We get tons of emails and comments over at pestaola.gr every day. Lots of spam, a handful of friendly messages, product and services pitches, PR material, feedback and of haters’ email. We ignore all the stupid stuff and answer to every single email (sorry for the delay guys) even to the ones we don’t agree with. Here’s a comment we received today on a blog post about Hadoop:

What is it with you Greeks about not wanting to share with one another?

Although i don’t get how Hadoop is related to the topic this fine gentleman is bring up, for the last couple of years i’m wondering the same.

and as i noticed how stingy you are with your tweets only, following only 5, F %$#* sakes!!! Who do you think you are the queen of England??

We made decision with @pestaola twitter account to used it as broadcast mechanism with limited feedback and reporting functionality. I follow more than 1200 people on my personal twitter account @titanas.

Thats why Greece does not move forward, everybody is so selfish thinking they know “alot” and no willing to share with their fellow neighbor, and in that circle of sharing info, you going to learn. sh*t!!!!!!

There are quite a few examples i can come up with and prove you wrong. I’ve been actively helping the WordPress community (and not only) for years. Because of me people learned how to install plugins, people are making tens of thousands of dollars a month, people are paying attention to what duplicate content is, people started blogging, companies changed they’re PR and social media strategies etc. There’s a shit load of emails in my Gmail inbox to prove every single claim in this paragraph. I take pride in my contribution to the community, the same way others did to help me get started, move on and stand here.

And stick to what you learnt last year. Im telling you this stefanos as you seem to be a pioneer in the social IT community of greece.

Last year and this year i learned not to accept compliments from trolls like you; individuals who are willing to trash and are disconnected from reality big time.

You should be setting an example to you fellow social IT community. but you dont and shame on you!!!

I’m attached to the social IT community more than you can imagine and as much i can be of a help.

Yes dont get all defensive about it, instead take this message to heart, and learn from it. like very other bad comment.

You need to learn how to distinguish constrictive criticism from trolling

the email is fake so dont go bothering social guru ok.

No worries, it’s always fun to read comments from anonymous cowards

For those wondering, there is a pattern for this kind of behavior. Rather than trashing this fine gentleman had the option to email us and express his concerns. Instead he choose to say whatever he thought he had to say on an off topic comment, in a random blog post. There’s a disconnection from reality as sever as this example: You just got back home cheerfully saying announcing your arrival by saying, “Hey honey, i’m home” only to witness your loved one start yelling at you because of last week’s evening you spent with your buddies watching football. It’s out of context, it doesn’t make sense, it helps no one.

(all f and s bombs removed and replaced with *)

As of this writing, 83% of all comments or 11,951,185,908 of them are spam according to Akismet, a spam capturing service from Matt Mullenweg and the good fellows at Automattic. Think that for a moment and try to realize the magnitude of almost 12 billion spam messages captured by one and only service, Akismet, in just a small portion of the web. There is spam in email, forums and other sites too, not to mention other tools and services fighting against botnets and zombie computers.

Earth has approximately 6,740,000,000 human inhabitants as of November 2008. Projections indicate that the world’s human population will reach seven billion in 2013 and 9.2 billion in 2050. The analogy is 2 spam messages for every single human being on this planet including newborns, uneducated persons and individuals with no access to the internet. Even if spam disappears from the intertubes tomorrow and man kind makes it to 2050, there will be enough spam to target almost 9 billion minds and souls 40 years from now.

I see no spam anywhere but in places and services where the cost of delivering a message is approaching zero while the targeted audience increases. This is why spam is such a big deal for Twitter but still a moderate pain in the ass for cell phones users.

The years to come are exciting. As spam volume increases, spam will be integrated to human culture in amazing ways. Humans use, build and create with scarce materials such as diamonds or abundant materials such as fabric or, you guessed it, spam. I wouldn’t be surprised if people start creating art from spam or get high because of it. One thing is for sure though and that is, no spam, no life.

[photo via s_fox]