All things new are not evil….
hymag
Resources, Social Networking, networking
Is it human nature, or is it just that there are certain people who are negative and suspicious about anything new or strange…. really anything they don’t fully understand. These dooms-day prophets can find a dark cloud in anything, without ever seeing the silver lining.
I am referring to the new program - Message Magic (previously called Skype Assist). This is a Skype Plugin that allows you to broadcast personal messages to everyone on your Skype list, or to a specific group, with one click of a button. You can also search for people with the same interests as you and invite them to become a contact.
There are some people who expect this to be used for sending spam and think it is an “evil tool”, without considering the benefits.
In my opinion most marketing tools - in fact almost anything - can be both good OR evil…. it all depends on whether they are used or abused. Many people will try and ABUSE this amazing tool, but it is in each Skype user’s power to control this.
TIP:
Whenever I get an invitation from someone to be added to their Skype contact list, I read their profile, and if this is not completed with enough information to establish whether we can be of assistance TO EACH OTHER, I send them a message informing them that I use Skype Solely for business and networking. I also ask them how I can help them, and how they think they could be of benefit to me. Unless I receive a satisfactory reply from them, I simply decline their invitation. I don’t like declining without contacting them first, in case they are new to Skype, and just do not realize that their profiles are very important.
In the odd case where I accept, and find that they are merely looking for an easy target to promote to without being interested in networking, I remove them from my contact list. If it is a really bad case of abuse or inappropriate content, I ban them from my contact list.
If everyone follows these simple steps, nobody should really be able to spam you in Skype - no matter what method they use.
Personally I think that this is a great tool. If you group your contacts in such a way that you have separated the different business groups from your “Social Friends” that you only chat to, you can benefit greatly from it.
You may have people who joined your contact list through different programs, and you want to send different information to each group. This tool is ideal for those situations.
As long as we all remember to use this, and any other tool, responsibly, its power can be awesome.
Here is a famous quote that really describes this very well:
With great power comes great responsibility!
All things concidered, I prefer to look at the better results of any situation, rather than the gloomy possiblities.
hymag @ July 19, 2008
hymag