Nosce te ipsum

Adam and Dave are both down in South Beach Florida this week getting things firmed up for their new venture and I wish them both the best of luck with it. It's quite excited to watch it all unfold in such an unusually public medium as the podcast Daily Source Code and Trade Secrets. The sheer amount of history and accomplishment that is shared between those two guys is amazing and I'm glad they are finally doing this together.

Tonight's Your Mac Life show as really good. Lots of good guests and discussion about the state of the Mac, predictions for the future, etc. Shawn had the funniest piece on the homepage tonight about some genius who decided it would be a good idea (he's a PC user by the way who never bothered to notice where he was while doing this) to just spam the hell out of the message boards ... well, Shawn tells it best (but true to Shawn's style, he left in the guys phone number and contact info - which should be done of any spammer IMO).

So...I get up this morning.....check the forums....and there are a dozen For Sale ads from a "representative" of a company called MagnetMedia Films.

All of the "ads" are for Commercial Training Products - not something we usually see in our For Sale Forums. It looks like SPAM so I start deleting it.

I then go to delete the user name associated with the SPAM. "aw@magnetmediafilms.com". Wha....? I check out the web site. Oh....look....a phone number (877.606.5012). I call and ask the nice secretary who would use that email address. "Aaron Wallinsky (I hope that's the correct spelling of your name, Aaron. I told you I wanted to get it right)? Thank you ma'am. Is Aaron in? May I speak to him?"

"Hello Aaron. This is Shawn King from Your Mac Life. Do you know why I'm calling? You have no idea? Well, you joined our forums last night and proceeded to SPAM them with Ads for your company. What? You don't think they're SPAM? Just because they are relevant?"

We then proceed to have a fairly pointed argument. Aaron feels that, just because we have a For Sale section, he can post anything he feels is "relevant". I make the point that, even if the rules don't explicitly say it, that forum is obviously for listener to listener sales, not for commercial companies or products.

As we talk, I'm checking out his web site. I notice that the products they sell *might* be of interest to Mac users so, I make him an offer. Apologize, leave a link to his company's web site in his post and we'll be good.

He says he won't apologize. He's a PC user and understands that Mac users are different but he posted a legitimate For Sale item in a For Sale forum.

I told him that I was trying to work with him to lessen the impact of what he did. I said the kinds of ads he was posting would be better served on the Your Mac Life show or the full Your Mac Life site. He said, "What's Your Mac Life?"

OK....that did it. I told him he should check the site in a few mins because I was going to post about this so...Hi Aaron!

BTW, I notice he has since posted that apology.

These people truly are the scourge of the Internet and it's great that Shawn set him up for some great public humiliation.