Alan R. Bechtold has released the latest issue of EWealth Report Volume 3, Issue 8. The featured article is titled “It’s Been Snowing for Three Years.” [EWealth Report]


Alan Bechtold has released the latest issue of ‘EWealth Report Volume 3, Issue 8’.

It’s Been Snowing for Three Years

by Alan R. Bechtold

…and relief doesn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. Or…maybe there is!

I’m referring to the “snow job” many so-called E-mail Service providers are slinging around these days. It’s their lame attempts to explain their completely wrong-headed handling of email for their clients.

This is a serious issue. When you sign up for E-mail service, don’t you expect them to take good care of your email and deliver email you want to receive? I would assume so. I know I do!

You also expect your email service provider to help you eliminate spam by either filtering on their own, or by providing you with easy-to-use tools to handle spam yourself. I prefer the latter, personally – but I also understand why a lot of peopel would prefer the former.

It shouldn’t matter. Email coming in should first be checked against your whitelist or “accepted senders” list. then, if the sender isn’t there, the email service provider should decide what to do – pitch it if it looks like spam or deliver it. It’s up to them.

But, they’re obviously not doing it that way. This example proves it:

I’m working feverishly on a full-length movie that’s scheduled to be released around May 1, 2008, just ahead of the release of my new book, Will Work For Fun, coming May 26 from John Wiley and Sons. I’m working with a co-producer who is finalizing the script right now so we can finish all the shooting next week and get the actual production of the video rolling and meet our launch deadline.

It’s an extremely tight schedule.

My co-producer sent me the script to look over just the other day. He has a Comcast email account and he used it to send me the script, to an email address I only use for personal one-on-one emails. The address is never used for newsletter mailings or any other commercial or bulk emailings of any kind.

I replied to say the script was nearly perfect … then I sent my co-producer four more emails throughout the day, answering important questoins. The last one asked if he had seen my other emails.

I waited and waited. No response.

Finally, I opened up my gmail email account that I use when all else fails and wrote to him again. He responded almost immediately that he’d seen none of the emails I’d sent.

This sudden lack of communications set us back almost a full day. I didn’t call because I assumed at first he was just busy. We hadn’t had any problems with communicating using these email accounts for months. There was no reason to assume there would be a problem now.

Never assume anything!

The next day, all of the emails I’d sent to my co-producer the day before came bouncing back from Comcast, all marked as “blocked for spam.”

Keep in mind that all the emails I’d sent to my co-producer were sent as responses to my co-producer’s emails.

I went to Comcast’s spam Website and opened the form to file a protest. I wasn’t particularly kind. I pointed out the disservice they’re doing to their clients when they apply spam filtering rules – whatever they may be – to emails coming into their system that are clearly responses to emails their clients have sent out.

Wasn’t this a pretty clear indication that it’s not spam but, rather, something their client wants to receive? I can’t personally imagine any clearer indication you could give. Their software should be able to determine whether an email is a response and rule that out as spam, don’t you think?

Their response was to unblock my IP address and inform me that my email was blocked originally because it met their criteria as possible spam. They went on to inform me that sometimes spam is sent on an IP used by others who don’t, and I should contact my email administrator and make sure he understands the rules and follows them.

Again – it doesn’t matter what the spam rules any given email service provider is using to pitch unwanted email, if it’s from someone a client has whitelisted or otherwise indicated is an accepted sender, it should go through. Period.

And, clearly, if it’s a response to an email from a client, it most definitely is not spam. For crying out loud, how could it be spam? It doesn’t meet any criteria or definition of spam anyone anywhere subscribes to.

I bring this to your attention to once again point out that email today is in dire straits. It’s not dead … but it’s most certainly on life support and it needs our help. That’s why I’m launching The Great Email Experiment on March 24, 2008.

The Experiment runs through April 7, 2008. During the experiment, participants will receive six emails, after following whitelisting instructions to make sure they receive them. The six emails will be personal in nature, not commercial in any way.

If all emails come into a participant’s “in” box – no problem. They got through. If an email isn’t received or if, after whitelisting, it appears only in a participant’s “bulk” or “junk” or “spam” folder … then they just visit a simple online form where they report the date, the name of the company that provides their email service and whether the email failed to arrive or arrived in a “bulk,” “junk” or “spam” folder or box, rather than the “in” box.

The results will be tallied and taken to major media outlets in the hopes that we can finally draw national attention to the dire situation facing our email system today. If, in the name of spam, reliability of email is destroyed – then there is nothing left to save.

And I want to see email survive! Don’t you?

My gift to you this week: it’s not too late to help us save email with the Save Our Email Great Email Experiment. Please sign up and participate before I close the doors and start up the Experiment itself at noon Eastern U.S. time March 24. I’ll reward you with valuable free gifts throughout the experiment if you do … and we’ll all benefit from better email deliverability.

But – the media won’t pay much attention if there are only a few hundred or a few thousand involved in our Experiment. They’ll pay attention for sure if there are tens of thousands. Sadly, time is running out and we still need many more participants. Please sign up and help!

Click HERE To Get All the Details And Get Involved In My Great Email Experiment TODAY!

This is so important, I’m going to provide you with another gift today. Here’s a brief email you can cut-and-paste right into your email client, then send out to all your friends and family who you care about. Let’s get them involved, too.

——–

Dear (name),

I just saw the FUNNIEST photo I’ve seen in a while. You should check it out. It’s great for a chuckle.

http://www.sysop.com/alan_recommends/24

Then – read the rest of the page. This is an issue that’s important to all of us. I don’t know about you, but I want to see email continue to work reliably AND get rid of spam. Apparently, that’s not happening and a lot of important emails are being lost on a daily basis. If we all band together, we can make email work the RIGHT WAY.

But you gotta go check it out … and check out that funny/sad chicken, too!

((YOUR NAME))

———

Send the above message to everyone you normally send jokes and gags to. You know. You all have a list like that. Get everyone you know on board by Monday the 24th and this thing could go worldwide!

Also check out www.EmailHorrorStories.com and join the conversation!

Thanks.

See you next week!

Alan R. Bechtold
President/CEO
BBS Press Service, Inc.

‘EWealth Report’

 

*IMNewswatch would like to thank Alan Bechtold for granting permission to reprint the latest ‘EWealth Report’..

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