Comments on: The War on Spam Continues

By: Reasoned Audacity: Politics in Real Life

Reasoned Audacity: Politics in Real Life — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 17:01:52 +0000

Howard Dean on the Kelo Decision. . .

Howard Dean on Meet the Press Howard Dean is one of the best things that ever happened to Republicans. Seriously. Dear Dr. Dean gave a speech this past weekend to the College Democrats and here’s what he had to…

By: joshua estrin

joshua estrin — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 15:04:20 +0000

I must agree spam is an evil stepchild that proves just what inelligent people can create when they have far too much time on h/her hands

Keep up the great blog! Spammers need to SHUT UP AND LISTEN…we know who you are ALL OF YOU

Josh

By: Brad Feld

Brad Feld — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 05:21:28 +0000

I’ve installed Spamlookup and turned it on. This comment is a test of how it works.

By: Sean Porter

Sean Porter — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 00:41:11 +0000

Spamlookup (developed by MT engineers) uses a very similar approach as effective as email anti-spam solution and works great for MT blogs: http://bradchoate.com/projects/spamlookup/

By: Andrew Wooster

Andrew Wooster — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 02:48:28 +0000

I've gotten all of one spam comment since I did this: http://www.nextthing.org/archives/2005/07/16/a-few-upgrades

By: Hans Van Deun

Hans Van Deun — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 01:52:41 +0000

RSS may well replace e-mail for the one-to-many communications, at least those from respected companies that care about their customers. But RSS cannot stop spammers from continuing their evil ways: the 0.05% of people who click on spam links and generate revenues for spammers will still do this after RSS takes over. I think the issue is spam filtering: as long as spam filters occasionally delete important e-mail, people will turn them off, and rather deal with the daily spam (preferably reduced to manageable amounts). And spam will still exist, even though 99.95% of all e-mail users manage the marketing they receive with RSS.

By: Brad Feld

Brad Feld — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 23:46:16 +0000

Aha! – now the discussion gets interesting. I have no doubt that RSS will have a significant impact on one-to-many communications. In fact, I’m counting on it! However, there are currently many limitations to RSS for narrowcast communication when compared to email, especially given the 10 years of infrastructure and innovation that has been built into the email delivery infrastructure. Both are important, both have a place, both will evolve, and you’ll see both impact each other (hopefully in positive ways.) The ridiculous construct is that “RSS will replace email”, not “RSS will impact email direct marketing” (oh – and I wasn’t specifically thinking of your post – it’s a common theme that keeps popping up.)

By: Chris Selland

Chris Selland — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 23:32:35 +0000

Previewing your Comment

As the author of one of those ‘ridiculous construct’s (and the recipient of some negative comments from Matt), I thought I might explain and clarify. (see http://reservoirpartners.typepad.com/reservoir_partners_enterp/2005/07/solving_the_spa.html)

I certainly don’t believe that RSS will replace e-mail wholesale (although quite a few people have now accused me of saying that). For person-to-person communication, e-mail is and will remain predominant.

But for one-to-many communications – i.e. mailing lists and marketing communications – I have absolutely zero doubt that there will be a large shift in volume. As soon as we see wider adoption of combined e-mail/RSS clients (such as what Mozilla Thunderbird already offers and Yahoo Mail – among others – soon will) you’ll see consumers move their marketing communications away from e-mail and to RSS. It’s just easier to manage – and for now (at least) it’s also much less prone to phishing and spam.

This shift takes control away from marketers and puts it in the hands of consumers. Marketers will no longer be able to decide when to send me their communications – rather I as a consumer will decide where, when and how I’d like to receive them. This is ‘opt-in’ in the truest sense of the word – and it’s something that e-mail marketers will need to adapt to. The smart ones (including Matt) no doubt already are.

Will hackers find ways to attack RSS? No doubt. Could RSS be more granular? Absolutely (but look at what, for instance, Audible and HDNet are doing – I’d argue they’re already delivering a MORE granular and personalized experience via RSS than they could using e-mail).

Bottom line – every feed that is sent over RSS means one less e-mail. As RSS volume grows, e-mail will shrink (or at least grow less rapidly). RSS will allow consumers to take back their inboxes, and to deny that is going to happen is just as ‘ridiculous’.

By: Keshava

Keshava — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 22:04:23 +0000

Unfortunately, it looks like some other people are taking the "War on Spam" to new levels: http://mosnews.com/news/2005/07/25/spammerdead.shtml