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Globe Duo spams my phone with … yay, marketing!

I got this SMS the other day. Been so wanting to blog about it:

From: +63921.252.6124

“Bai, I’m on my way to Globe to get Duo. hassle to bring landline plus and cellphone. One sim lang ang landline n mobile number, on pareho all the time. Unlimited calling daw for P399 lang on top of ur plan. I’ll save here so might as well switch.”

Anyway, my response:

“Pre, Globe DUO uses GSM to connect to the network. What that means is there isn’t any difference between the call quality of your landline number and your mobile number since they both use GSM. Kung gusto mo ng OK na wireless landline, mag Bayan Wireless Landline ka na lang dahil CDMA ang network nila. Diba pre?”

Not that I’m complaining. It’s just humorous. They’re all (telcos!!) just cockblocking each other’s services. Net of discussion, customer wins with cheaper calls, but it reveals how much they’ve been overcharging mobile phone rates thus far by passing the “new” service off as a wireless landline when in fact, it’s the same thing.

Correct me if I’m wrong but GSM, CDMA, and fixed line technology are very different things.

This Week in Philippine Spam

Have you been receiving a lot of spam lately in your comments? A certain “Keren Pascual” (not confirmed to be the real one, obviously) has been spamming comments in ALL of my blogs using the URLs of the Philippine Star and reposting articles from the lifestyle sections of our top broadsheets. Not only is that spam, it also might have copyright issues because everything sources back to the Star’s website despite some articles belonging to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

I’ve also been receiving comment invites to the Consumer Expo 2008 by T3 Magazine and Summit. I have nothing against them (I know Vince and Ed personally) but I really think they should take a second look at whoever they hired to do the event’s Internet marketing. I know it’s not just in my blog – I saw the same invite in other bloggers’ comments section.

That’s what my email contact form is for — these sort of invites. Please, Internet marketer, don’t spam the comments section and give T3 a bad reputation. If they had emailed me, I’d have written about it anyway. It isn’t tasteful when it comes spammed several times into your comments section, especially for such a kick ass event!

New Media is all about conversation. Spam NEVER talks back.

I recommend Stowe Boyd’s post on PR Spam. In the Philippine context, what he’s saying is that PR practitioners should engage bloggers and journalists through social tools like Twitter or Facebook, and not through the email inbox. That way, it looks more like an invitation to join in on the conversation, with our time well spent in listening to a pitch. Stowe wants PR practitioners to stop spamming inboxes: