I had a realization a few days ago that next week is October. Where did the year go? Blogging is likely to be light in October, I’m at multiple conferences (OTA next week, MAAWG at the end of the month).
Please stop by and introduce yourselves if you’re at either conference. I always love to meet readers.
It’s been 5 years since my first post here at Word to the Wise. 5 years and over 1150 posts.
In that time I’ve written about a lot of topics relevant to email delivery.
I’ve talked about permission and why it’s a relevant part of email delivery. I’ve discussed spamfilters and why understanding how they work improves the decisions senders make about email delivery. I’ve talked about blocklists and filters and how they are a part of the email landscape senders have to navigate. I’ve talked about reputation and engagement relevance.
I’ve also talked about the things that show up in my own mailbox. Like some of the spam I receive. I’ve even used that to point out what spammers do.
Steve‘s written quite a bit here, too. Often his articles are much more technical, like how he tracks down spammers.
We’ve written about legal cases, including e360 v. Spamhaus, which was the subject of my inaugural post. I also followed the case of Holomaxx v. Hotmail and Yahoo. And, of course, how different countries create and enforce anti-spam laws.
I have no idea how many words I’ve written in the last 5 years, but Steve swears to me it’s enough to write a book about email delivery. However many words I’ve typed into the ether, it really is the folks who participate here in conversation, who email me directly with questions and comments, who stop me at conferences and tell me how much they like reading the blog that keep me writing. I’ve enjoyed blogging way more than I thought I would, but I wouldn’t enjoy it half as much if readers didn’t enjoy it, too.
Thanks so much for reading here over the past 5 years. It’s been a lot of fun.
I’m finding out that email address harvesting off websites is alive and well on the Internet. We have a rotating address on the contact page, which does get harvested but usually the spam is attempting to sell me blog related services. I didn’t expect to get a very different collection of emails to the address I posted here. I’m quite surprised that address is getting a completely different type of spam from the contact address.
The one thing that harvesters appear to have in common is sending CAN SPAM violating email. Both the contact address and the questions address get lots of mail that is in violation of US (and California) law. One of these days I might get bored enough to file a suit against one of them and blog about it.
This morning was the final flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavor. In fact, it was the last flight of any shuttle ever, anywhere. We were lucky enough to get passes to NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field to watch the flyover.