New unsubscribe methods in the news

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The folks at The Daily Show, who brought us the wonderful term “High Volume Email Deployer” so very long ago, are once again leading the way in new unsubscribe technology. Unsubscribe by television.

Meanwhile, the folks at The Daily Mash have a different unsubscribe suggestion.

MEMBERSHIP of networking website LinkedIn can only be terminated by destroying its corporate headquarters, it has emerged.

Of course, these suggestions are only funny because so many of us get mail from LinkedIn that we didn’t expect. Invites from people we don’t know. Updates for things we didn’t subscribe to. Marketing from companies scraping addresses off the website. Just last week someone unconnected to me used the LinkedIn system to try and sell me his 72 Million email address list.
Companies can get away with bad email practices if they’re bringing value to the recipient. But when those practices are so bad that they become the butt of jokes, there has to be an awful lot of value to overcome the negative reputation. It’s possible that LinkedIn is approaching the tipping point where their mail is more annoying than their service is useful.

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5 comments

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  • It feels like everyone is loading onto LinkedIn the last few days. I gave up on them some time ago, but I just ran across this blog:
    http://www.annielytics.com/linkedins-most-glaring-deficiencies-and-how-to-get-around-them/
    Notable quote: “The thing I hate most is that LinkedIn comes across as very desperate. It’s like the kid whose birthday party you go to out of pity, but then s/he won’t leave you alone afterwards.”
    I’m not sure that what the blogger is talking about as spam actually *is* spam as I define it (unsolicited bulk email/SMS/etc), but I think whoever at LinkedIn makes design/marketing decisions must have a tin ear for what users want.

  • I agree with too many emails from linkedIn but there is a spam tab if you think soneone sending you unwanted emails. I am sure they have a build in feature like ISP’s that they can block a user if they get too many complaints. Plus keep in mind, you agreed on their privacy policy when you sign up for that service :-).

  • Many months ago I changed the email address I use for LinkedIn – or rather I tried to. I spent a couple of hours going through every nook and cranny of the options on the site but at least half the groups I’m subscribed to still send to the original address while the other half go to the new one. My old address appears absolutely nowhere on the site now. I’ll bet there’s some nasty looking code they’ve got hidden under that sleek exterior…

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