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The Year In Review
by Bob Osgoodby
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The Year In Review
The Christmas gifts that were wrapped with such care are
all gone, and a New Year is here. No, this will not be an
anthology of events, but rather some impressions.
The "Can-Spam Act" which was passed with such fanfare
effective January 1, 2004, has proved to be a bust. This
time last year, unsolicited email accounted for
approximately 50 percent of all email traffic on the Web.
This year it has risen to approximately 75 percent. Many
people are taking extra-ordinary means to protect
themselves from this onslaught.
In our business we were receiving 6,000-8,000 emails each
and every day which had to be sorted through to pick out a
handful of meaningful ones. We were actually spending more
time going through our email than conducting our business.
This of course is not acceptable and we were forced to
limit our email to that received through submission forms
on our web site and a few selected addresses known only to
our clients.
This is one of the most serious problems on the web today.
The "Can Spam Act" is a failure. If this problem is not
resolved, many people who looked to the web as an extension
of their business, will go to more traditional methods.
Internet Service Providers continued their "holy grail" in
their fight against spam and only succeeded in blocking
legitimate email. Every time they came out with a new spam
fighting technique, the spamsters broke their code and
continued on their merry way
Our elected representatives are permitted to use insider
trading information legally while the average person faces
jail time for the same thing. The representative from
Alaska whose only source of income was his salary as a
representative, became a multi- millionaire in a few short
years.
And then there was Martha Stewart.
Spamcop continued to muddle along without doing much good,
but still hurting legitimate web sites.
Despite all this, online business is booming. This was the
best year ever for online commerce, and it can only get
better. Many people avoided the crowded malls and opted to
"let their fingers do the walking" and made the majority of
their Holiday purchases online.
The fear of terror attacks continued making headlines on a
regular basis. Some people cancelled vacations and avoided
large gatherings, or took other protective measures. The
majority of people however went about their daily business
with an almost blasé attitude.
And then there was the earthquake and resulting tsunami.
We saw MLMs come and go, but what else is new. This happens
all the time and last year was no exception. With "visions
of sugar plums" the uninitiated plunked down their hard
earned bucks, and signed up in droves, only to find that if
they wanted to succeed, they had to work. When they didn't
earn their million the first month, while sitting in front
of the TV eating bonbons or guzzling beer, they lost heart.
The pundits continued to suggest that anyone can publish an
online newsletter or ezine. What they didn't say is that
you have to be at least semi-literate to do so. There have
been many startups, and just as many who found that
publishing is work - there's that dirty word again. Some
even gave away free ads in their publication only to find
that they were concentrating on the wrong thing. There is a
world of difference between "readers" and "subscribers".
Readers want content, not just a bunch of ads with an
occasional out of date article pulled off the web.
The scamsters did flourish. With new "fresh from the farm"
millions arriving on the web, P.T. Barnum would have had a
field day. "A sucker is born every minute" couldn't be
truer. Funny thing is that most of the scams were simply
reworked versions of ones that have been around for years.
What was new, is that the web provided access to these
uninformed, whose greed outweighed their common sense.
There are currently over a million pornographic sites on
the Web, and growing daily. Despite the hue and cry of the
legislators, and attempts by the ISPs to block them, their
filth continues to flood our inbox. They are publicly
denounced but remain profitable. Is there a double standard
here?
My impression is that 2005 will be a great year. The
opportunities we face will only increase as the new
technology continues to emerge. Sure, some will "bite the
bullet" but, we live in a great time, and I look forward to
it with great anticipation.
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Did you know that subscribers to Bob Osgoodby's Free Ezine
the "Tip of the Day" get a Free Ad for their Business at
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Wednesday. And Friday. Instructions on how to place an ad
are in the Newsletter. Subscribe at:
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