Can the IM model save e-mail from spam?
Although some say that IM spam (spim) is becoming a
problem, I haven't seen it and Dina Mehta makes good points at why the
IM model, for example Skype, works. The default setting is to
require permission to contact you and you can deny permission at
anytime. Sure, this would make e-mail a little more
cumbersome…but right now if you have someone's IM info you add them
to your contact list, then wait for an approval. Could work with
e-mail. Someone adds you to their address book, but before they
can send you have to approve it. Extra steps, yeah. Kill
e-mail marketing, could, but you have to have double opt-in now
anyway. It would certainly make webfeeds the newsletter and
information disperser of choice.
I think Dina's on to something here.
Spam killing Email – why can't they learn from IM ?
This
thought occured to me as i was under attack from a whole lot of spam in
email. Its killing email – there are times i dread clicking the
send/receive button in Microsoft Outlook because i fear i will be
spending more time blocking and deleting spam than getting or
responding to mail that is useful. There's been a lot of writing on the
how-to's and on antispam tools – i haven't found anything really
satisfactory yet.