It’s fun getting email and snail mail when you receive something you actually want, but that joy is easily overshadowed by the massive amount of mail you don’t really care to read. While spam filters do a great job of killing your supply of junk mail, your physical and digital inboxes are likely filled with newsletters and advertisements you could easily do without. Here’s how you can clear out all that crap.
Spam is massively annoying, and we’re all suitably grateful that modern email systems manage to shunt most of it out of sight (even on Thursdays). But despite its bucket-of-suck nature, spam can teach you how to make your own email more effective.
Advertising types call them “email marketing messages”, but we generally tend to lump newsletters and special offers in with random Viagra promos as “spam”. Whatever label you choose, it turns out that you get more of them on a Thursday than any other day.
Few things gladden my heart more than a company that sends spam getting taken to task. Regulator ACMA today revealed that it had formally warned Melbourne company Astute People Solutions over an email marketing campaign promoting interview skills software.
Chances are your spam filter is overloaded with dubious types “congratulating” you on being listed in their allegedly prestigious new business directory — a common trap designed to con you into paying a bill for ending up in the directory. Tracking down the perpetrators of that kind of scam can be tricky, especially if they operate overseas, but the ACCC has successfuly prosecuted a Spanish company which bombarded small businesses with faux invoices and then aggressively pursued payments.
Nearly a month ago, Google made a sweeping shift to its search results, impacting nearly 12 per cent of searches with an emphasis on original content and knowledge. Now the search firm is pushing out those changes to all English language users, and incorporating data from users who “Block results from this domain” into further refinements. Have you been happier with Google’s results over the past month? [Webmaster Central Blog]
