Live from MAAWG!

OK, so I’m not at MAAWG any longer and I can’t blog about what happens there even if I was. However, there is an article at PC World about the conference.
I’ve been going to MAAWG conferences for many years now. Not every one, being a small company means that I can’t just take off for a week, particularly overseas where phones don’t work (something solved by an iPhone 3G). But I’ve been to quite a few of them.
I have to say the last few conferences have really impressed me. The quality of discussions and the training sessions have been full of useful information. Even for someone who has been around as long as I have, there is always something new to learn. I strongly encourage people who want to stop abuse in the messaging sphere to consider joining. Everyone is hurt by messaging abuse: end-users, senders and receivers. We all have a role to play in stopping abuse, and MAAWG is one way to learn about what you can do.
On a more personal note it was great to meet new folks and to see familiar faces. And a big thanks to all of you who took the time to tell me you liked this blog. Thank you for reading!
EDIT: Another press article about the conference.

The 270 delegates from 19 countries who met at Amsterdam’s venerable Hotel Krasnapolsky last week were far from the usual, suit-wearing conference crowd. An eclectic mix of tattoos, ponytails, high-waisted trousers and backpacks indicated that these were true operations people who work in the bowels of the network.

True operations people, and they keep the mail running.

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MAAWG

Chris Nixon has a post talking about the background of MAAWG and why he is here in Ft. Lauderdale.

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Links to check out

Things are going well, if busy, here at the conference. I am attending lots of sessions and continuing to edit my talk for tomorrow. I thought I would list some random links that have come up here recently.
Lashback is advertising a joint webinar with Habeas, Publishers Clearinghouse and Lashback on how to protect brands and increase revenues with reputation management.
Terry Zink explains the new Microsoft advertising campaign. There are actually quite a few Microsoft people here at the conference, including the brain behind SNDS. We ran into each other yesterday evening, his room is right next to mine.
Ken Magill has an ongoing series of articles investigating Email Appenders, and all their various incarnations. This is an example of the confused jumble of connections that some companies use in order to hide.
Speaking of companies with bad reputations, the NY Times reports on Intercage’s loss of hosting. Atrivo/Intercage are notorious amongst the folks who fight malware and bots and have been called the American version of the Russian Business Network.

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Catching up

I am still catching up from being away at MAAWG last week, and have not had much time to blog or even follow other blogs enough to link to what people are saying.
I would encourage those of you who are not MAAWG members to consider joining the organization. MAAWG has been working hard on putting together sender training courses. I gave part of one of them. I also attended all the other training sessions and learned quite a bit from those sessions as well.
MAAWG, as its name suggests, is a working group. There are opportunities for everyone to teach, participate and learn. The next meeting, is in San Francisco next February.

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