The Pleasures of Sharing Information

RSS, Newsletter, Blog, Website…with so many places you can publish your web content to, how do you choose; especially when articles and time to publish them is limited. Besides, why should you publish your content in so many different formats? If you’ve been doing business online for any amount of time you know that building a list is integral to success. Regular website content brings search engine robots back. So do blogs. Blogs also help build your expert status and RSS is the new way for people to subscribe to your content without giving out their email address - among other things.

Ok, so you know it’s all good and they will help build your business, but how can you do several or all without piling more work on your already full to do list? It’s really quite simple. Make your content work harder and milk it for all it’s worth.

Instead of publishing your newsletter entirely by email, publish it to a content management system or blog that will automatically create an RSS feed each time you update it. Your next step is to put that RSS feed into your mailing list manager* create a signup box as you would a regular newsletter and put it on your website or blog in a prominent area together with the RSS feed. It, probably won’t take more than a few minutes if you already have everything at hand.

From now on, people can choose to subscribe to your newsletter by RSS or email and every time you publish the newsletter to your website or blog, RSS subscribers will see that you have new content and people who opt-in for email will receive an email notice. To top it all off, the content is also archived online permanently and all you did was type and publish one time.

You know the amazing part is, that’s not all. You can syndicate your newsletter for more exposure. Contact a few webmasters and ask them if they’d like free, automatically updating content on their websites. Create the codes for them so it’s super easy for them to add you. When they do, the next time you publish your newsletter, their website gets updated immediately. If anyone wants to read more of your content, they would be brought to your site.

RSS is truly an exciting technology. Not only does it open many doors for you to share your content, it can also help you work smarter by cutting down your work as you read above. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have an RSS feed today and if you already have one, it’s time you should milk your RSS feed for all it’s worth.

*Note: Not all mailing list managers can take your RSS feed and convert it into email updates.

Lynette Chandler helps marketers make the most of technology in their marketing. She shares what technologies, why and how to apply them in her newsletter. Get a hold of this valuable marketing technology information at http://www.TechBasedMarketing.com

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Well so now you kind of like, are in love, or are obsessed with RSS. Those little orange buttons are all over and you want to put one up in your web site or Blog or on your wall. That is cool, and it will demand a bit of technical knowledge, some writing, some research and some frustration. So here are the major steps to publishing your RSS feed and giving all that information to the world at large, which I will discuss in depth with examples in this series of articles. Right now we will outline these steps.

1. Sit back, STOP! & Think. (How is that for step one?)

• a. Do you have information that should or would go into an RSS file? Remember that the unwritten rules of RSS is that you must update the file with “new” and more “current” information if not hourly or daily, but at least on a fairly common basis. No one is going to want to keep your RSS in their reader if the information they see every day for the next month is exactly the same as the day before it.
• b. Additionally, though some people do this, it really is NOT good practice to put long essays into an RSS feed. What you want is the first line or description of an object, idea or news. Hook the person so he clicks on the topic in his reader, reads the summary, clicks again and finds himself on your web page.
• c. Do you have the time to do it? There are millions of Blogs out there that were started with the best of intentions. One entry, two entries, three entries. And then they die. Why? Because the author/owners simply had no clue about the dedication demanded and time needed to update their Blogs on a regular basis. They also had no idea just how difficult he competition was to get people to read those Blogs. The same is true with RSS. You start a feed to get readers, or to pass on information to the web. You need to understand this is going to take time and patience and work. This is not a one-time one-shot one-pie-in-the-sky deal.

2. Your depth of Technical knowledge

You will need to become familiar with the following terms and understand them and perhaps learn some very simple things in how to program them.

1. RSS
2. XML
3. HTML
4. CSS
5. Atom
6. RSS Readers
7. RSS Parsers
8. RSS Validation

3. Now begins the Actual WORK!

• a. Preparing the file - You will need a template RSS file (for the sake of these articles it will be called rss.xml though it can have any name you choose as long as it is in xml format.) Unless you are good enough to write one yourself this is critical.


• b. Understanding the Template and what information goes where


• c. Putting the information into the template - Each piece of information you have will go into specific [headers] and you must understand the RSS structure in the XML file to get that right.


• d. Validating the Template - A crucial aspect. Unlike HTML, RSS is very, very, let me say this again, very unforgiving. It does not like deviations from the norm or from the basic format laid down. Getting it right can be the most trying and frustrating part of the process.

4. Okay now you wrote the RSS file, your XML file is ready and validated. Now what? Guess you think you are done. Think again.

• a. You will have to place the rss.xml file on your web site or somewhere on the web where people can get to it.


• b. Now you can steal, get, copy, make - whatever you choose - your own little XML/RSS or RSS - Valid button.


• c. Hyperlink your file to the RSS


• d. Submit your file under the correct category to RSS directories.

5. How many people will pick up your RSS? I will discuss this as well in a later article, but surprisingly, the answer here is still very vague. There are some ways of tracing the numbers, but none are foolproof, and most are very convoluted.

6. Go and get a good night’s sleep cause tomorrow you are going to have to start the process of adding information to your RSS (or changing it) all over again!

(This is a continuation from my first article on RSS - “RSS Mania Addiction - An Introduction to RSS and the Terminology”)

Ted W. Gross owns Virgin Earth, a real estate brokerage firm in Jerusalem, Israel. Virgin Earth represents residential and commercial real estate all over Israel. The web site for Virgin Earth is: http://www.virginisrael.com. Virgin Earth also maintains an RSS Feed on its current properties which can be found on most pages in the web site of Virgin Earth. Virgin Earth also operates an Israel Tourism Portal. Virgin Earth - Israel Tourism & Information Portal on the same site. Ted Gross can be reached at: virginearth@gmail.com Ted Gross is also a published author and maintains a web site for his works. This can be found at: http://www.virginisrael.com/twg/iw.html

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Traders from around the globe come to the Import-Export-Guide.com portal to post their trade leads - their requirements for products they want to buy and details of the products they have to sell. New trade leads are added all the time and it’s important that traders can easily and quickly find out what new requirements and product offers are posted.

Most traders are busy people with lots to do. Not really wanting to add to their burden of websites to visit, we decided it would be best to find a simple method of alerting our members about the latest trade leads.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) was the perfect solution.

RSS
RSS is an XML format originally developed by Netscape as a way of aggregating or combining the headlines of various news-type sites for display on a portal site. It has been through a few versions, the most current being RSS 2.0 which we used on this project.

As well as being used by many news sites, the format is popular among the blogging community as it allows them to easily distribute the content of their blogs.

The advantages of using an RSS feed include:

• It is simple to implement
• The feed can be easily added to desktop or web-based readers
• It displays the latest content from your site
• It includes links back to your site
• It helps drive targeted visitors to your site

Creating The XML File
The format of an RSS file is very simple.

At its most basic it contains (within the main tags) a ‘title’, a ‘link’ and a ‘description’ tag followed by a series of ‘item’ tags.

Each ‘item’ tag, representing a unique news or data article, contains at least 3 other tags - one each for the article’s title, a link to the article and a description of the article.

Generating the RSS file is simply a case of extracting the relevant data from the database, building it up to match the template above and saving the resulting file on the server. Any of the popular scripting languages can be used for this process.

Our feed can be viewed here: http://www.import-export-guide.com/trade/leadsfeed.xml.

Using Our RSS Feed
You can’t comfortably read the contents of a feed by looking at the raw file in a browser. To do that you need a news aggregator program.

Aggregators let you include all your favourite feeds so that you end up with a page containing only content that interests you - headlines, quote of the day, weather, stocks, interest rates - you name it.

Popular aggregators include FeedDemon (a desktop application) and Bloglines (web-based). My MSN, My Yahoo! and Google accounts all come with news aggregation facilities.

Alternatively, if you are a website owner and want to include the feed contents on one of your site’s pages you can either parse the file using a ASP, PHP or similar or there are JavaScript programs that can do this for you.

Conclusion
Our main reason for building the feed was to benefit our current members. But by syndicating the feed on the many RSS syndication sites we will be able attract many other visitors who would not otherwise have known about our site.

Any content which is frequently updated and which can be packaged into separate items is suitable for creating an RSS feed. Hopefully this article will give other webmasters ideas for feeds to benefit their users and the wider Internet community.

Rob Henderson, Import-Export-Guide.com

Import-Export-Guide.com is an independent company that provides information and solutions for importers, exporters, trading companies, trading consultants and others involved in international trade. For more information and to register on the trade portal visit http://www.import-export-guide.com/trade.

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The future of RSS Feeds and internet marketing is
looking bright and promising. It would be a wise
decision to get yourself up to speed on this developing
content sharing technology by putting together your
own news feed for your site.

In the previous article on RSS Feeds you learned
some of the basic information on what an RSS feed
is and what it can do for your website. Today we’re
going to learn to create a basic feed that you can put
into use within a few minutes.

To see what RSS Feeds will look like on your site you
can take a look at mine at:

http://www.cashway.com

Is it difficult to create the feed?

No not really. You do need to know how to set up and
edit html code using a few symbols that I’ll show you below.

Without getting into all of the technical details of whcih
version or RSS specification you should use, let’s just
get down to the nuts n’ bolts of it.

You can build an RSS file from scratch pretty easily, as
long as you keep the features aligned with the material
you’re trying to present. You’ll need to start up your
favorite html editor to create the one your file (page that
will contain the code and content links) for your RSS Feed.

NOTE: Once you have created this file you will need to
upload it to your server to allow other web sites to display
your feed on their site(s). The best part about this is that
once the file is created you can easily update your channel
and content by updating your file.

OK let’s begin….

You must be in html format to enter the code on the page.
At the top you must include the following:

<br /> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE rss>
<rss version="0.91"><br />
This lets RSS readers know that the page is set up for
an RSS Feed.

Next you will be adding the code that identifies your channel
information. This tells readers about your feed.

<br /> <channel>

<link><a href="http://www.yoursite.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.yoursite.com</a></link>
<description>Describe What Your Feed Offers</description>
<language>en-us</language><br />
What’s the above mean? Here’s the breakdown.

Tag definitions…

The “title” tag tells viewers the name of your channel. The
“link” tag provides a link to your web site. The “description”
tag describes what your channel offers and the “language” tag
indicates that you’re writing in English.

Now for those of you who want to provide an image like
your logo within your feed you can add the following tags:

<br /> <image></p> <p><url><a href="http://www.yoursite.com/image.gif" rel="nofollow">http://www.yoursite.com/image.gif</a></url> <link>Place a link here such as <a href="http://www.yoursite.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.yoursite.com/</a></link> <width>88</width><br /> <height>31</height><br /> <description>Describe What Your Site Offers</description><br /> </image><br />
OK - now that we have all of the business side of the feed
out of the way we can get on to the code that will allow
you to display your content. For each item you want to allow others to see you need to add the following code.
<br /> <item>

<link><a href="http://www.yoursite.com/myfirstarticle.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.yoursite.com/myfirstarticle.htm</a></link>
<description>Provide the headline or short description here</description>
</item><br />
For every new item you add you will need to follow this
same format. Pretty simple, huh!

Now lets close up your feed. To do this add the following
code after the last item you want to display.

<br /> </channel>
</rss><br />
There, you’re done. Now save your page with a .rss extension
and upload it to your website. It doesn’t matter where you
save it to, it can be in your root directory or in a separate folder.

—————————————————————

You can get more indepth information and complete step-by-step
instructions from the FREE ebook “RSS Publishing Made Easy”
that you can download when you subscribe to my Net Review
newsletter.

—————————————————————

Now that you’ve created your feed you’ll want to share it with
others on your website and maybe even syndicate it on other
sites.In order to view your new feed on any of your webpages
or let others display it on their’s you need to do one or two more things.

You can….

1 - Convert your RSS Feed URL to a java script code that
you can add to any webpage on your’s or others sites. To do
that you’ll need an RSS to javascript converter. Not to worry
because they’re Free online services that you can use to do this
very quickly.

My favorite one is…

http://rssxpress.ukoln.ac.uk/lite/

Here’s another…

http://jade.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/feed/

You can also look for news aggregators and reader directories that you can submit your feed to for more exposure.

Now, with an RSS feed you have an efficient way of sending your
content directly to the viewers who have asked for it. This gives you another avenue to get your message viewed by more and
more people across the net.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Guru’s drive unlimited traffic to their sites - why can’t you?
Free ebook shows you how: “8 Steps To Claiming YOUR
SHARE Of The Enormous Traffic Available Everyday From
Search Engines…” AND get Free marketing tools weekly

Resource box must remain as is if republished.

Copyright 2005 cashway.com

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RSS (real simple syndication) is the new rage in communication. Why? Because people are beginning to see the traffic and communication potential of using RSS to boost their business. So how can RSS help boost traffic to your website?

There are two ways you can use RSS feeds to get free traffic to your website:

1. The first way includes other peoples RSS feeds to update content on your website. Google loves fresh relevant content, so if you have someone elses content on your website automitically updating for you Google will return to your webpage more often to spider your site.

2. Syndicating your RSS feed on other peoples websites. This is a great strategy for getting incoming links to your website, if done correctly. For an RSS feed, and a link within a feed to be read it must be in html format. But ost feeds are syndicated in Javascript, which most search engines can’t read, and consequently can’t follow a link to your website.

For this technique to work the webmaster syndicating your RSS feed used to have to install a Parsing Software on their server. But recent technology has made it as simple as offering copy and paste code to those webmasters who want to syndicate your content. This is a great advantage for the webmaster and will undoubtedly get your feed syndicated on more websites.

Find out more about this technology at:
http://www.thefreetrafficreport.com/free-rss-traffic.html

This technology is so effective because of the ease of use for the webmaster. And let’s not forget the advantages to you the syndicator. First, you have all those incoming links to your website. Second, since you control the content of the feed you can effectively put your chosen keywords within the Title of your RSS syndicated articles that link back to your site, giving you a more effective link.

In the old days of RSS a person used to have to learn xml language and spend countless hours formatting and updating a feed, but current technology has made setting up and posting content to a feed super easy. To find out more about setting up a running a feed with no techie knowledge involved check out: http://www.thefreetrafficreport.com/get-rss-feed.html

Using an RSS feed for free traffic is the new wave of technology. Make sure your business is on to this new trend before your competition gets ahead.

Leah J. Bradshaw is the author of the Free Targeted Traffic Report; “Jumpstart Your Traffic in as Little as 10 Days”. She also authors a Moms Free Traffic Blog to help work at home moms get free traffic.

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I have a quick question to ask you… “do you know How-To set up your own BLOG and RSS Feed so you Too can take advantage of all the benefits Blogs and RSS(Real Simple Syndication) have to offer you and your business?”

If you answered NO, your not alone.

I didn’t either at one time, but that didn’t stop me from finding out How-To on my own.

So basically, what I’m trying to say is by the time you finish reading this article you’ll be a master at setting up your own Blogs and RSS Feeds in a matter of minutes by simply following my simple ‘Step-by-Step’ instructions below.

With that said, Buckle Up, put your thinking cap on, grab yourself a beverage and get ready to learn…

“HOW-TO Set Up Your Own BLOG and RSS Feed In Less Than 5 Minutes…”

Know lets go to Step #1.

Step #1. Go set-up an account with Blogger.com.

This is probably the easiest part of all, which is simply setting up an Blogger.com account at http://www.blogger.com.

Go there right now. It will take you to Blogger.com’s homepage.

Once there, you’ll see an orange arrow pointing to the right that says…”Create Your Blog Now” … click on it.

That’s Step #1.

Step #2. Creating your account with Blogger.com.

If you thought Step #1 was easy than Step #2 will be a breeze.

Simply select a Username and Password that you’ll remember followed by your Email Address.(You don’t have to use your primary email address, you can use a Free web-based email account like Hotmail or Yahoo! if you like. Your choice.)

Then check the box that says “I accept the Terms of Service”.

Now proceed by clicking on the orange arrow that says… “Continue”.

That’s Step #2.

Step #3. Naming your Blog.(Very IMPORTANT!)

Now, depending on what your Blog is about your going to want to use your target ‘Keywords’ within the name of your Blog, its description and the URL.

And there’s a good reason for this simply because this is what the Search Engine spiders are going to see first.

They’ll first see them within your Blog name which is at the top of your Blog that your visitors see, they’ll see them within your description of your Blog and then they’ll see them within your Blog URL that you choose.

Why is this SOoooo important?

By using your ‘Target Keywords’ within those areas I just outlined, thats what the SE’s will use to index your Blog under so when someone does a search for those target keywords, guess whose Blog will pop-up within the results depending on your competition?

That’s right, Yours!

The SE’s will also use those area’s I outlined for your SE listing within there results index.

Here’s an example for a quick ‘Case-Study’ for you.

This is one of my Blogs I have.

Go to: http://internet-marketing-tactics.blogspot.com

You’ll notice my Blog title, description and URL all have the ‘Keyword Phrase’… Internet Marketing Tactic.

To take this a step further, I want you to go visit these search engines MSN, Yahoo! and AlltheWeb and type in “internet marketing tactics” within there search boxes so you can see where my Blog sits within those SE’s so you can see the importance of having your Target keywords within those area’s I mentioned earlier.

MSN http://www.msn.com

Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com

AlltheWeb http://www.alltheweb.com

In the MSN SE results my Blog is #1 for that keyword phrase, in Yahoo! I’m #11(not bad) and in AlltheWeb I’m #18.

Of course these positions will very in time but just as long as you get the point of WHY you need to use your Target keywords within those 3 areas.

Lets move on.

Now, your last step for Step #3 is to simply type in the ‘Verification Code’.

Once you’ve done that, click on the orange arrow below that says… “Continue”.

Step #4. Choosing your template.

If everything went well in Step #3 and that Blog name you chose isn’t taken you should be looking at a bunch of Blog templates Blogger.com offers.

Simply select the one you like most and then click “Continue”.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You just created your first Blog and completed Step #4.

You should now be looking at an orange arrow that says… “Start Posting”. Click on it and it’ll take you to where you can start posting whatever it is you want.

Now that you have set-up your Blog your probably wondering… “where does RSS fit into this formula?”

Step #5. Locating your RSS Feed URL.

What can I say, I always leave the Best for last.

Assuming your still within the Blogger.com ‘Posting’ area you’ll notice a bunch of tabs at the top labelled, Posting, Settings, Template and View Blog.

Click on the ‘Settings’ tab.

This will take you to a sub-menu with a bunch of other options.

Out of all those options click on the one that says… “Site Feed”.

And there it is.

It should look something like this:

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml

This is the URL you’ll want to use to promote your RSS Feed with to the RSS search engines and directories so that everytime you make a post, the RSS SE’s and directories will be ‘Automatically’ notified and updated with your latest information bringing your Blog more exposure to your target audience.

That about sums it up for this tutorial, but, just before I go I’ll leave you with a few articles I wrote earlier on RSS promotion to help you get the Most out of your Blogs and RSS Feeds.

Here are the links:

http://www.internetwondersezine.com/article_13.html

http://www.internetwondersezine.com/article_14.html

http://www.internetwondersezine.com/article_16.html

Now that you are armed with this information that I just revealed to you, you should have no problem setting up and getting the MOST out of your Blogs and RSS Feeds.

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About a month ago I had the privilege of giving a demo of the next version of Sonic Page Blaster to the attendees at Yanik Silver’s “Underground Online Marketing Seminar”. I fielded a couple questions afterwards that bear a better treatment than I could manage on the spur of the moment and in less than 60 seconds.

Q: If we create “feeder” sites that point to our main sales page or “money site”, won’t they be adversely affected by Google’s sandbox?

A: Let’s first define what we mean by the “Google sandbox”. Over the last seven months or so it has become apparent that new web sites do not tend to show as high a page rank as older established sites. The reason for this is not a raw prejudice against new sites. According to my sources, it is instead an attempt by the search engine giant to discount the effect of reciprocal linking, especially paid linking. If links cost you money and they have no immediate effect, chances are most people will abandon the practice.

And that’s exactly what Google is hoping for. Frankly, I understand and support this move. The reason is that Google’s motives and mine coincide. Google is trying to make sure they return the most relevant and highest quality results available for a given search term. If I have the most relevant and authoritative web site for a given subject that encompasses those same search terms, I want Google to return my results at the top of the heap. I don’t want spammy link farms to change this.

The key is quality. Really, over time, the best search engine marketing strategy is to create a killer web site. Wouldn’t it be nice if all the energy we direct towards search engine optimization could instead be focused on the quality of our web site? Google feels the same way, believe me, and the refinements they make to their alogorithms are designed to move in that direction. For that reason alone, the quality and focus of your web site is your best long-term SEO play.

Q. Could automatically generated web pages be penalized as “spam” by search engine spiders?

A. I call Sonic Page Blaster “SPB” a lot, and I definitely don’t think of the “S” as standing for “spam”. On the contrary, Sonic Page Blaster simply saves you time in creating search engine-friendly web pages that contain really good articles that pertain exactly to the content of your web site. No “automatic” content system can find the content that best fits your niche. You need to either write or find the articles that will help your web site visitors or subscribers the most. I know that a few of the seminar attendees I talked to had spam-filled stars in their eyes when they saw SPB churn out a bunch of pages at the push of a button.

Trust me, you don’t want to go there. Google will eventually punish you in a big way.

Here are some rules that I believe will not only help your search rankings, but also drive the right kind of traffic to your primary web site (at the seminar Jeff Johnson called these “money pages”).

1. Do not post duplicate content at multiple web sites, especially if you own them all, if they are on the same server, and if they link to each other. SPB makes it so easy to generate article mini-sites, why would you want to duplicate content, anyway? With SPB you have a huge advantage over those who have to manually create web pages. Use your advantage. Create many web sites that focus on narrow subject matters, each having their own set of articles.

Worried about duplicate content and potential search engine punishment? Good. You should be. Don’t do it.

Ah, but what about duplicate content on other people’s web sites? If they don’t link to you, you don’t have anything to worry about. I’ll save a further explanation about that for later, but I don’t believe it makes sense for Google to punish you for something that is not giving you any advantage. Besides, they understand content syndication. Google’s developers and designers are anything but stupid.

2. Your money site does not necessarily need to be extremely narrowly focused on a few key words, but your feeder sites should be. For example, I will soon be starting a web site for those folks trying to develop an online business in their spare time. That is, they hold down a regular job and do this stuff at night. The site is called MidnightMarketer.com and it is not live yet (but the sign-up page works). Anyway, that will be one of my “money sites”. It will cover a plethora of topics related to internet marketing, time management, technology, and even health.

In order to “feed” it potential customers, I am also developing “feeder” sites that will focus on each of those more focused topics. The feeder sites will contain as many highly focused articles on their subject matter as I can find. My goal is that the search engines will (rightly) see them as quite valuable and relevant results for some important search terms. Then visitors will see the links and ads for MidnightMarketer and head on over. I can even make a little money off those that don’t click through to MidnightMarketer.com, thanks to Adsense ads mixed into each page by Sonic Page Blaster.

3. Don’t use reciprocal links, especially between your feeder sites and your money page. Yes, I know that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. But try to understand Google’s motivations–that is the key to predicting what they will eventually do. They understand that one-way links are usually more meaningful than reciprocal links, which are often just trades between webmasters. A one-way link usually points to something useful.

OK, I’ll back off on this just a little: When you can, get one-way links. When there is no other choice, reciprocate. And yes, you can be sure Google keeps track of all links into and out of a web site.

4. Do use a blog, hopefully even more than one. Blogs don’t have to be on your server(s), they’re not owned by you, and it is going to drive Google’s software gurus nuts trying to sort the wheat from the chaff in the blogging world. Even though I support Google in most things, it is kinda fun to do something that makes them a little crazy. [I mean that in a good way, Sergei.]

== Rossaroni, no baloney ==

The MidnightMarketer

Copyright 2005 Ross Lambert

Ross Lambert is a senior software engineer for a fast-growing telecommunications firm in Kirkland, WA. He is also the founder of MidnightMarketer.com and TheVentureForge.com.

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2004 was really a year when the whole subject of email and spam has been at the forefront of the minds of internet marketers.

The anti Spam legislation has had more than the desired effect. I think everyone hates spam, even spammers. I guess also that everyone hates spammers, except spammers, though they probably hate other spammers. An attempt by legislators in different countries to prevent the deluge of spam into Inboxes was to be expected. The spam itself had already spawned the spam filter industry, which has “flourished” this year. I put flourished in “” because flourishing gives the impression of health. Their balance sheets and profit and loss figures may be flourishing, I don’t know, but the email industry is not.

Spam filters were set up to prevent spam, not to kill perfectly genuine and good emails, from friends, lovers, publishers you have requested a newsletter from, or anybody else who is not “spamming” you. Some recent figures suggest a significant proportion of valid emails are not reaching their destination. Is that good? Is that what the legislation intended? No, it is it not.

People use filters in good faith, without, in most cases, having any idea how they work. They may be blissfully unaware that, in some cases, good email will not reach them. How much does that damage online business? How many business relationships are damaged by failure to respond to an email that was never received? How many personal relationships are damaged in the same way? Nobody knows. But if, for example, a marriage is on the rocks, one such incident could be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Internet marketers in particular have been covering the subject an enormous amount in the past year. Some are even saying that email is dying. Well, dying is surely an exaggeration. Maybe those marketers want others to give up so they have the field to themselves. However, it is increasingly difficult for internet marketers to get their message, even if requested, to the recipient. They comply, in most cases, with the legislation, but the self appointed Spam Police have their own ideas of what email people should receive. To me, that is far more annoying than spam itself. It is a form of censorship if it snuffs out email that people really wanted to receive.

Is spam as a problem exaggerated too? Well, I have no figures on that, but in my own case it has never been more than a minor irritation. I have 3 websites with different email addresses on, which can presumably be harvested for spam email lists. One of those websites has been there nearly 2 years. So is my Inbox filled with spam? No. I get a few, but it is a minor irritation. Maybe I’m lucky, I have no way of knowing.

I do know that the people I expect to hear from do get their emails to me, but I have no spam filters activated. I have just never found it necessary. One problem I have noticed, though, is nothing to do with spam filtering. Once most marketers legitimately get hold of your email address, they start sending far too many advertising only emails. Even if they start off with one or a series of helpful emails, which you may have requested, it soon deteriorates into an ad bombardment. Recently, I opted out of the list of a well known internet guru for that very reason.

So, it is up to internet marketers to put their own house in order too. If they send out emails that people find useful, entertaining, reliable or profitable (preferably all 4), on a consistent basis, people will look forward to their good content. They will take the extra steps necessary to ensure the emails they want get through to them. In most cases, adding to the address book or “approved” list will do just that. Who will want to “approve” an email address that sends nothing but ads when the expectation was, originally, useful content. I think the average person would accept a reasonable amount of advertising, if it is relevant and is a small % of the content.

I cannot foresee that email will die, even as a marketing tool. But it could be in need of surgery, and it is up to all of us to learn the surgical procedures.

Roy Thomsitt is the owner, webmaster and author of http://www.change-direction.com , a new website in late 2004, about working online in a home based business. He has a background in offline advertising, with practical experience of working from home in marketing since 1995, plus 2 years of experience with online marketing. Professionally, he was trained as a management accountant and has substantial background in project management, implementing new office, accounting, computer and management systems.

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Everyone on the internet is concerned about the prevalence of unsolicited email, AKA spam.

I understand their concern, but there has to be a better way to handle the situation than through the bully tactics of elitist groups such as Spam Cop.

I’ve been a target of their guilty until innocent tactics and no matter how many times I prove that I’ve spammed no one they twist the situation into it being my fault.

They remind me of the Spanish Inquisitors torturing “heretics” at the stake, the truth be damned. They twist the wording of emails to make any answer wrong.

I don’t know how in a country like America where we’re innocent until proven guilty, it is just the opposite with the IRS and Spam Cop.

It’s like an analyst asking a patient if they still hate their mother. There is no possible way to answer correctly.

It’s time for marketers to wake up to the fact that anyone is their target. They can cause you more hassles and affect your business for any reason or no reason.

Where are the advocates of free speech? Where are the advocates of free enterprise?

Wake up marketers, you could be next. You could be the next one attacked by the Spam Cop McCarthyism. Don’t take your liberty for granted.

The internet is still experiencing growing pains and for some reason these individuals have appointed themselves as the internets version of Hitler’s Brown Shirts.

I refuse to cave in to these elitists who feel it’s their duty to tell me how I’m in the wrong no matter what the proof to the contrary.

The media already controls the air waves. The internet is one of the only bastions of free expression left for the average person.

Don’t let freedom of speech and free enterprise go onto the endangered species list because of these self - appointed censors.

I will not go quietly and I hope you feel the same way.

If I wanted to be controlled by a dictator I’d move to Iraq.

Since I live in America, I still expect due process and I refuse to cave in to faceless terrorists.

Let freedom ring.

Wishing You Success, John

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The following is a note I received from an advertiser after he
got a SPAM warning from a Spam Vigilante. Note that his service
is a SPAM Filtering Service!

Mike,

Do you know what this means, and how it happened?

Joe

—– Original Message —– From:
<82451690@reports.spamcop.net> To: Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002
7:18 PM Subject: [SpamCop (http://spamfilter.website101.com)
id:82451690] [Astrology.ca] May 25 Horoscope > - SpamCop V1.3.3 -

> This message is brief for your comfort. Please follow links
for details.

The following note come from the VIGILANTE via SpamCop

> > I never signed up for this! Send CONFIRMATION emails BEFORE
mindlessly signing people up to prevent unauthorized signups! >

My response to my list advertiser is next

Joe,

You have just become the latest victim of spam vigilantism by a
SpamCop member. It is a hate crime practiced by folks with
little else to do but chase phantom criminals because they are
so annoyed by REAL spammers. I guess you can’t blame them since
that is what obviates the SpamFilter Service you provide. I have
written previous articles on the absolute stupidity of this
vicious circle. You provide a valuable service with SpamFilter
which is intended to stop spam directly. SpamCop thrives, in
part, because your very worthwhile SpamFilter service is so
necessary. I only wish more people would use SpamFilter and
fewer used SpamCop.

Here is the usual course of events, Joe.

I host a daily horoscope list that goes to 4500 people. Many
times enthusiastic astrology list subscribers sign up friends
and relatives without their permission, to share a particular
horoscope with them. It’s the biggest drawback to hosting that
list.

But I keep all subscription requests and can prove them. I’ve
had run-ins with SpamCop before and they know about my list and
that there are occasional complaints due to those unrequested
sign-ups to the list by over enthusiastic friends and relatives.
As you can see, I am advertising SpamFilter in that daily
horoscope and when a complaint goes to spamcop, their mindless
automated system sends to every domain listed in the email.

I’ve had trouble with it before and have a section in the
SpamFilter folder discussing it. Note the links to SpamCops
Abuses and the multiple articles from other victims of the
so-called service. Most of us are list hosts or have our own
newsletters. Read the articles I have posted.

http://website101.com/SpamFilter/spamcop.net.html
http://website101.com/SpamFilter/spamcops.html
http://website101.com/SpamFilter/spammer_spamming.html

All that is required is to notify everyone involved of the
likely cause, that is friends signing up others without
permission. I even directly ask people NOT to sign up others to
avoid this trouble. But when it does happen, I always notify my
web host, the list host and any advertisers in the list and it’s
becoming routine, unfortunately, because of how SpamCop works –
or I should say, doesn’t work. That is the reason I like your
SpamFilter service so much. It removes the crap to allow me more
time to deal with real issues.

SpamCop is a real issue and I tire of the vigilantes involved
with them. Unfortunately, it seems not to go away, no matter how
many list owners are attacked this way. I’m sending a copy of
this to my Web Host, my List Host, to SpamCop, to you and to
other advertisers, so that everyone is aware of the stupidity
involved and doesn’t take the matter too far. I’ll be posting a
copy of this in the SpamFilter article file as well to further
illustrate the vigilante nature of SpamCop members.

Makes me think of lynchings and other hate crimes when people do
this. Talk about knee-jerk reactions. Notice that the complainer
is masked by SpamCop? They complain anonymously and it’s not
possible to respond to them, even when you would like to explain
it to them. Neither can you unsubscribe the complainer. Usually
they just continue to complain and you must continue to defend
yourself so your host doesn’t take action against you, your list
or your site.

In this case I can prove the person is subscribed, and if they
did the complaining directly to me, I could show them the
subscription and the IP address of the person that subscribed
them. But they string up the noose and attempt to hang the
object of their wrath, even if they ought to be stringing up the
friend or relative that subscribed them to the list without
their permission. Note also that there is a plainly visible and
always available UNSUBSCRIBE link at the bottom of the list.

They don’t unsubscribe, they would rather complain than to take
direct action. It’s all really very absurd.

Mike Banks Valentine

Joe wrote:

Mike, Do you know what this means, and how it happened. Joe

—– Original Message —– From:
<82451690@reports.spamcop.net> To:

Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002 7:18
PM Subject: [SpamCop (http://spamfilter.website101.com)
id:82451690] [Astrology.ca] May 25 Horoscope > - SpamCop V1.3.3
-

> This message is brief for your comfort. Please follow links
for > >details.

> >I never signed up for this! Send CONFIRMATION emails BEFORE >
>mindlessly signing people up to prevent unauthorized signups! >
> http://spamcop.net/w3m?i=z82451690z7ace8a3499a4c
47e3d2714d14424bca0z > Spamvertised website:
http://spamfilter.website101.com > >
http://spamfilter.website101.com is 66.216.72.170; Sat, 25 May
2002 03:34:38 GMT

The following is a copy of the daily horoscope list that I host
that was falsely accused of spamming by someone that was signed
up by a usually well-meaning friend who simply wants to share a
horoscope they think has particular meaning for their friend or
relative. I don’t condone this, and I wish that subscribers
wouldn’t do it, but it is rather harmless, isn’t it? Notice the
advertisers (who also get spam notices from SpamCops.) > >
AstrologySender.com presents Horoscopes Daily > Brandi Jasmine,
Editor > >
>
> AstrologySender.com powered by Astrology.ca > > You are
receiving this issue because you subscribed > Unsubscribe by
using the address at the bottom of page. > >
———————————————————— > >
==> Sponsor Ad: SpamFilter! > ==> Today’s Horoscopes > ==>
UniqueSender.com Themed Portals in YOUR Interests! > ==>
Classified ads: Healing Oat Bath Mix >
———————————————————— > >
Fed UP with SPAM? Finally, there’s a Solution! > > SpamFilter
Cleans your inbox Before you check email! > If you are spending
too much time deleting unwanted > commercial email and stopping
pornographic images > from filling your inbox. Check out
SpamFilter! > > 7 Day Free Trial if you sign up this week! > >
http://spamfilter.website101.com > >
———————————————————– > To
have your ad appear above send for our ad rate card >
mailto:ads@AstrologySender.com >
———————————————————– > >
25-05-2002 > > Aries > > Don’t try to push your values or
priorities on a friend today. Even > if you are in the right,
the effort could backfire, leaving a lot > of negative feelings
instead of the positive effect you had hoped > to generate. You
won’t be at your most patient or tolerant today. >

Most Horoscopes have been removed, come sign up if you want
yours! I’m willing to bet the complainer was an Aries. The
end is included here to show the UNSUBSCRIBE notice and the
additional advertiser that was an unwitting victim of this Spam
Vigilante.

> Pisces > > You are likely to make spontaneous trips or
excursions today, but > they are not likely to turn out like you
hoped. It’s okay if this > takes place relatively close to home,
but a spur of the moment > cross-country trip is definitely not
a good idea. > > >
———————————————————– > >
Healing Oat Bath Mix for Sunburn Damaged Skin > > Soothes and
heals sunburn damaged sensitive skin > Use as a poultice to
relieve when sunscreen failed > > http://www.pennyisland.com > >
AOL Members Click Here >
———————————————————— >

The plainly visible directions for unsubscribing included in
every email.

> Visit the following address to subscribe and unsubscribe. > >
http://guidelists.com:81/guest/RemoteListSummary/Astrology_CA >
> click link above, enter your email address > click
“unsubscribe” click the “submit” button > > —

The following info comes directly from the SpamCop.net web site
and the links will take you to their FAQ pages. SpamCop FAQ
http://spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/1.html

SpamCop ISP and mailing list admin FAQs :
http://spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/75.html

I have been falsely and/or maliciously accused of spamming, what
can I do?

http://spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/167.html

The following is text directly from the SpamCop from that last
link. Save it for the inevitable day that YOU are persued by
Vigilantes.

“False spam reports are not tolerated. Users who file false
reports will be banned from the SpamCop service and/or fined.
However, in order to take action, we must see proof of
wrongdoing. If you would like to take action against a user who
has erroneously accused you of spamming, please forward to
deputies@admin.spamcop.net:

The entire SpamCop report, including full headers and the
entire spam.

Proof that the user in question did subscribe for your list.

(Proof can be a log excerpt or a copy of the returned, e-mailed
confirmation. There must be proof of a two-way, secure
confirmation. This must include IPs and datestamps for two
stages - both a signup and a confirmation.)

If you would like to pursue action with the user’s internet
provider SpamCop reports include all the information you need to
do so. IP address and datestamp of the complainant are included
in the report. You can even feed a SpamCop report to SpamCop to
determine the originating point.”

October 08th 2008 Posted to Networks

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