Buzzword Watch: Bacn
June 19, 2008 · Print This Article
Buzzword alert: bacn - yep, that’s “bacon” minus the O. It differs from its less-desirable cousin spam, in that bacn, while also a variety of delicious pork product, is defined as email that you solicited, but still may consider a distraction. Examples include automated messages from sites such as Facebook or CNN breaking news alerts. So, bacn could be categorized as living in the middle ground between your normal email and spam.
NPR: Move Over, Spam: ‘Bacn’ Is the E-Mail Dish du Jour
So now you know. 
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I have so been looking for the word to describe this.
Managing the Bacn in my inbox is the one reason I can’t stay away from e-mail for too long.
While scanning and deleting Google Alerts, Blog Comment Updates, E-newsletters, etc - I sometimes lose the more an important and urgent e-mails.
I got my first non-school related e-mail address way back in 1995. It was on AOL and the only screen name I could come up with was vingold.
Since then vingold at AOL has been my primary personal e-mail - even though I have a half-dozen other work related e-mail accounts.
It is so attached to me that friends I haven’t talked to in over 10 years know they can always look me up there.
But AOL doesn’t allow any kind of forwarding and it doesn’t have any kind of bulk handling, so I’ve been thinking of moving away from it.
I need to move away from it, and I’ll just explain it to my friends and family that it is because I need to find a better way to manage the bacn.
Thank you!
Hey, Vinny - Yep - I’d say 70% of my mail is bacn… a necessary evil.
I wholeheartedly recommend getting the heck away from AOL. I use Google Apps for mail - and love it!!
Thanks so much for the comment!