spam
Jennifer Nespola Lantz’s recent post about Gmail potentially offering political senders a fast pass method to the inbox has gotten me thinking about the spam fight we went through back in the olden times. Before CAN-SPAM, domain reputation and deliverability best practices. There was a time back in those bad old days when the marketing industry mega-group Direct Marketing Association tried to convince the world that opt-out was the best path for email marketing. The arguments as to why this absolutely horseshit plan was supposed to be okay varied; free speech, growth of the economy, support for small businesses, whatever. Everybody should be allowed the chance to hit your inbox at least once, they said; and then you could just tell the sender; each sender, individually, to stop emailing you. They loved touting two things. First was an “opt-out registry” service called e-MPS. Smart netizens knew that allowing this to proceed would
Lifehacker’s Claire Lower wants you to know: “Spam was made to be air fried.”She adds: “Thanks to its large amount of inherent grease, it’s one of the few foods that you can actually “fry” with nothing more than the hot, whipping winds of the air fryer.”Damn. That’s amazing. Let’s all try this ASAP! Read more here.
Slice it up thin and fry it up nice; it goes great with eggs and hash browns for breakfast. But what to do with the rest of it? Don’t forget to refrigerate the now half-filled open tin; apparently folks don’t always remember to do this! To remind yourself how to avoid this and other mistakes while preparing the delicious foodstuff that is SPAM, click on through to read “Mistakes Everyone Makes While Cooking Spam” by Samantha Maxwell for Mashed.Don’t miss the bit about the meat explosion.
From the Atlantic and WNYC: Uh…finally? The podcast you’ve been waiting for! This is “a story of America told through the history of SPAM.” In this three-part series as part of the Experiment podcast, they’ll try to answer “some of the meatiest questions the United States faces about how we work for the food we eat play out in the story of special processed American meat.” I’m not entirely sure what to make of this one. Let’s compare notes after we listen, shall we? Because there’s no way you’re not going to listen to a podcast about America’s favorite tinned meat. More info: The Atlantic | WNYC
I’m on the road this week, dealing with family stuff, and I’ve ordered BBQ twice to the hotel for dinner. I must be hungry, and I’ve got BBQ on the brain. Anyway, while the source here is not not quite the Wall Street Journal, this article from Travis Sams for WKDQ Radio managed to catch my eye. The topic: How to make (fake) burnt ends out of SPAM. I think my low sodium diet might preclude me from actually trying this one out, which is a bummer, because I like both SPAM and burnt ends, and I’m really curious about this one. Somebody among the Spam Resource readership will have to test this one out and let me know how it tastes.
What? Last time, I couldn’t tell if this was a joke. This time, it sounds like it was the real deal! From National Public Radio: “Laura Spears, 55, found out she won the lottery earlier this month while digging for a missing email in her junk folder. Spears says she purchased the winning ticket seeing an ad on Facebook for the Mega Millions jackpot. Just a few days later, she stumbled on the victorious message.” Read more here.Alas, while my spam folder seems to be chock full of “Your email has won the Irish lottery!” spam, none of that seems to be legit. I’ll keep checking, though.
Ask Al: We’re a restaurant that just opened. We signed up for an email service provider (ESP) platform and we’re looking to buy email lists to get started. Where should we start?Hey! Thanks for reaching out, but I wanted to warn you that email list purchasing isn’t the way to go here. It’s problematic for multiple reasons (poor deliverability, angry recipients, poorly targeted traffic) and just about every email service provider prohibits use of purchased lists. Run away from vendors telling you that their lists contain people who did really opt-in to hear from you — they’re typically lying. Here is just one example of why you should avoid this.An organically grown email list for a restaurant or entertainment venue is a valuable asset and people don’t usually give away that asset to others, not even for a modest fee. Meaning if somebody is offering to sell you a list,…
I can’t tell if this article from Joe Queenan for the Wall Street Journal (paywall; sorry) is a joke or not.Relevant excerpt: “Just one example [of legitimate email going to the spam folder]: In recent years, a great deal of criticism has been leveled at the Swedish Academy for its baffling awards of the Nobel Prize for Literature to writers no one has ever heard of. It turns out this is because the emails offering the Nobel keep going to the authors’ spam folders. Because the winners never reply, the prize goes to the next person on the list. But sometimes that person doesn’t get the email either. It might take 19 writers before one does.”The guy’s a satirist, so maybe that’s a clue. But, legit email getting caught up in spam is a real problem. One that I get asked about quite a bit. If anybody has any contacts…
I hope everyone has a happy and safe Thanksgiving Holiday. Maybe you’ve got a long weekend ahead or perhaps you’ll need to be up and ready to provide deliverability support for those Black Friday email campaigns. Either way, I hope things go smoothly and that you have a good one.I hear that supply chain issues could interfere with turkey deliveries, so don’t forget that our good friend SPAM® Oven Roasted Turkey is always available as a backup.Disclaimer: Neither I nor Spam Resource are connected to Hormel or the foodstuff known as SPAM in any way. I’m just a fan! Please don’t sue!Take care and I’ll see you back on the blog and in email soon!
I’m saddened to find that pumpkin spice spam didn’t seem to be available this year, but if you’re looking for a spammy meal in the spirit of the season, this recipe from Caroline Choe of the Today show might just do the trick. Cornbread Dressing with Spam and Sun-Dried Tomatoes sounds pretty good to me, and they’re even being careful to use low sodium spam. Which is probably still high in sodium, such as it is. Check it out here. Yum!