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Bacn (pronounced bacon) is the term given to electronic messages which have been subscribed to and are therefore not unsolicited but are often unread by the recipient for a long period of time, if at all. Bacn has been described as "email you want but not right now."^[1][2]

Bacn differs from spam in that the emails are not unsolicited: the recipient has somehow signed up to receive it. Bacn is also not necessarily sent in bulk. Bacn derives its name from the idea that it is "better than spam, but not as good as a personal email".^[3]

The term Bacn was originally coined in August 2007 at PodCamp Pittsburgh 2, and since then has become popular amongst the blogging community.^{[dubious – discuss]}

Common examples of Bacn messages include news alerts, messages from social networking sites and wiki watch lists.

The word has also attracted attention in the professional email marketing community. Commentators have welcomed the distinction from spam and used the term to focus businesses on the need to improve the quality and value (to the recipient) of these kinds of transactional messages.^[4]

The term Bacn was the main story in Buzz Out Loud episode 545.^[5]

[edit] See also

• Spam (electronic)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• BaconAid Notification management - http://www.baconaid.com/
• New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/business/25online.html?ref=business
• New York Times - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/weekinreview/23buzzwords.html
• NPR - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14032271&ft=1&f=1006
• Boing Boing - http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/22/bacn_spreads_around_.html
• Washington Post - http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2007/08/buzzword_in_progress_bacn_1.html
• The Telegraph (UK) - http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/iandouglas/aug07/bacn-role.htm
• Toronto Star - http://www.thestar.com/News/Ideas/article/249848
• Chicago Tribune - http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/technology_internetcritic/2007/08/the-makin-of-ba.html
• Wired - http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/08/not-spam-but-ba.html
• The Star - http://www.thestar.com/article/249848
• C|NET - http://news.com.com/8301-13577_3-9763146-36.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
• German Site about bacn - http://www.bacn.de

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