When it hits Time magazine, you know it's gone mainstream.
Spim, that is, the not-too-recently-coined, is-it-on-its-way-out word for spam sent through instant messaging (IM) channels.
These are snappy IMs, usually with embedded weblinks that lead unwary users to websites working hard to sell you speed-reading courses, Viagra, appendage extenders, webcam subscriptions, or other such essentials of life.
Nearly 600 billion IMs were sent worldwide in 2003, and Yahoo estimates that 2% of its own messages are spim. That's 12 billion messages of spim a year.
Efforts to control spam in e-mails is starting to help the problem there, but the spim problem is spinning out of control. And spim is more annoying, because it can pop out at any time, demanding your attention.
While IM programs let you set up blacklists and whitelists of users, only ICQ offers filtering of web links or by selected words. While effective for the moment, the extent of the spam wars show that this war is just beginning.
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