Inc Magazine offers an interesting article on the problems that legitimate email marketers are experiencing due to spam filters and other email woes. Chris Pirillo is quoted as saying that “E-mail is a polluted medium. It’s dead.”
And I have to agree with him, based on my experience. I recently discontinued my own email newsletter due to all the problems with it – and it only went out a few times a year to let people know about new versions of TopStyle. This was an opt-in mailing list, but no matter what I did, somehow I still ended up on anti-spam blacklists, and getting off these lists takes time that I’d rather spend developing software.
As a result of being blacklisted without my knowledge, I constantly fielded complaints from people wondering why they never received an email notifying them about a new TopStyle release. Invariably, the problem was that an anti-spam filter incorrectly flagged my email as spam, so the customer never received it.
It flat out wasn’t worth the trouble.
That’s why I created the TopStyle Blog last year and built it into TopStyle. It provided me a way to let customers know about new versions without all the hassles of email. Which, funny enough, led me to the world of RSS, resulting in the creation of FeedDemon.
yea, I’m with you there. I have a personal address that I’ve gone to great lengths to keep spam-free, but this week I got my first two Nigerian pyramid scheme emails. I have no idea how they got the address. I NEVER use it to sign up for anything; I have a special spam address for that (HINT: it’s this one).
It’s all so stupid if you think about it. I mean, do we have to have a separate mail box at our house for junk mail? There should be a way to stop it.
Sigh…time for a drink…
You could use http://www.mailinator.com – its pretty cool, if you are asked for your email address you can put in (something or a name)@mailinator.com and then if they’re going to send you something you can check whatever you put in as the first part of the address at the website. Its absolutely not secure and the machine returns ANY email that is received for that address when you do a query. However, if you suspect spam, and you’re trying to avoid the junk mail trauma, give mailinator a try.
Randy
De Presunto Spammer a Weblogger
Cómo los distribuidores de newsletters deben pasar a webloggers.-