As i was writing my earlier post, and used the phrase 'wild thoughts' there, meaning shots in the dark in the context of the post, I had a quick thought - on how the definitions of "hot" or "cool" change with generation.  

Today's teens always rebuke me when i use the phrase "something's cool" or ask them "what's cool" in focus groups.  My generation used the word "cool" - today's kids say anything that's "cool is sooooooo uncool" ! 

Efforts are made to stay away from being labelled 'cool'. This always makes me smile. They say the casual look is in for instance - just throw together any odd clothes, let them hang, wear floppy slippers - still i know its a very conscious 'look' they wish to achieve ! 

Still, this is not just about lingo - it runs deep. Manifest in attitudes towards fashion, music, careers, and reflected in lifestyle. 

10:19:11 PM    comment []  trackback []

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.

Makes me wonder whether Email clients can learn something from IM and some from blog commenting systems. These are perhaps wild thoughts - wild meaning "shots in the dark" perhaps naive, as opposed to "hot" or "cool" thoughts depending upon the generation you belong to. 

Kevin Werbach in an article called Death by Spam talks about whitelist applications : 

"Whitelist applications available today include MailFrontier, ChoiceMail from DigiPortal, Vanquish, and the freeware Tagged Message Delivery Agent. There's also a whitelist option built into Hotmail, known as the "exclusive" setting. Though it's hidden in the preferences menu (click "Options," then "Junk Mail Filter"), more than 10 percent of Hotmail users reportedly invoke it. Before long, expect all e-mail applications to offer this function.  Whitelists typically allow e-mail from everyone in a user's existing address book. Other, unknown senders receive an automated reply, asking them to take further action, such as explain who they are. Or senders may be asked to identify a partially obscured image of a word. A person can make out the word, but automated spammer software can't.  Whitelists are rare today, but they will become more common.  The relentless growth of spam guarantees it. A filter that catches 80 percent of spam sounds great, and it is great if you get 10 spams a day. But when you get 500 a day, that same filter leaves you sorting through 100 opportunities to Make Money Fast!!!!! "

Stuart has this note on his blog at the comments section :

"Please be patient with the comments system. I'm running a very aggressive spam filter that now believes almost everything is spam. As a result your comment won't appear immediately. It requires a confirmation and a rebuild which usually happens a couple of times a day. Your comments are very important to me. Unfortunately Spam is wrecking the immediacy of comment systems."

and is still plagued by comment spam !

I don't know whether there are whitelist applications in Microsoft Outlook - i do know that despite blocking scores of spam messages daily, i still get them in scores.  Perhaps blog commenting systems are a step ahead - still i know its not really a solution yet.

This is why i feel email can learn from IM.   Do you get spammed on IM ? Are you in control of who you allow to buzz you ? The answer is yes - it is only after an invitation is sent asking for your permission to ping you that the unknown sender is either accepted or blocked. Take Skype for instance - it makes people ask you for authorization and gives you options to :

• allow the person to see you online and contact you
• donot allow the person to see you when online
• block this person from contacting you in the future
• add this person to my contacts

Why can't we have this with email - an unknown someone wants to send me email - send me a request first - along with a 10 word description of why you want to contact me - only after i accept it can the sender send me a more detailed message. I can deal with these separately from messages from people i have acknowledged as contacts already.

With email i would need three options :

• allow the person to contact me
• block sender
• add contact

One click and its done.

Ok - there can be problems with this too - it loses some spontaneity and it means i have another level of filtering to do - but if this keeps away spam - i will take the effort to do so.

The other problem might be when your email operates in your business space.  Someone who wants to send in a resume or a genuine query or place an order may be put off.  But if this becomes the standard, then everyone does it.

And for social communications via email i am more than willing to take this effort.

Until then, Email uncool, IM rulz !

9:09:00 PM    comment []  trackback []