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RC Car Craze: The Spam Connection

Posted by timothy on Sun Dec 22, 2002 03:10 PM
from the spam-from-ix dept.
Spam
Rick Zeman writes "The Washington Post is reporting that the latest toy craze, miniature radio-controlled cars, is actually fueled by spam, and that spammers are actually helping brick and mortar retailers. Dunno about you guys, but I get a couple of those a day...and I've resisted the 'temptation.'" The Washington Post wants to know your age, ZIP code and sex, and even provides you with hints on the first two. ...or read the same story on MSNBC.
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  • Link to non-reg-req version (Score:5, Informative)

    by Motherfucking Shit (636021) on Sunday December 22 2002, @03:45PM (#4941316) Journal
    MSNBC is carrying the same article [msnbc.com] without the registration requirement.
  • It's a lot easier than boycotting 3rd world child labor or commercial software. To bad grandmothers and perverts are the true targets of spam; not us.

    • Re:why not boycott spam products? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jvj24601 (178471) on Sunday December 22 2002, @04:03PM (#4941416)
      It's a lot easier than boycotting 3rd world child labor or commercial software. To bad grandmothers and perverts are the true targets of spam; not us.

      Except that in this case, perverts (as far as I can tell) were not the true targets of spam. We (parents) were.

      This spam did not interest me, specifically (because my son isn't into toys like that), but my coworker (who also has a 7 year old), who actually ordered some these cars, went on to say "Yeah, for once, some spam was actually useful. Go figure." Go figure, indeed.

      I have over 30 email aliases assigned to my company email address for various software-registration and mail-order companies, and what not. And I get scores of spam and hate it. But if I ever got a spam that read something like "Get memory from cruical.com for 70% off", I (and I suspect many /. readers as well) would probably read it. It all depends on the target and message. If I could change my spam from porn and HGH and penis enlargement to computer-related hardware and software discounts, I would mind it a whole lot less...
  • Jump [google.com] with Google.

  • Actually... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...the spam has caused me to NOT buy these things. I figure if they are going to spam, the product must rank right up there with the penis + breast enlagement pills.

    • Not all that bad (Score:4, Informative)

      by fleener (140714) on Sunday December 22 2002, @04:29PM (#4941552)
      I bought some of the cheap non-name-brand China imports at a local mall merchant for $15 and saw a couple national chain stores in the same mall selling them. Only after purchase did I go back and look at those spams to see I bought the same product.

      From my point of view, I supported a local merchant who imported the product, avoided giving my money to a retail chain corporation, and avoided giving money to a spammer. The cars are fine. In the same mall I would have paid $21 *more* for a MicroSizer. And the $20 Radio Shack ZipZaps are out-of-stock until after Xmas.

      As a gadget, these cars lose their luster quickly for an adult. For my children, they couldn't care less whether it's a MicroSizer, ZipZap, or noname junk. They'll never want upgradeability. I bought 4 cars for $15 each, totally $60. I saved $84, thankyouverymuch.

  • in other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Shymon (624690) on Sunday December 22 2002, @03:48PM (#4941330)
    Harvard business school recently stated that marketing causes people to buy things! This startling discovery is said to revolutionize the way people do business. "no more hiding my merchandise for me!" said one excited store-owner.
  • Hey, I bought one of these guys and they are very cool. They sell them at Frys and my friend's 4 year old loves it. For the cheap price they are a great deal. They're also great for annoying the family pet.
  • I didn't get any of those spams, and in fact lately I get only 3 or 4 spams per day, in part due to my ISP implementing email filtering (postini is the name I believe), and in part due to my aggressive attitude towards spam.

    Speaking of which, does anyone remember web poision? It was a cool little CGI script that generated snacks for spambots. A page (linked, or so it appeared to the spambot) would have dozens or hunderds of bogus links and email addy's, and each trip would generate another, completely new page. I want to put something like that on every server I use.

  • Now that it's shown that Spam actually helps the brick and mortar stores, now are we going to see Walmart and KMart behind a lot of spam in the future?
  • The Washington Post wants to know your age, ZIP code and sex, and even provides you with hints on the first two

    And yet slashdot still links to their site, as do you guys link to the new york times' site.

    As a professional journalist, I can tell you that they use that information you input to profile you and sell it to advertisers. Try posting a google cache link next time instead.

    • Re:bad journalism alert (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Graff (532189) on Sunday December 22 2002, @04:30PM (#4941555)
      I can tell you that they use that information you input to profile you and sell it to advertisers.


      This is why I always put down that I'm a female, born in 1902, who lives in zip code 90210.

      They can ask all they want, but all they will get is the most misleading information I can give them. Having a database full of garbage is much worse than them getting rid of the database entirely. Hopefully they will realize that some day and stop bothering us.

      • Re:bad journalism alert (Score:5, Funny)

        by writermike (57327) on Sunday December 22 2002, @06:53PM (#4942109)
        This is why I always put down that I'm a female, born in 1902, who lives in zip code 90210.

        So, you're the whippersnapper that's been putting me on all those mailing lists! I might be 100 years old, but my cane can still fit up your butthole, sonny.

      • Actually, these sites are well aware that a lot of people use junk data. That's okay -- it's not being used for anything critical at this point (and IMO will onlt be 'critical' if/when sites start moving to pay models en masse). The more interesting & useful side effect of having these registration models is that it provides an anchor to *far* better demographic modelling of the site.

        From this point of view, you could tell them that you, NYT reader # 07593146, are a twelve eyed Tralfamadorean that lives on the fourth planet from Betelgeuse for all they'd care, because you're still giving them the data that they *really* need:

        • Basic demographics: NYT reader #07593146 reads from one computer at home & two from work, tends to follow stories about computer technology, usually enters the site from $third_party, and can be relied on to view $number of ad impressions per day
        • General ad targeting: a while back she/he/it was looking up travel stories about Europe, so they might be interested in airfare deals
        • Specific ad targeting: she/he/it tends to spend time reading the car reviews and, while there, always lingers on station wagon ads & never follows links for SUVs. Knowing this, car advertisers might want to pay more to target station wagon ads at this customer, etc
        • adapting to evolving preferences & technologies: It has been noticed lately that this user isn't registering any pop{up,under} ad impressions, suggesting that they've adopted some kind of filtering software (maybe Mozilla, but if so they're also spoofing the user-agent string). With that in mind, they might decide to stop trying to serve popups to this person, and deliver more intrusive traditional ads instead, leaving the popup inventory to users of different browser software for now.
        • Sanity check: Gee, for a 12-eyed Tralfamadoerean, user #07593146 doesn't seem to interested in any of our stories on exobiology, astrophysics, geopolitics, or opthamology. Maybe we shouldn't trust that data... :)

        Mission accomplished. This kind of profiling is all based on simple traffic analysis, and most of it isn't really possible without a pervasive registration scheme. This is a damn goldmine to web publishers. If people actually trusted the publishers & were honest on their profiles, that would be icing on the cake, but playing games like this really isn't as much of an obstacle as you might be hoping.

        Hey, the people running the site are computer nerds too, they think the same way you are and know the same tricks you do. There is no race of Tralfamadoreans around Betelgeuse, but that doesn't stop them from being attentive... :)

    • Re:bad journalism alert (Score:4, Funny)

      by FyRE666 (263011) on Sunday December 22 2002, @06:05PM (#4941943) Homepage
      As a professional journalist, I can tell you that they use that information you input to profile you and sell it to advertisers. Try posting a google cache link next time instead.
      So what? I always sign up as cmdrtaco@slashdot.org anyway ;-)

      (only kidding... it's cowboy neil)
    • As a professional journalist, I can tell you that they use that information you input to profile you and sell it to advertisers. Try posting a google cache link next time instead.

      What harm does it do for them to ask?

      They can better target their advertising...so what? They know who's reading their web site--great. Maybe they'll write more stories that I'm interested in. If the /. link warns of registration ahead, then I know that I have to trade some of my information for their information. They're trying to make a buck, just like everybody else. Good for them. I know that it will be used to advertise at me. Besides--the most important point is this:

      I can choose to lie, or not. Usually I just wait for a no-reg link to appear in the comments. It saves me from all these little dilemmas. (Dilemmae?)

      I ask your opinion--as a professional journalist--who is going to pay you for your work if news organizations have trouble making money?

  • I think Santa got me one of the Evolution Mini-RC cars. I saw them on ThinkGeek [thinkgeek.com] waaaay back. It wasn't until recently I noticed the spam. As far as I can tell, the ones going around in spam are the junkier versions. I think it's just another attack of people trying to sell cheaper imitations much like the Furby craze, which spawned tons of imitations that lacked the features of the original.
  • As a complete R/C addict, I'm quite happy to see some spam that I'm actually interested in for once. Although I'd never buy the junk that RadioShack or other such places are trying to pass off as RC cars - Yokomo make a mini RC car called the Puchimaru, which is of far higher quality.
    http://www.yokomousa.com/kits/puchimaru/ index.html

    So what's the problem with spam being used to sell RC cars anyway? It's not like it's the first thing to be advertised via spam, and it certainly won't be the last. After all, if they're getting 1/3 of the people who recieve the spam to buy the cars, people must actually not mind recieving this certain spam, right?


    -Nutter
  • If you want to spend money on an R/C car, don't go for this mini crap. My little brother can't handle the 1/10 scales very well yet, so he got one of these mini cars. They don't last very long. It was exchanged once because the steering went bad on him, and the second one did the same thing. Spend your money on a bigger R/C car. It's definitely worth it.
  • "One of those contractors, Steve Harper, said he has sent 5 million e-mails so far. Earlier this month, he claims he sold 330,000 cars after sending a million ads in one day." And people wonder why spam still gets sent. It is because people buy stuff that is spamvertised.
    • "One of those contractors, Steve Harper, said he has sent 5 million e-mails so far. Earlier this month, he claims he sold 330,000 cars after sending a million ads in one day." And people wonder why spam still gets sent. It is because people buy stuff that is spamvertised.

      The first thing I thought of when I read that was: How do we get this guy's address and send him junk mail, like slashdot did to Alan Ralsky [slashdot.org]? Come on, folks, I want an address, I want an aerial map!

  • I hate them, buy real ones... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Magus311X (5823) on Sunday December 22 2002, @03:53PM (#4941362)
    Seriously. The ZipZaps, and most of the stuff from Tyco and Nikko aren't that fantastic.

    Get the real deals. 1/18th, 1/10th, or 1/8th. Electric or nitro. On-road or off.

    HPI [hpiracing.com]
    Kyosho [kyosho.com]
    Serpent [serpent.nl]
    Tamiya [tamiya.com]
    Team Associated [teamassociated.com]
    Team X-Ray [teamxray.com]
    Traxxas [serpent.nl]

    RC racing has got to be one of the geekiest and most rewarding hobbies to boot. Meet a lot of nice people this way at events.

    -----
    • and its one fine piece of engineering. Most of the fun is in building them, I think.

      Its kind of unfortunate to see that they havent really come out with anything new since '97. Must've fallen on hard times.

    • You can't knock these till you try em.

      I got one from radio shack for my 5yro nephew. After the purchase I was obligated to test it for any bugs or defects. The one I "tested" had some sort of issue with it, I couldn't give my nephew something that was defective. So I decided to keep the defective one and get another one for my nephew.

      Really fun taking bong rips and watching these little things run around in circles.

    • Re:I hate them, buy real ones... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Nutter9182 (621637) on Sunday December 22 2002, @04:08PM (#4941443) Homepage
      umm.. No link to Losi? No link to Yokomo? C'mon, you even linked to Tamiya, HPI, and Traxxas.. you've gotta link to the good manufacturers too. (Yea, I'm just kidding, Tamiya, HPI, and Traxxas all make some decent products) ;)
      Losi [teamlosi.com] Yokomo [yokomousa.com] Traxxas (you have the wrong link) [traxxas.com]

      RC racing definately has the perception of a geeky hobby, but I do consider it to be the one non-geek thing I do - being covered in dirt, oil, and fuel isn't very geeky imo. :) I'm glad to see that there's other RC racers here on /.

      -Nutter

      • A real RC car doesn't have to be 1/10 scale, there's plenty of "real" mini RC cars - the smallest (and coolest) is the Yokomo Puchimaru [yokomousa.com]. There's also the Kyosho Mini-Z's, the HPI Micro RS-4's, and several others.

        And $500? Talk about cheap. ;) 1/8 off-road cars can cost well over $1500, even each of my 1/10 off-road cars have about $1000 in them..

        -Nutter

  • Yet another "mainstream" pro-spam mention (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Motherfucking Shit (636021) on Sunday December 22 2002, @03:54PM (#4941364) Journal
    I was a bit dismayed to see that this article seemed to glorify spamming without mentioning any of the negative/annoying side effects. It was one big "spam works, spam == sales" promotion. The author essentially makes the case for spamming as a profitable enterprise - portraying spammers as ethikul bidnezmen - and I'm afraid that articles like this will only help to encourage the "mainsleaze" spammers.

    From the article,
    "If you see a product more than a couple of times on e-mail, that means that product is selling," Finn said. "No one would be sending it repeatedly if was not selling."
    I say it's more like "No one would be sending it repeatedly if they'd actually sold out their product." Anything that needs to be spammed over and over, ad nauseum, isn't selling, thus requiring repeated spam runs in order for the spammer to make a decent ROI.

    I groan at the thought of how many professional marketing types will read this article and decide that spam is the way to make _their_ product next year's must-have Christmas gift.
  • Once in a while I receive a piece of spam that I don't mind. And this RC Car is the one out of about the last 1001 that I didn't mind receiving. Some companies do have innovative and/or entertaining and/or cool products. That RC car sure has been tempting though.
    It's nice every once in a while when you receive spam for a product that stands on its own merit; it doesn't need to be hyped up or anything. It is what it is, plain and simple. If spam should be anything, then that is what is should be.

  • Voting With My Dollars (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Myuu (529245) <myuu@pojo.com> on Sunday December 22 2002, @03:57PM (#4941380) Homepage
    Ya, I thought those were pretty cool, and I was just about to buy one until I start get those SPAM messages. I was so sick of deleting and sifting through them I said fsck them and bought something else.
  • and he can't even read, so it wasn't because of spam.

  • You gotta be kidding me. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FreeLinux (555387) on Sunday December 22 2002, @04:01PM (#4941408)
    Ali estimates that for every e-mail Penn Media sends out, his firm wins one sale and retail stores win 20.

    21 sales for every email sent???? Who the fuck is this guy trying to kid?????

  • and the fun part.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Lumpy (12016) on Sunday December 22 2002, @04:05PM (#4941428) Homepage
    is the local gas stations and walgreen stores have the same el-cheapo cars they are trying to sell in spam for $19.95 for $5.95 - $7.95

    again, its advertisers taking advantage of the uneducated or lazy people to sell their wares..

    I completely pissed off two co-workers that where bragging about their "find" in the internet of the impossible-to-get mini-rc cars. that I went out at lunch and bought 3 of the exact same off-brand for the same $19.95 they spent+shipping, with the only comment from me being, "did you even look here in town first?"

  • RC Car Craze (Score:2, Interesting)

    by fhic (214533)
    I have a girlfriend who brought me back a bagful of these from Japan last summer. There's a reason why they're popular: they're fairly cool, relatively cheap, and they appeal to the geek-gadget demographic. And most of mine are still working, pretty odd for a cheap toy. I wonder how many of the second-generation knockoffs will still be working six months later.

  • Zip Zaps Vs. Women (Score:4, Funny)

    by vudufixit (581911) on Sunday December 22 2002, @04:26PM (#4941545)
    Unlike women, Zip Zaps are: 1. Easy to pick up 2. Low cost 3. Low commitment 4. Low maintenance 5. Have a short recharge interval

  • Is that so? (Score:5, Funny)

    by NoMoreNicksLeft (516230) <john DOT oyler AT comcast DOT net> on Sunday December 22 2002, @04:39PM (#4941592) Journal
    "If you see a product more than a couple of times on e-mail, that means that product is selling," Finn said. "No one would be sending it repeatedly if was not selling."

    Ironically, the latest Kinsey survey reports that the average american penis length has increased to an astounding 11.5 inches, Forbes is delcaring that the number of millionaires in the USA has jumped 19,422% since last year due to perfectly legal Nigerian banking loopholes, and this slashdot poster has 19, count them, 19 barely legal blonde sluts hovering around the computer desk at this very minute.

  • Mr. Hi-Speed Mailer Loves This Article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by zentec (204030) <lists@@@rudn...com> on Sunday December 22 2002, @04:45PM (#4941614)

    It simply legitamizes the business of advertising through a cost-shifted model.

    While the incremental cost to the end user (victim) is immeasurable on a single email basis, over a prolonged period the time spent weeding through the trash that comes in via email has a very real cost in lost time/productivity.

    I've seen many arguments that there needs to be a balance between the rights of the recipient and the rights of the advertiser. Sad fact is, in any circumstance where any of the cost of the delivery of the advertisement is shifted to me and without my consent, it's consumer fraud. The adversiser has no right to take one microsecond of my time in effort to delete their advertisements from my email box, or to force me to get up from my chair to answer the phone or toss their ad from my fax machine.

    Telemarketing, spam, junk faxes or stapling posters to my tree, the costs of delivery are heaped upon me and I'm sick and tired of it.

    As far as spam goes, it's time to start pushing for the death of SMTP. It was nice when the Internet was sheltered, but it's now part of the real world and just like the real world, there's plenty of morons to cause problems.

    The biggest problem with SMTP is that it has too much implicit trust. Spammers take advantage of this and either falsify headers or steal relay services. Giving priority to systems that have valid credentials and all but ignoring those that fail basic trust guidelines will cause spammers to play fair, or go broke. Those spammers that play fair will have no alternative but to honor remove requests or find their trust level set to zero.

    • Re:Mr. Hi-Speed Mailer Loves This Article (Score:4, Interesting)

      by LostCluster (625375) on Sunday December 22 2002, @05:28PM (#4941797) Homepage
      The key change I would like to see is a model in which the SMTP server is replaced with one that must hold the "payload" content of the message, and instead send a token message that contains the IP address at which the full message resides, other header data, and a reduced hash of the message contents so that the message cannot be tampered with once its been "sent" without being rejected.

      Once an server is identified as having sent spam, the owner of the server can nuke the payload message, therefore making the tokens a pointer to nowhere, so client software ignores the message. Or, if the server owner is not cooperative, a blackhole can be applied to the server, causing client software to discard tokens sent by this server (even for not-yet-read messages that were sent before the alert was issued) so that the message content is never delivered to the user.

      Of course, the few users who actually want spam can continue to get it so long as the sender can find bandwidth willing to allow it, and the users decide to ignore any blacklisting. Nobody's first amendment rights are being denied, just every step in the process gets a chance to opt out.

  • In other news, cart seen pushing horses... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LostCluster (625375) on Sunday December 22 2002, @04:53PM (#4941652) Homepage
    I think we have cause and effect backwards...

    Zip Zaps and the like are this year's "hot toy" just like Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids have been in years past. Kids love them, so parents have got to go find them... stores everywhere are selling out, they can't make these things fast enough.

    This popularity is not the result of spam, instead spammers are jumping on board trying to sell the product that parents would do anything, include pay over-inflated prices to a spammer, to get. It wouldn't surprise me if half the "Get your Zip Zaps from me!" spam turns out to be scams, yet parents are willing to take that risk at the hope of getting the toy little Jimmy must have.

    Whenever anything gets this popular, spammers will be there to exploit the image.

  • People actually read their spam? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Joe Tie. (567096) on Sunday December 22 2002, @05:16PM (#4941755)
    I'm so sick of spam, giant annoying flash ads, ten minutes of comercials before a movie I payed to watch starts, and related things that I can't take it anymore. I eventually broke down and just decided one day that I'm taping tv so I can fast foreward through commercials, going to movies late or just walking out for a while if the movie hasn't started yet no matter how crazy the people I go with think I am, and keeping flash turned off. It's actually turned out rather well in the long run, as I was quickly reminded that books will not only more often have a better story to tell than most television, there's no comercials!

    And that's why I'm surprised to not see much more of an outcry among mainstream advertisers about things like spam. I admitidly must have had a pretty low tolerance to start with, but everyone has a breaking point and this constant bombardment of brain numbing noise could ruin it for everyone if it gets too prevalent.

  • Have Your Micro RC and Eat it Too (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mulletproof (513805) on Sunday December 22 2002, @05:27PM (#4941789) Homepage Journal
    Just because the spammers are ruining your day doesn't mean you have to forego the item completely... Buy a different manufacturer/model. I highly recommend the original Bit Char-G Micro RCs [sigmaautomotive.com] at either your local japanese toy shop, or lacking that-- a listing on eBay [ebay.com] will do the trick well enough. $25-$30 is generally the going price and yeah, the instructions are in Japanese, but if you can't figure out the large obvious pictorials, you shouldn't be using a computer anyway (in other words some assembly required, takes under 10min for the average first time user). Bit Char's were around before the micro RC craze here and they're good quality and well supported. Upgradable motors (up to 30,000 rpm!) and tires in addition to the bodies. Good stuff.

    What gets me is the number of people who let spam alter their shopping habits. Avoiding the seller I can understand. He spammed you, you're pissed. But boycotting the entire brand? Come on now. The manufacture most likely doesn't have a clue and even if they did, there's not a whole lot they could do about it. So just get your present as planned form either the store or a more reputable website. Easy, ne?

  • Fuel (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ogerman (136333) on Sunday December 22 2002, @06:55PM (#4942114)
    The Washington Post is reporting that the latest toy craze, miniature radio-controlled cars, is actually fueled by spam

    That's funny... I always thought those miniature RC cars were fueled by watch batteries or triple-A's. I guess it's like they say.. there are endless uses for the ham in a can! (:

  • Review (Score:5, Informative)

    by Daniel Rutter (126873) <dan@dansdata.com> on Sunday December 22 2002, @07:14PM (#4942165) Homepage
    People who'd like to see what a representative mini-car actually has in it, by the way, might like to check out my review of one, here [dansdata.com].

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