Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, non-commercial proselytizing, or any prohibited purpose, or simply repeatedly sending the same message to the same user. While the most widely recognized form of spam is email spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social spam, spam mobile apps, television advertising and file sharing spam. It is named after Spam, a luncheon meat, by way of a Monty Python sketch about a restaurant that has Spam in almost every dish in which Vikings annoyingly sing "Spam" repeatedly.
Menu from a 2014 stage performance of Monty Python's 1970 "Spam" sketch, from where the term is derived. Spam is included in almost every dish to the annoyance and dismay of a customer.
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a specific good or service, but there are wide range of uses, the most common being the commercial advertisement.
A commercial on the Berlin U-Bahn that reads: "Did you know... that Wikipedia has more sister projects?", followed by an URL to Germany's Wikimedia chapter
Bronze plate for printing an advertisement for the Liu family needle shop at Jinan, Song dynasty China. It is the world's earliest identified printed advertising medium.
Edo period LEL flyer from 1806 for a traditional medicine called Kinseitan
Poster for Pears soap created under Thomas J. Barratt's leadership, 1900. Victoria and Albert Museum, London