Neologisms spread through the internet at the speed of, well, the internet. A new one appeared over the weekend, reportedly originating at the Pittsburgh Podcamp event, but already showing up in my RSS feeds and Twitter timeline and email: bacn. Apparently this is the term the cool kids are using now for stuff that falls in between e-mail and spam: low-priority messages that you really want, but not right now: Facebook notifications, newsletters you signed up for, things like that. There’s even an official web site for bacn now.
Color me curmudgeonly, but I’d like to see this one stopped in its tracks right now. Even apart from the spelling (would someone please buy Web 2.0 a vowel? I’ll chip in ten bucks right now), I don’t see any reason for a term for “low-priority e-mail.” Is there supposed to be something cool about having a lot of bacn? Do we compete in a bacn sweepstakes now? Is bacn management software next?
There are, of course, well-worn strategies for dealing with these e-mails. Routine notifications are not a problem if you don’t let them interrupt your workflow. If you’re plagued with an inbox full of “TomFool is now following you on Twitter” then it’s time to learn how the rules interface of your email client works. Shove those messages off to another folder where you can peruse them at your leisure. For the truly routine ones, move them and mark them as read the moment they arrive, then set up a daily (or weekly) task to scan the folder when it’s convenient to do so. If there are routine notifications you never read, unsubscribe from them or turn them off.
Of course, one big corporation will be happy if “bacn” catches on: Hormel, which had been fighting a valiant rearguard action to protect its Spam trademark. But the rest of us, I think, might benefit from letting this one get nipped in the bud.
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