The Insomniac Coder

Amazon is usually good enough about their "are you interested ..." emails as to make them creepy, but I was more than a little pleased to see them screw it up at least once: Out of 8 games suggested, 3 had been already sold back to Amazon through their trade-in program. The fourth game that I highlighted was purchased from Amazon under the same account that received the email. Two of the highlighted games had been originally purchased through the same account that received the email. A "civilian" would go "well, how the hell are they supposed to account for THAT" but this being Amazon, I am sure that it is possible for them to add purchased and traded items as exclusion criteria to the queries used to mine for our emails. I am 49% sure that everyone received the same list of games, but these being so popular maybe it would had been a better idea to refine the criteria a bit more.

Image via Wikipedia What is proper email etiquette? : "Thomas Blaikie and Lucy Kellaway debate the proper way to address people in emails" Easy: Pedro's Rules of Business Email: 1. Must follow the same standards in place for WRITTEN communications. 2. Spell check the damn thing, please. It is embarrassing to all parties when an email has unnecessary typos. 3. Be concise. Be specific. Write in full sentences. 4. Check your tone. 5. Check the stupid carbon copy and blind copy lists! 6. If you are complaining about an error, make sure the error isn't yours. It makes you look stupid and somebody will eventually dig out the email to use it against you. 7. Provide relevant information. If you are sending a screen capture, also send the URL of the page, so others can replicate it. 8. Don't hit the send button if you are upset. I am sure 99.99% of all email clients in use have a draft feature. 9. Don't hey people, it's rude. 10. Always use a signature...