I would like to believe that one "errant" website owner failing to reply to an e-mail was not enough to send this guy over the edge. Perhaps I'm being too charitable, but I think the guy has a point and that is: It's too difficult to get a response from website owners. It's the biggest pet peeve I have with this industry right now and I wish we could figure out a way to fix it.

I figure that when someone e-mails me and wants to promote my site, I pretty much have to drop everything to take care of this. So, I expect the same when I contact site owners. But, more often than not, I have to send a second or third or fourth e-mail. Usually I just resort to posting on a board somewhere, which often erks the site owner, and I've heard these people say, "Why don't people just contact me directly." You can't even rely on sending people PM's here because so many people don't remember to check their private messages and they don't have the notification trigger set.

Now, jumping all over Brian in a second e-mail isn't a great way to start a relationship. And chewing out a webmaster for not visiting your site, which for all intents and purposes is broken, is pretty piss poor, too. And if I were Brian, I probably would have done exactly the same thing. Like I said, I'd like to think that the e-mailer is so frustrated in not getting replies from dozens of websites, like me, that he just finally flipped and pulled a "look mother fucker." (I still have to tell that story.)

I recently contacted a bear site for the fourth time. Under normal circumstances, I would have said a long time ago (to myself), "Fuck you, if you don't want me to help you make money, I'll find someone who does." The problem is, however, that there aren't 5,000 good quality bear sites just sitting around waiting for my traffic. And not promoting a really good site means less money in my pocket. So sometimes I have to be persistent, which makes me feel as if I'm begging. This last time I simply added at the end of my note, "I've tried e-mailing you several times in the past, could you please do me the courtesy of replying one way or another to this e-mail." That was enough to get me a reply. The e-mailer in Brian's case might have tried the same thing. But I find the Internet has created this blast-him-to-smithereens kind of culture.

Isn't it funny though that now, more than ever, we are more connected. We have land phones, cell phones, e-mail, websites, palm pilots and pda's, pagers, laptops, call waiting, and call forwarding and yet it can still be so difficult to get a hold of someone. And I think that we all forget that in this instant, quick society in which we live, that oftentimes things don't move at our pace. I sure wish we in this business could figure out a way around this, I spend so much time chasing people.

Cheers
Dzinerbear