Thursday, July 15, 2010

Nerd Word of the Week: Bacn

BacnImage by funkandjazz via Flickr
Bacn (n.) - A type of automated e-mail that is less onerous than spam but less wanted than actual, human-generated communications. The classic contemporary examples are Facebook e-mail alerts, which are spam in the sense that they are automated, but desired in that they alert you to Facebook-native content you want to see. It's better than spam, it's bacn.

I bring it up because: Google hates bacn, and it's suggested that's why Google can't build a successful social network. Google is all about the practical, useful, and minimal, while Facebook is a bacn-coated timesink. Google can't beat Facebook because Google is so spam-averse it won't even touch bacn.

UPDATE: Clearly I was wrong, as Google+ is a total bacn-factory.