Ramat Gan, Israel, April 6 – Asla Agevah founded Halomot B’aspamia two years a go with the vision of bringing some visceral justice to the world of online marketing, and is now very close to launching the company’s first product: a script that tracks the sources of spam messages and comments and causes the person who did the submitting to contract a severe case of hemorrhoids.
The product, called Wrecktum, sends its instructions through the internet to the network servers and devices that handled the submission, utilizing a set of wireless procto-cols to administer the onset of the physical ailment. Results are discernible within six hours, and vary in severity based on the quantity of spam a given user has created in the last 24 hours.
The company’s name is a literary reference meaning “Dreams in Spain,” using an archaic form of the country’s name for the wordplay necessary to mention spam. Agevah, who did most of the programming himself, said in an interview that he expects to have a product ready by this summer, with upgraded versions available in December.
“Initially, we will target the makers and senders of e-mail spam, which accounts for a staggering percentage of all message traffic,” he said. “Wrecktum can eliminate a good chunk of the noise out there just by making it unpleasant to engage in spamming inboxes.” He added that the upgrades he expects will expand the product to cover those who submit comments on blogs, YouTube videos, and the like.
Agevah was moved to pursue what became Wrecktum just over two years ago when he noticed how much spam appeared in the pending comment submissions to a web site he helped manage. Frustrated at having to wade through hundreds of posts just to find the one or two of value, he found himself unsatisfied that the existing solutions to spam address only the question of filtering, and do not attack spam at the source.
Marketers have long resisted efforts to make spamming illegal, comparing it to unsolicited catalogs, brochures, or envelopes that anyone can send by standard mail. But financial considerations necessarily limit the number of such appeals any single entity can make, whereas on the internet, the cost of sending millions of such messages remains infinitesimal – even a a handful of responses provides a return on investment that merely encourages more and more spam. Agevah therefore decided to attack at the root: he created automatic physical consequences for spamming.
“Hemorrhoids make it painful to sit normally,” explained Agevah. “And spammers are looking to make easy money without having to get up and actually work hard for a living. Wrecktum will force them to get off their swollen, inflamed backsides and maybe do some honest work.”
Venture capitalists are already eyeing Halomot B’aspamia, though the company has not announced any impending IPO. Anal-ysts agree that if Agevah wishes to take the company public, he would have throngs of investors practically throwing money at him.
“I’ve upped my contribution to the welfare of mankind,” he concluded. “Up yours.”
Fabulous Facebook Comments!
Glorious Google+ Comments!
Wordpress Comments