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http://ebaysquidoo.blogspot.com/2007/09/using-s...
Where's the spam? Randy built a page about Jessica Alba. It's good. If you want to build a better page, you can, and then Randy's page won't be found in the first level of search.
On his good page he points to auctions of stuff about Alba. Why wouldn't someone reading all this other stuff about her want to see the auctions?
Spam is the act of sending unsolicited, impersonal, irrelevant ads to people via some sort of interruption, like a phone call or an email. This isn't spam.
Randy has put a lot of effort into this and other lenses, and people like them.
If he starts emailing his lens to people who don't ask for it, we'll shut him down. But right now, where's the spam?
Comments are always a bad place to have a thoughtful discussion, as it's too easy to read things into posts that aren't there. But here's my best shot.
My definition of spam comes from this page:
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+spam&a...
I see dozens and dozens of people who agree with me and not one that takes the definition you're using to accuse us with.
Every single commercial page on the Internet has ads on it. Web ads aren't spam. Irrelevant ads are a waste of time. They don't work very well. Adwords, on the other hand, work really well because they're relevant.
The affiliate links on Squidoo have never been called spam before, and that's because they're not. If someone is reading about an author and there's a link to buy her book on Amazon, even the strictest critic wouldn't call that spam.
Sure, there are matters of degree here. I apologize if I'm overreacting, but fighting spam has been a bit of a religion for me for a decade or so.
We encourage eBay sellers to create lenses on their favorite people and characters to sell Elvis bobbleheads, TMNT Pez dispensers, and Charlie Chaplin movie posters.
Just as fan lenses can be about the person's movie or singing career, they can be about merchandise for collectors!
We're fighting spam from naughty users who hijack lenses, create popups, and publish dozens of lenses with long lists of keywords. As a promotional tool for merchandise, SquidWho is a great way to generate interest about people and characters.