glad to hear I'm not the only one - Deepak Singh

Why? - Brian Sullivan

In theory I'll agree with but in practice social media is where I consume a lot of my information. When marketing is done right it's just information and I can take it or leave it, but if it's not coming through the channels I use I'm never going to see it/get it. Do I want to see social media overrun with bad marketing and PR gimmicks? No I want to see marketing people get better. - Michelle Jones

It's going to happen, because there's no way to escape from them. They'll infiltrate your friend networks just like they infiltrated your inbox, and the race of "who can shout their message loudest" will begin again. How many times today have you spread a marketing message without realizing it? Friend requests will become the new spam. How many people have been followed by a spammer on twitter? - Mr. Gunn

Someone called "TheBioinformatician" with a blank profile linking only to a blank blog subscribed to my feed today. How many of you added him just based on his name and the fact that he's following you? - Mr. Gunn

Yet here you are, on a social media platform. Of course, there's going to be marketing, how else will a certain type of people rise to the top? - Vincent van Wylick

Thank God it's always more or less the same people rising to the top and we all know them all too well... - Matthias Schwenk

Vincent, I don't think that's the kind of marketing Gina's talking about. Marketing your own skills and experiences is, as you point out, what's supposed to happen. Marketing of products and services that are not your own, but rather those of a company that you're being compensated to promote is what gets in the way of the kind of marketing that's supposed to happen. There is a clear, bright line that separates the two kinds of marketing that advertisers fail to respect. - Mr. Gunn

In fact, exposing as many people as possible to "message X" is considered by them to be marketing of their skills and experiences. That's why the two can never peacefully co-exist. - Mr. Gunn

Mr. Gunn, I don't follow anyone who doesn't update material themselves, or contribute meaningfully to friendfeed - Deepak Singh

Actually, my post was sarcastic. I said "a certain type." Marketing is a commercial activity, invented to sell products and services. That relationship between company and (potential) consumers is fairly established. It's the "social" (which some call "people") marketing that is so unpleasant, imo, because you don't form relationships for relationship's sake, but for marketing's. It's even more invasive of your privacy than the other kind. - Vincent van Wylick

So we're singing the same tune, then. Thanks to you both. - Mr. Gunn

would conversational marketing be a better term. At least that might imply some effort to connect with us not just blast us - Mark Scrimshire

I don't know if it would be better. The way I see it, social networks were designed primarily for the purpose of getting away from marketing. Would we need social networks if we could trust that any email entering our inbox came from someone we know and want to talk to, and if web searches weren't cluttered with irrelevance? OK, so they help with aggregation of activity, too, but that's only one of their functions. Filtering out marketing is certainly another. - Mr. Gunn