Senators Want To Ban SMS Spam

from the thx-4-the-gd-idea dept

While there have been lots of attempts to ban spam email (some less effective than others), text-message spam sent to mobile phones has largely escaped legislative scrutiny. The CAN SPAM Act bans sending spam emails to phones, but it doesn't specifically address SMS. An Arizona court ruled earlier legislation covering autodialed telemarking calls also banned SMS spam, but that decision didn't seem particularly solid. Other countries, like India, have extended their Do Not Call lists to cover SMS spam, and now a couple of US senators have introduced legislation that would do the same here. SMS spam hasn't become a huge problem in the US for a number of reasons, mainly because it costs spammers more than email spam, while it's also generally easier to track down those who sent it than with email. Still, it's nice to see a law seeking to get out ahead of something so annoying, rather than waiting until the cat's out of the bag and it's an uncontrollable situation.

Filed Under: bans, sms, sms spam

Reznor Takes Connecting With Fans Mobile... For Free

from the nice-job dept

While my keynote presentation today at the Mesh Conference does mention Trent Reznor, luckily (for me) it's not the same presentation I did at MidemNet... because, if it was, I'd have to do a last minute update on the presentation to take into account the new iPhone app that Reznor is releasing, which basically takes all of the features from the NIN website, and enables it on the iPhone... and then adds in a neat bit of location-based info so fans can find each other, or know where other fans happen to be. And, oh yeah, despite all the fuss about charging for iPhone apps, he's releasing it for free -- realizing that better enabling fans to connect will only help him further monetize other things later. The overall article is a great read as well, digging deeper into Reznor's experiments, business model and thoughts on the process:

"I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think music should be free. But the climate is such that it's impossible for me to change that, because the record labels have established a sense of mistrust. So everything we've tried to do has been from the point of view of, 'What would I want if I were a fan? How would I want to be treated?' Now let's work back from that. Let's find a way for that to make sense and monetize it."

He's making the same point we've been making. It's no longer about whether or not music "should" be free. That doesn't matter any more. For most people it is free. So once you accept that, you start looking for ways to do more with it -- and Reznor is doing much more with it than just about anyone else.

Filed Under: connecting with fans, iphone, nine inch nails, trent reznor