The other thing about the email was the absence of a way for me to unsubscribe from their list. I had to reply to the sender directly and ask that they take me off this list and any others they have me on. Not surprisingly, I didn’t receive a reply. It’s illegal to send out mass emails without some way for people to unsubscribe. (See The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.)

I also pointed out the irony of them spamming me with an offer to buy a list so I could be a spammer too! No reply. Not even a “Oh yes, you’re right. Thanks for pointing it out. We’ll now review our business plan and get into something legitimate.” Some people are just plain ungrateful.

I share this story in case anyone reading has received a similar email. It’s tempting in these days of the GFC, bone crushing austerity and the Big Society to think “Yes, a great idea. I’ll buy a list of email addresses for people that have never heard of me or my business. That’s bound to increase sales.” If you did think that and bought the list, you’re in for a bit of a disappointment.

The Consequences

What will happen if you buy such a list and then send an email campaign to it?

1. You’re breaking the law. Although you can legally buy a list, you can’t send a campaign to it without first getting permission from the recipient. Bit of a catch 22 there… (See The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.)
2. Most people will mark your email as spam (what do you do when you get such an email?)
3. Once people start marking your email as spam, ISPs and spam filtering companies will black-list your domain. This means you will start getting agitated when people aren’t responding to normal emails you send them. They can’t. They won’t have received them. Your email will have been marked as spam and quarantined as junk-mail
4. You’ll get complaints and maybe even some threats. We had a customer that bought and sent an e-marketing flyer to such a list. As a result they were inundated with cranky emails and phone calls. People can get quite emotive about receiving spam
5. It won’t do your brand any favours. People relate scams to unsolicited email. Ever had a n email from Nigerian Prince that needs YOU to help him sort out his cash problems in return for a handsome payment?

Apart from it being poor business practice and illegal to send out mass unsolicited emails, it can end up being quite costly. The damage it can do your brand far outweighs any perceived benefit you may have thought you would get.

The way to build a list is to make it easy for your customers and prospects to subscribe. Here are a few ways you can build a legitimate list:

1. Make sure there is a sign-up form to your mailing list on your website
2. Whenever you make a sale (online or offline) provide an opt-in for people to join your mailing list. If they are buying something on line a simple check box will achieve this.
3. Use social media such as Twitter and Facebook to direct people to your sign-up form
4. Ask. If you talk to your customers and prospects ask them if they would like to subscribe to your mailing list
5. Give something away. Provide an e-book or something you can give away at little to no cost to you.

Legitimate E-marketing

If you would like help in setting up and sending out legitimate e-marketing campaigns, we can help. We’ve been doing it for a few years now and can provide you with everything you need to send out legal, good looking email campaigns that you can track.

For more information, go to our Email Marketing page

External Links

• The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 - Regulation 22
• The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 - Main Page

What ‘the cloud’ really is are lots of boring data centre’s all very much anchored to terra firma. It’s a good thing they are boring, because they need to be reliable (and we all know boring equals reliable. Ask any Volvo owner). After all, the promise of cloud computing is that it will eventually take over from our desk and laptop computers. All we’ll need to use it is a very basic device that can hook into ‘the cloud’ over a reliable and ever present Internet connection. If the stuff that your connection is connecting you to is a bit too exciting, it may be unreliable, and that just won’t do.

Amazon, Zoho and Microsoft, as well as many other large players are competing in the public cloud space. What I want to do here is to focus on just two of the newest big public cloud services competing to lock you in. Google’s Chrome OS and Apple iCloud.

Chrome OS

Google are a little bit exciting, but mostly reliable. They are also just about to release Chrome OS (not to be confused with Chrome the browser). Chrome OS is Google’s attempt to move us closer to the utopian dream of ‘the cloud’ doing all our computing for us. Of course, what Google want is for it to be their cloud that becomes the processor we all rely on. (Not unlike the way Microsoft Windows became the operating system we could all, erm, rely on.) Google want to become not only the operating system, but the computer. The access device will eventually be anything that can run their Linux based operating system. With Chrome OS you can only use the applications that Google provide. Admittedly, there are lots of third party applications that will be made available, but all controlled by Google.

As most of us know, Google made a vow not to be evil. I don’t think Microsoft ever made such a vow, so I’m sure we’re going to have a much better time of it with Google than we have with Microsoft. After all, Google have given us tons of great free stuff. For example, we’ve got Google Maps. These are fantastic, and we’d be lost without them. To enhance our mapping experience, we also have Google Streetview. This is where Google have photographed just about everything and everyone in the world and put the pictures on the Internet. Lucky we all agreed to that, otherwise there may have been some privacy issues.

Privacy (The erosion of)

That’s the real trade off with this free stuff. As great as it all is, we need to give up a bit of our privacy for it. Most of us don’t really care about that too much. All you have to do is look at the stuff people post on Facebook to realise that they are pretty damn comfortable with publicly announcing every intimate detail of their lives. Even the stuff that’s as exciting as the data centres it’s all being stored in.

As great as it all is, there is a line that needs to be drawn. I actually like Google (mostly) and think they provide some great services. The only real problem with Google’s cloud computing services (such as Google Docs) is privacy. Google make the vast bulk of their massive income from advertising. What they ask from us in return, for using these great gifts, is to just give up a bit of privacy. If you use Google Mail, you will notice that Google display adds (if you access it it via the Gmail interface in your browser). Google target these ads to you based on the content of your emails. Yup, that’s right, they’re reading your email. Well, their software is. This is the same for Google Docs. Whatever content you put on Google’s servers can be crawled by Google’s spiders so they can tailor ads, just for you. There is nothing inherently wrong with this as long as you are aware of it. If you know about it and are happy to use the service anyway, then happy days. Many people aren’t though. In fact, some people really don’t like it at all.

Apple iCloud

The main difference between iCloud and Chrome OS is that Apple already own the hardware and operating systems. In fact Apple’s latest OS, Lion, is designed specifically to integrate with iCloud and really hook Apple’s customer base.

Apple even have their own office suite; iWork. Interestingly, the name iCloud actually belonged to a different cloud computing company. But because Apple owns everything that starts with an ‘i’ they now have it. The other company now uses the snappy name ‘CloudMe’. (I bet that’s what they said when they got that first letter from Apple’s legal department.)

Where iCloud gets interesting is the way it really tries to lock Apple users into using the service. It does this by automatically synching data across all your Apple devices. This includes your iTunes library, photostream, ebooks and documents. They even exclude the disk space your music, photos, apps and books take up, and only count your own documents towards the 5Gig your free account comes with.

Apple already have MobileMe, which has been around for some time (and is no longer accepting new subscribers) and they recently launched a beta service called iwork.com. (iwork.com is a space where you can upload and share your iWork documents. The main problem with iwork.com is that it only works in Safari.)

Conclusion

What’s happening among the big players is a battle to lock-in their customer bases. People will need to choose which platform they want to use. Once you make a decision as to which camp you want to be in, it will be quite hard to move. This is because these services are dependent upon your OS and hardware.

At the moment it’s easy to try a few different cloud service because they mostly work with your web browser. What Google and Apple are doing is going much deeper than that by making the OS the defining element. It could be like going back to the VHS vs Beta days!

You’ve been bewitched by the moving pictures and strange sounds coming from a website. You descend into in a heightened state of excitement and want one just like it.

Maybe you didn’t notice that it took three minutes for the page to load. You didn’t notice the stylishly presented ‘23% loaded…’ indicator that seemed to crawl by as if time was standing still. You didn’t really pay attention to the missing navigation and the lack of any content whatsoever. All you saw was the bright moving pictures and cheesy ‘pinging’ sounds that sprang into life when the page finally loaded. Yes, you think you want a Flash site.

If you really want your website to help your business, then you really don’t want this. (If you’re a rock star or celebrity, then maybe. You probably already have a massive following so don’t need Google and can no doubt afford the accessibility lawsuits.)

What to do

Firstly, Flash sucks. It’s a proprietary system owned by Adobe. It needs a browser plugin to make it work. People with disabilities such as visual impairment can’t use it. (That’s discrimination.) It won’t work on iPhones, iPod Touchs or iPads. It chews through loads of bandwidth. Oh, and search engines can’t catalogue Flash. Flash is basically a movie, normally embedded in a webpage as a .swf (Shockwave) file. Search engines can’t see what’s inside a .swf file. Not much help to a business that needs good search engine results.

What’s the alternative?

Luckily, a lot of the bells and whistles that people look to Flash for, can be recreated with JavaScript, HTML and CSS. The great thing about using these methods is that they all use open standards. This means that your browser doesn’t need a proprietary plugin to make them work, they can be made accessible to disabled users, they work on iPhones, iPod Touchs and iPads, Adobe can’t wake up one day and decide to charge everyone to access these technologies.

If you really must use Flash, then it should be implemented as a progressive enhancement. What this means is that if the Flash plugin is not available, then the website will still work. In other words, Flash should never be used for essential functional parts of a website like navigation or form submissions. The same rules apply to any function that depends on a plugin or script that can be turned off in the browser (such as JavaScript).

Apple vs Flash

It’s worth noting that Apple made a deliberate decision not to support Flash on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. As mobile device’s are the fastest growing method being used to access the Internet, we’re not talking about insignificant numbers here. Any business that wants their website to work as a mass marketing tool, needs to make sure that it can be accessed by as many devices as possible. Throwing barriers in the way of users will just lose them business.

Steve Jobs made Apple’s position on Flash very clear. Some schools of thought even say that Flash is a dying technology as there is no room for propitiatory software on an open-standard based Internet.

Since that article, Apple have made a concession to appease Adobe and Flash developers. They now allow Apps to use Flash. This doesn’t effect websites, as there is still no Flash plugin for the mobile web browser on Apple devices.

So, next time you get a burning desire for one of those great Flash intros that were so popular in the 90’s, go and have a cold shower!