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._