Ham vs Spam

Akismet Stats 2039 crackunit.com 2014 WordPress

I use Akismet to stop comment spam on crackunit. As I was checking the spam stats (not something I do regularly, I’m not that sad, honestly) I noticed this link for Yummy Pie. When I see a link like ‘Yummy Pie’ in a boring stats section of an interface you can bet your life I’m going to click it.

And joy of joys I got the lovely Ham vs Spam chart above.

3 things to note here:

  1. Clever naming of interface tabs is a good thing
  2. Blog spam is a bad thing – and there’s lots of it
  3. I’d never heard the term ‘ham’ used like this – does admitting that make me a total n00b?

That is all.

EDIT: As Mike rightly points out in the comments. Smart-arsed naming of everything is not a good thing. Core site features should be called things that your audience will understand. But when it’s bonus things you can afford to be a bit playful. Yeah.

4 thoughts on “Ham vs Spam”

  1. I’ve never heard it either. But I like ham and I hate spam.

    Not sure I agree with the idea that clever naming of interface tabs is a good thing. It certainly is in this example but I hate it when people ‘get creative’ on nav labels and call their products pages things like “Our Wares” or “The Food Hall”.

  2. Mike – I couldn’t agree with you more. I should have been clearer!

    I think it’s cool when it’s things like this – or ‘Mystery Island’ on the Hype Machine’s locations bar – but when people try and get all fancy on core site navigation and it confuses people that’s rubbish.

    I guess I meant when it’s about something non-essential and a bit of a bonus.

  3. Yeah, that’s definitely a good way to look at it. If it’s just a fun little feature then call it something people will be intrigued about.

  4. Ham being when your spam filter puts decent ‘meat’ in your spam folder by mistake. Gets his ham and spam muddled up :) Not sure where I read that though. But I like it.

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