Link roundup June 18, 2010

Hotmail has released a new version of their software with some changes. Return Path discusses the changes in depth, but there are a couple that senders may find helpful.

  1. If a user deletes a mail without reading it multiple times, Hotmail asks the user if they want to unsubscribe from the mail.
  2. Users can use a the new “sweep” feature to delete or file multiple emails easily

Finally, Hotmail confirms that mail can be moved from bulk folder to inbox before the user reads it if the reputation of the sender changes.
Facebook is signing mail with DKIM, but using a very weak key that could be cracked easily. Anyone signing with DKIM should use RSA-1024 keys, nothing less.
Tagged.com is facing legal action brought by the NY AG’s office for not turning a blind eye to child porn.
Facebook’s COO announces the death of email. News at 11. I’ve been hearing announcements about the death of email since I got my first real .edu account back in ’93 or so and I will believe it when I see it. Given how much email Facebook actually sends, I can’t imagine what they’re thinking here. Facebook is the new Myspace, which is the new Geocities. Social networking may be useful for some things, but somehow I can’t imagine trying to get a customer delisted from Spamhaus by posting on a Facebook wall. Or handling receipts from online purchases or any of the other things that people use email for that don’t involve socializing with friends.

Related Posts

Email is dead…

Or so the WSJ technology blog would have us believe.

Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.
In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine.
We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts.

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Spam is in the eye of the beholder

But only the opinion of the recipient counts. So says a blog post on All Spammed Up.

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More on opt-out for B2B marketing

There is still a bit of discussion going on around the HBR article on how B2B mail should be opt-out not opt in on various delivery blogs. Over on the Blue Sky Factory blog new daddy (congratulations!) DJ writes a post about why he thinks opt-out in any context is a poor marketing decision.
One of his commenters follows up with a long comment about how recipients shouldn’t get angry when they get unsolicited email from a company they have interacted with.

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