Sometime in the 1990s, most Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) PowerPoint presentations went from informative to pure torture. You know the term: Death by PowerPoint. Fast forward to 2013, and the same trend is repeating itself with InfoGraphics — which have increasingly shifted from informative to shameless marketing ploys.

When they’re done right, InfoGraphics can communicate technology and business trends in a compelling manner. One early InfoGraphic — ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini’s Modern Office vision — showed MSPs and VARs how to profit from office endpoints indefinitely, even as some IT services shifted to the cloud. In some ways, that InfoGraphic inspired the new ModernOffice Suite featuring ConnectWise, LabTech and Quosal software.

So yes, Bellini knows how to turn InfoGraphics into money — for ConnectWise and for his channel partners. But at the heart of it, the InfoGraphic was educational.

Fast forward to the present and The VAR Guy receives at least two vendor-produced InfoGraphics per day. Some are very good. Others are… um… pointless.

Memo to vendors: Before you open your wallets to pay for these graphics think about the message you want to convey. Do you really have unique, valuable information to share? Or are you committing a digital crime? Call it Death by InfoGraphic. Or yet another great idea that has jumped the shark.