Web site uptime monitoring service Pingdom has put together a nice list of internet stats for 2009. Most of them are from studies and surveys already floating around the web, but Pingdom adds in some of its own metrics.
I had a lot of fun applying my own fuzzy math to a number of the startling statistics.
If you’re someone who relies greatly on award winners, then you should know about Sunbelt Software’s VIPRE Email Security. It was the latest recipient of the VBSpam Award, given out by Virus Bulletin. They’re an independent testing group which is involved in the betterment of email spam protection. They awarded Sunbelt Software in the January 2010 issue of their online publication.
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No, it’s not the latest fad diet: Marketing Pilgrim. Marketing news, folks. How many of us have stared at the thousands of spam messages and wondered, “Why on earth do they keep sending this crap out? It can’t possibly be effective . . . can it?”
Unfortunately, incredibly, in some industries, the answer is yes. As MediaPost reports, a small study showed that even recipients without weight issues opened and purchased from spam weight loss emails, as published in the Southern Medical Journal this month.
It started innocently enough. A client, whom I’ll refer to as BigCo, asked a question about the success that one of their divisions was having with a different search consulting company. I wasn’t familiar with the company, so I asked a few questions and then started to investigate them. What I found disturbed me.
It was breathtakingly clear that the secret to success was blatant black hat spamming techniques. This wasn’t some kind of borderline “it depends on how you interpret it” situation. No, BigCo was being assisted by companies paying for links and even posting references of other companies it had “helped” right on its website. At this point, I knew what I had to do.
My client, who worked in the TinyProduct Division of BigCo, listened impassively as I recited all the problem areas that I had found and made sure that the impact on BigCo’s search marketing was understood. I expected my client to spring into action, but instead, the response was closer to, “That’s a shame. It really seems like that stuff is working for them.”
As far as Internet business goes it would be hard to imagine someone having a worse year than Sanford Wallace. Who you ask? Mr. Wallace is the Spam King who had a judgment made against him last year in a suit filed by MySpace for $234 million. Now add Facebook to the list of people who basically own Mr. Sanford, Facebook. Just so you know, while I say he is having a bad year it doesn’t mean I am not thrilled to see this kind of Internet low-life get what he deserves. Mashable tells a little more about Mr. Wallace and how deep he is into this now.
Today Facebook reported they’ve been awarded $711 million in damages by a San Jose, CA court against Sanford Wallace, the notorious “Spam King” that MySpace also successfully went after last year to the tune of a $234 million judgment.