Day: April 5, 2004

As we feared, the CAN-SPAM Act, has been a useless ploy to stem the tide of spam.  From Friday evening to Monday morning this week, I recieved 1,200 spam messages. Of the few I opened, not one conformed to the Act.

As I posted back in January, the only organizations affected by the Act are legitimate businesses, who were never really part of the problem in the first place.

It seems to me that the only way to address this issue is to attack the spammers (regardless of their location) at source. One of the other alternatives is charging for e-mail  – though that obviously has it’s drawbacks – and would be nigh impossible to administer.

Apologies to anyone whose e-mail has been deleted by error.

 

So here’s a riddle for you.

What do “Stalking”, “Public Relations” and “TV Anchors” have in common?

Confused?  So am I?

Here’s the link.

If you’re interested in reading more on the Medicare VNR episode, there’s a lot of interesting comments covering all the angles over at Press Think.

 

Colin McKay points to two recent pieces on Search Engine Optimization.  As I’ve pointed out before, I believe that SEO is an increasingly important discipline for PR folks. A little background research and some hands on experimenting will deliver surprising results.

• How to Prosper on Google – WebProNews
• Casing the Competition – Catalog Age

Footnote:

Some other SEO resources:

• Google on SEO
• SEO Chat
• Search Enging Watch
• SEO Today
• SEO PR

Time Warner marketer Josh Greene has some excellent tips for advertising agencies pitching for his business – they’re just as applicable to the PR business.

“Don’t give us “leave behinds” with PowerPoint printouts at the start of the meeting.  They’re called leave behinds for a reason.  We’re like children.  If you give them to us, we’ll flip through them, depriving us of the surprise at discovering the brilliance of your thoughts.”

Footnote:

Thanks to Greg Brooks for the link.