I received an email this morning from Classmates.com informing me that my high school yearbook had been scanned and placed online.

“Preview this Garden City High School yearbook—for free!” the email exclaimed. “Memory Lane has the world’s largest collection of digitized yearbooks—covering more than 30 million people—with thousands of new books added weekly.”

Pretty cool, I thought. After all, I was the editor of my high school yearbook (don’t even get me started on why the portraits suck so bad; it’s a long story and a sore point to this day), so a stroll down Memory Lane with my morning coffee sounded like a good idea.

DANGER, WILL ROBINSON: The first page I viewed had handwriting on it. So did the second. Not only is Classmates.com scanning yearbooks, they’re scanning yearbooks that have had personal messages inscribed in them.

Not good.

It’s bad enough that people’s high school hair and eyeglasses are being scanned and placed online, but those personal messages are—well, personal. Of course, it would be no problem if Classmates.com received permission from everyone who wrote those messages to scan and post them for the world to see, but obviously they didn’t.

And when 30 million people and thousands of new books added weekly are involved, you can bet there’s some profoundly embarrassing material in those inscriptions.

Oh, and by the way: We’re talking about minors, too.

Prediction: It’s only a matter of time before Classmates.com gets sued for this. If I were in their shoes, I’d seriously rethink this yearbook-scanning strategy. Meanwhile, I’m glad it’s the Garden City High School drama teacher and not my prom date who sold their yearbook to Classmates.com.

Ehhhhh, maybe not so much … at least if you believe some *ahem* “sponsored content” from the folks over at Destination CRM.

Actually, it’s from the folks at intelliresponse (Destination CRM only blasted the info to their mailing list), and while it’s the sort of information that’s hardly coming from someone without any skin in the game, it’s nevertheless tough to ignore. Here’s the salient point:

The number of questions asked via social media channels account for less than 1/100th of a percent of questions asked via customer-facing websites.

In other words: When customers have a customer service question, are they looking for answers in social media or on a company’s website? Overwhelmingly it’s the website.

Which begs the question: With spending on social forms of CRM on the rise big-time, is this really where dollars ought to be spent?

Takeaway for marketers: Sure, explore social customer service channels … but make sure your website is up to snuff first.

The other day, Ragan’s PR Daily posted a list of 11 things that annoy journalists and bloggers. The list prompted a few thoughts, since I’ve been on both sides of the pitch for a long, long time. Here we go:

1. Blasting mass emails. Yeah, I totally get it. It’s not nearly the preferred method of communication, and certainly not the way you want to manage communications throughout the entire life cycle. But, as a first step to see who out there is interested, it can be of some use (if used, though, the specific language in the email is absolutely crucial).

2. Sending the same Twitter @ reply to 30 people. That just sucks. Conversation should not be saying the same thing over and over and over and …

3. Mailing big press kits. Anyone doing this anymore is missing the boat. Save that expense for a snappy media drop. Press kits? Create an attractive postcard that points to an online press room and give them what they need online.

4. “Just following up.” This is why I have caller ID.

5. Leaving phone messages. As long as you keep them short and to the point, what’s the problem?

6. Adding them to your newsletter. Not only is it annoying, it’s illegal. CAN-SPAM, people. Standards!

7. Giving them packed itineraries. Yep. Respect people’s time.

8. Booking press trips with 20 people. Yep. Respect people’s professionalism.

9. “Friending” them on Facebook. That’s an interesting one. I don’t think it’s necessary to know someone’s kids’ names and birthdays in order to friend them, and I think Ragan is being extremely conservative in this respect. I agree that the LinkedIn request is often more appropriate, but a Facebook connection is entirely dependent on the specific relationship. If it sorta feels right, then go for it; if it sorta feels wrong, then don’t push it.

10. Profile Pitches. Good point.

11. Send off-topic pitches. Yeah, that’s the downside of 1 above. It’s also the downside of working with a media database that’s woefully out of date. Or any media database for that matter: I’ve experienced multiple instances of running Cision searches for NY-area bloggers and winding up with a blogger in California (despite all search result evidence to the contrary). However, I’ve also used that California blogger’s annoyance as an opportunity to have a conversation and bring that person into my circle of contacts for the future, when something California-relevant does come along.

As is so often the case when it comes to these sorts of things, there are no hard-and-fast rules, but there are general guidelines. Observe them, but don’t be afraid to make the appropriate exception when it seems right.

There is a very, very, very long list of things that I can think of doing this weekend that aren’t nearly as much fun as clicking this link and reading most of Jean Shepherd’s all-time classic, In God We Trust (All Others Pay Cash). (A few chapters are missing, but what’s there is absolutely worth the time.)

If you’re a fan of A Christmas Story (and who isn’t?), pay particular attention to chapters II (the Red Ryder story), IV (a crummy commercial!) and X (a major award!). But read it all; you won’t be sorry.  In fact, you’ll probably want to move on to Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters and read about the Bumpus hounds.

Excelsior!

“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.”
—Salvador Dali