From True’s 17 October 2010 issue.
On the whole, This is True readers are a pretty technically savvy bunch: many of you use “tracking” email addresses — addresses which readers have used only to subscribe to my newsletter(s) — and I’ve had a number of reports this week from readers who have received spam to those unique addresses. That’s obviously a big concern to me.
OK, I’m a crank: I really don’t like Facebook. But one of the things I hate about it is how all up-in-arms people get about nothing.
A few weeks ago I grumbled in a newsletter about the lousy ads I was getting on one of my sites, which were bringing a whopping 4.8 cents per click. I said “I may try Bing ads instead if Google doesn’t get me better [ads] soon.”
…or, The Birth and Death of a Spinoff Web Site
Sure: a picture is “worth 1,000 words.” Sometimes it’s worth 1,000 minutes on your cell phone plan, as in this case. The story, from True’s 27 December 2009 issue:
I know This is True is about people doing dumb things, but it still amazes me when people do dumb things to me. (But for once, this is not about a dumb reader!)
My email address has been around online for many, many years, and it gets a lot of spam — many hundreds per day. For most users, spam far outstrips legitimate mail. It was 1996 that I realized that spam would become a huge problem, which is why I wrote my Spam Primer to educate my readers about it. And sadly I was right: it’s estimated that more than 90 percent of all email transmitted is spam. And how many of them get to my inbox? Lately, I’m averaging less than one a day.
When I started True back in 1994, there weren’t too many people online — especially compared to now. Once I quit my Day Job to pursue online publishing full time, I was constantly looking for peers — people to talk with that would understand what it was I was doing.
I’ve been using computers for many, many years now, and finally had something happen to me that has never happened before: a disk crash. It happened yesterday.
Very often readers ask me for advice about starting an online business — when I started in 1994, there wasn’t anyone to ask, and I’ve learned a lot in the nearly 15 years since. Obviously one can learn some things by watching what I do, but there are others who are in the business of teaching such things, and that’s faster (and more generic).
Episode #42: “Virtual Life”, from True’s 22 March 2009 issue.
It’s so sad to see how people just can’t take an obvious joke. (Say, like on a site called Jumbo Joke!) There was a political item today, and it resulted in a lot of whining — and protest unsubscribes.
Chris in Washington asks:
Randy: you’ve mentioned Twitter a couple of times, and I see you have a link on TRUE’s home page to your Twitter page. I’ve looked at Twitter a couple of times, and I just don’t get it. Do people really care that their friends (or favorite celebrities) are “Waking up to face the day.” or “Eating a bologna sandwich for lunch.”? Why?
I got a note from a Premium subscriber saying he had clicked on an ad on my Jumbo Joke site. He noted, “I used a throwaway email address to access the site and now get between 100 and 300 spam messages per day (my ‘real’ email gets 5-10 spam messages per day). I’m so glad it’s not my primary email address, but how many of your readers don’t know any better?”
When I talk about how independent sites like True need your direct and ongoing support, I’ll often emphasize that all independent sites need such support; if you like “them” (whoever “they” might be), you need to support them so they can continue. And indeed one of the oldest, most venerable content sites has stopped publishing and is in very real danger of failing completely.
Episode #14: “How Embarrbutting!”, from True’s 7 August 2008 issue.
Last week I announced a major disaster, and asked for your help in getting the word out about True to help reverse the problem. A good number of you listened, and helped. Thank you. While the threat isn’t gone, this newsletter will be able to continue.
Note: This is long-since solved, but leaving the page up for context, since many sites linked to it. -rc
I’ve given up trying to work with Yahoo, which represents the largest domain subscribed to True. There are more than 20,000 addresses within the Yahoo.com domain on True’s distribution (plus a couple thousand more on variants such as yahoo.co.uk, yahoo.ca, etc.)
Something fairly funny happened with a recent video, which was about a homophobe politician running for re-election while under the cloud of felony indictments over his first election.
What is it with men who want to fly under balloons? I don’t mean hot air balloons, I mean toy balloons. This one’s a priest — he just wanted to get closer to God, I guess. From True’s 27 April 2008 edition:
Two stories this week have photos: the sexy mayor of Arlington, Ore., and the idiot robber using a bottle of cologne as a weapon.
First, the moron.