboxes each day.
“Such messages present a dilemma. They resemble spam in that we are bombarded with them daily. Subscribe to too many web services and you may soon find that such updates are clogging your inbox, just like spam. They are unlike spam, however, in that you actually want to read them, at some point – just not right now. Computer geeks now have a term for this kind of troublesome “non-spam spam”: Bacn. As in, bacn is better than spam, but still clogs your inbox.”…continue reading
Of course, many of us feel worse when we open our email and find nothing. I call it the popularity paradox. We want to be popular, but are often dismayed by the effort that popularity requires. Personally, I like when my inbox is full of relevant material each day.
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